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When your own people are your culprits then the biggest problem is that not only it hurts more; but if you try to hurt back, it only hurts you further…

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If you look around, you would find a striking commonness in people’s sufferings – most of them are suffering because of the people close or dear to them.

Moreover, they are left with another trauma – of living or working alongside the very people who are responsible for their misery. They can’t even forget or forgive because both require a certain distancing, which is not available in such a case. And so the painful experience is either continued, or is prone to resurgence at the slightest of excuses.

So, what’s the solution? Well! ‘Break the ties out rightly’ or ‘forgive them completely’ or ‘consume attention elsewhere totally’ or… ‘Raise your own self-esteem decidedly’.

Well! You got to choose one of them and see it to the last turn; because moderate combinations don’t work…they only delay the resurgence.

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And yes! It is easier said than done, as it is like fighting against one of your own parts…

The other day, at a social event, I smiled at someone and he ignored me and gave one of those ‘looks’. Well! I still went ahead with a stretched hand, which surprised him, and he ended up shaking it lukewarmly.

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Someone close to me had witnessed this, and wondered why I was looking happier after the incident. I said “This is precisely the moment that will stand out for me in the evening…the most fulfilling one”.

Let me explain why…

Well! That was one of those rare times when I actually acted by my own will; otherwise all I do all the time is react. Someone smiles at me and I respond, someone hurts me and I get bruised, someone compliments me and I gush, someone criticizes me and I cringe, someone ignores me and I feel ignored.

But for once, I broke the chain of reactions and exercised my freedom to choose my response – one different from the standard ‘expected’ one. Yes! It was the only time I felt alive…and not like…

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…just a device operated by a remote control.

PS: I wish I could remain this wise more often 🙂

For a lasting relationship, you don’t need to be outstanding…you just have to be understanding!

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They looked so much into each other. But when someone asked me if they would stay together for long, I simply shrugged and said “unlikely”!

The reason was simple. For a tad too long, they had been busy looking into each other’s eyes for ‘love’, and were not working towards earning something more important in each other’s eyes – ‘respect’.

Yes! Lasting relationships are based on mutual respect. A respect for the kind of person you are. While looking good or talking well is important as a trigger or a catalyst, being good and doing well in life is what helps one earn respect.

And out of that respect is born ‘trust’, trust that the person is capable of being an anchor – that person would stand solidly by you, weathering storms of changing circumstances and passing the tests of evolving equations.

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That’s what gives someone belief that he or she can trust you with his or her life…for life.

“Why the hell am I suffering? I don’t think I have ever done anything bad to others.”… He cried out.

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Well! The greatest rule of life is “Life only processes the inputs it gets”.

Yes! Except some accidental occurrences, 99% of our sufferings are direct or indirect results of the seeds we had sown at some point of time in our life. It is just that the time-gap between the sowing of seeds and appearance of crop is so long that we are not able to identify the connection. But truth remains that the crops we reap are a result of the seeds we had sown.

In fact, it would be logical to say that ‘the only test of ‘which seeds were sown’ is the ‘crop we get’”. Rest all is merely an intellectual ritual. And seeds have nothing to do with what you were thinking at the time of sowing. You might be thinking that you are sowing seeds of bliss, but if the seeds are that of pain then the crop will reflect that.

Results aren’t born out of the thoughts we think…they come out of the acts we act!

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Thus…no matter how much you disown…your life only comes out of the seeds you have sown…

…the ones of your own!

“Your every pain is pregnant with a transformation… Don’t behave like the patient, act like the gynecologist”!

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The other day, someone asked me “Why is it that whenever I go through difficult times, no one is there for me…they all turn their backs?”

I said “…so that it can officially be termed ‘difficult times’”.

Well! Let me explain…

If, in your difficult times, all people will stand by you, then how would it be ‘difficult times’? Their presence will never let you feel the severity of those times. And every ‘difficult times’ is destiny’s ploy to make you learn something that it deems shall be valuable for you.

It might be an opportunity to evolve, develop patience, introspect, retrospect, reorient, or simply for realization of our eventual ‘utter loneliness’…!

Well! But all people do is waste energy on feeling bad and holding grudges against those who turned their backs. It is akin to ‘criticizing a sign-board’s design rather than seeing what it is indicating towards’.

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When I explained this all to him, pat came the question “But then, why do they all come back when my good-times start?”

I said… “So that you can share and apply what you have learnt” 🙂

A big cause of our sadness is our insistence to squeeze happiness from the same sources…!

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The other day, I was not feeling good, for no good reasons! I know you can understand, because I guess, we all feel that way once in a while…

So, I went to a tea-stall to have what they call a ‘cut chai’. And just as that man at the tea-stall handed over to me that ‘disposal’ cup (I know it is ‘disposable’  🙂 ), an old melody started playing on the radio. And instantly, both of us looked at each other and we simultaneously uttered ‘aha’!

I can’t tell you what a joy followed next. For next five minutes, both of us were bonding over that Rafi solo…tapping the wood at precisely the same beat…moving our heads in communion…and saying ‘oho’ and ‘aha’ at the same word…

Well! As I walked back from there, I couldn’t help but wonder how concentric are the notions of ‘our own’ and ‘others’…I guess, we are stupid, making boundaries of kith and kin, overburdening few chosen people with unrealistic expectations of keeping us happy, and then suffering in the hands of our own stale repetitive complaints against them.

Whereas, there are numerous people out there, outside that so-called ‘our circle’, waiting to share those few priceless moments of happiness that we cannot get in spite of creating all the ‘occasions’ and the ‘apparatus’.

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…if only we care to see beyond the cocoon we have started proudly living in.

PS: If you are thinking that next time I would again go to the same stall, then, now you know what I meant by creating a ‘cocoon’ 🙂