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“There will always be someone who won’t like you”…get comfortable with the idea of being disliked!

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Life is pretty short to try to first remove all the negativity around you, for preparing a neutral ground for positives to emerge! Don’t be an idle idealist! It is a nice idea to hold for a while but a dangerous one to hold on to!

‘Positive’ and ‘negative’ always coexist! In fact, they can be identified only relative to each other. So, to be happy, you have to accept the polarity and train yourself to focus more on the former. Be with people who like to be with you and don’t chase the elusive idea of converting someone disinterested into ‘yours’! Even if you are able to, the maintenance cost will be far too high!

Focus not on being liked but on what makes you likeable! And then don’t sell around, just represent what you have and leave it on others to decide if that’s what they value. And if they hurl negatives on you then sympathize, as one can only give what one has.

Well! And if you still can’t avoid negative people, then minimize their intervention. Keep them at bare minimum – if not in your routine, then at least in your thoughts.

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Yes! Don’t wish thorns away…just see through them!

People close to me often call me “old relatives’ favorite listener”!

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I am not sure if it is true, but one thing for sure is – it is absolutely fascinating stuff!

Well! Everyone needs to anchor his life somewhere – past, present or future! And no marks to guess where their anchors rest! I can see through their misty eyes a past which was no better than today but seems so because they can now romanticize about it rather than actually living through it. I can tell exactly when they are exaggerating, making it up or telling story from a different angle.

And still…I simply love listening to them, because…

… I love seeing how their pupils dilate when they go into flashback and how their whole body shakes when they laugh…how the twinkle in their eyes suddenly rolls down their cheek and how they turn pale-pink when they blush.

…I love to see how they suddenly become defensive, fearing they have expressed a tad too much or…how, after a vulnerable moment, they suddenly behave dominant to balance the subtle shift in the power equation!

Well! Listening to them teaches me the futility of ‘what I am achieving today’ from tomorrow’s standpoint…how every success has an expiry date and every failure has a certain recall-value in a different name – ‘struggle’!

In their wrinkled faces I see a life-portrait… in their hunched voices, I hear footsteps of the times gone by. Well! I listen to them because I know that’s what makes them happy. And perhaps also…

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…to see how I would sound if I will make it to that age 🙂

“You can never call something as ‘your own‘ if it can be taken away from you…”

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Five hundred years before Christ, a young prince set out on a journey…a journey into his inner self. Making his way through the contrasts of dark sensual indulgence and the eye-blinding brightness of the intellect…

…he reached the truth that all sufferings are a result of a fundamental mistake – ‘trying to find happiness outside yourself’! Little did he know that twenty five hundred years after him, in a world equipped with all the advancements he could never imagine, it would hold truer than ever before.

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…and still, each one of us would continue to commit the…‘fundamental mistake’! 🙂

It’s possible to get yourself out of society but difficult to get society out of yourself!

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The other day, I was with someone I have a lot of affection for! So, before leaving, instinctively, we came close for a parting hug. And precisely at that moment, an acquaintance came in. Though it was a public place yet I can’t forget the look in his eyes. I guess it was because she wasn’t related to me through any well-defined social webbing!

I felt awkward the whole day. Not because of his reaction to us, but actually because, to be honest, when he saw us, I also froze for a moment! …Frozen with a baseless sense of being caught off-guard.

The whole day, I felt like a quack who doesn’t use the medicines that he prescribes …because for all these years, I believed that my conscience is my compass and though I thought that I have minimized the intervention of societal programming in my responses and reactions, I guess…it still stays in my reflexes!

Well! Now I realize that through all those early years of education, the society was actually installing itself in me! So that, it can remote-control me forever…

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Congrats my social lords! …“Installation Successful”!

PS: I am down but not out! I will strive until the whole disk is formatted 🙂

The best treatment for hearts is not allopathy or homeopathy. It is…Empathy!

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It is almost extinct! When you share your pain with others then while they are hearing you, they are actually busy comparing your pain with their own. If it is less than theirs then they feel jealous, and if it is more than theirs, they feel relieved. But in either case, their auto-tape is on!

Well! At best, your pain works as a barometer for the state of their life!

So, next time when you share your pain with someone, do it purely for the relief of getting an outlet and don’t ruin that relief by expecting others to feel it. Compassion is rare, don’t expect it from everyone! However, if you have a few who also lend their hearts when they lend their ears, then…preserve them.

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And yes! Next time, when someone shares his pain…do try to keep your auto-tape off. It is the best gift you can give to someone! 🙂

“Being modern is to invent new devices to suffer!”…I said in a workshop.

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True! Look at us…we are all civilized people! Highly educated, well-dressed, properly groomed, socially savvy! We don’t have to fight malnutrition, poverty, illiteracy, poor sanitation or gang-wars.

Still…we suffer!

Our villains are inner! The expectations and the ambitions…the grudges and the regrets…the comparisons and the complexes…the insecurities and the distrust…the angst and the restlessness.

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Well! For us, happiness is no more a function of what we have…it is about how we manage our emotions on ‘what we don’t have’.

In the matters of heart…not everything makes complete sense!       

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There are moments in life when all the witnesses and evidences are saying otherwise, yet a part of you says…‘go for it’! Shouldn’t be surprising…as, with all those years of conditioning, ‘belief’ is no more an unconditional gift! It has to be earned after all the due-diligence has been done.

Well! But even after the intelligence has announced its verdict, a tiny twirl in the gut keeps that plea alive. Probably, deep down inside, there is something that the heart knows, which the mind is too high- headed to register. So, if it doesn’t cost you the bank, do take that leap of faith…

…because while others see it as illogical…

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…you know it is…‘Dillogical’! 🙂