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Whether something is a ‘cost’ or an ‘investment’ can only be decided by ‘what it is incurred for’!

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In the name of being ‘mature’, we learn to bear more and demand less...

We think of less than what we desire…we settle for lesser than what we deserve…we tolerate what we don’t like… we follow what we don’t agree with…we accept everything we can adjust with…we expect only what we can’t live without.   

Ask yourself ‘what’ you are doing it for!

Well! Compromises are justifiable only if there is something larger in the long-term view.

But if ‘not’, then you better know that in an effort to assemble everything outside… you yourself are disintegrating inside.

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And nothing is worth at the cost of who is paying it.

“Pain has an extraordinary ability to shape your personality in a way nothing else can!”…  

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In happiness, you open up…bursting at the seams…keen to share…anxious to reach out; your whole focus is outwards…towards ‘belonging’.

In pain…you are left alone…converging onto yourself… …ripe to introspect…compelled to review; your whole focus is inwards…towards ‘becoming’.              

Well! Pain may not be good for you…but is for your good! And remember, it is not forever…it will soon start descending (unless you are hell-bent on holding on to it). It’s an opportunity created for something more significant to happen. It is preparing soil for a seed of self-renewal!

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And in farming, when a seed is sown…everything around it presses and pressurizes it harshly just to… break its heart!

In other words…‘Sprout’!

There is an unadulterated bliss about a pure conversation… bereft of the heaviness that the participants bring to it!

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It is sheer sharing…without any need to be acquainted…just by virtue of a ‘connect’ at fundamentally human level! When the person doesn’t have a stake in the proceedings or opinions on the matter…when he neither knows the backdrop nor the characters or for that matter the script that unraveled! When he is merely a clean slate – ‘logged in’ simply to be there!

It was one such conversation. And I was the one honored with the trust of being the listener.

As he continued to talk about his life’s unique circumstances, I could feel exactly the emotions that left his heart before words were allotted to them by his mind. And then he said “You know Sandeep! I knew that everyone thought it was a mistake but you know what…I just kept asking myself “How can it be wrong when it feels so right?”…

I nodded in agreement…because that’s precisely what I was about to say.

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You know that you are listening totally when…‘you’ cease to exist separately!

Nothing can help you get rid of negativity…if you don’t want to!

…and the same holds true for the counterpart!

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While we were visiting the history centre at the state, we came into a section which described the worst calamities in the history of the state. As I was browsing through the pictures, my eyes caught sight of a hugely sad one. I turned to one of the team-hosts and asked “Do we get tornadoes here?”…He nodded vertically.

Simply for the sake of keeping the ball rolling, I casually asked… “Have you seen one?”…He smiled and said “You see this picture…I was a child at that time and our family had gone to the neighboring town to visit my grandparents. And when we came back…our house was reduced to pieces of wood on the ground…everything ‘gone’! Years of work ‘vanished’”

I exclaimed a “what???” and said “And you all rebuilt from scratch?”He nodded, and said…

“You know, that’s why I……………respect storms!”

‘Respect’???

He could have said ‘dislike’, ‘fear’ or ‘hate’…but he instead says…‘respect’!

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Well! That’s the Measure of a Man.

I am a firm believer in a concept in Buddhism that “Ordained people appear in your life at the designated times to teach you the required lessons…”

During my month-long visit to Uncle Sam…quite a few of them came! I would share them with you…

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On 4^th day, we were ready for our 2^nd of total 8 hosts…and here drives in an 87-year old petite woman – the host for two of us. I opened the back of the car and found dry shreds stuffed in it. To my quizzical look, she said with a smile and a twinkle in her eyes “Oh I clean the lawn every month”! While putting shreds in another car, I had started smiling…

Well! As she fearlessly reversed the car at amazing speed, I and my colleague pointed at each other for who would sit on the front seat. And when on the first turn the car missed a waste-bin by only a few centimeters, I screamed louder. Guess who was sitting on the front seat??

She didn’t know location of the visit so she decided to follow a fellow car…and there started the roller-coaster!  In next 25 minutes, as she kept shooing away every car from coming in between, talking to us in her soft voice (maintaining eye-contact with us), honking horn for sides, mocking the speed-limits, forgetting the color of the car, chanting car’s number and elevating the right tires twice through a footpath…I and my colleague had tears in our eyes in an attempt to curb both our laughter and fear!

By the end of the visit, we had all become comfortable with each other. And as we headed home, we were all laughing loud together on what had happened until – after driving for about 30 minutes – she announced that…she was lost!

Now nervous, we tried contacting the concerned people but to no good! Then after trying various turns in rush-hour traffic, I and my colleague decided to go to a car showroom and got the Google map printed for the way. After that, we were navigators in the expedition except that she would keep shrugging us off, saying “I know where my house is”! But yes…we did find the way eventually – all three of us laughing hysterically all the way!

While closing-in towards her house…I asked her about her family. And she said “Well! I live alone…as my husband died way back and my son died a few years ago!”

We were stunned! Amid the silence in the car, I murmured “Life is strange…isn’t it?”

She looked at me…smiled…and said “Yes! I know…that’s why I choose to be silly!”

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For the next 3 days, as she became our loving granny…forgetting her way and sharing laughter on all accounts, I never forgot the profound lesson behind her innocent chuckle…

“Avoid being too wise to stay happy!”

Beyond one’s shores lies one’s liberation!

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It’s only while traveling that you discover your real self.

You get introduced to your worst fears and your greatest assets…you come to know the tensile strength of your will and resistivity of your emotions…you explore the hidden treasures of humor inside you and tap into the imaginativeness you never knew you had.

It teaches you patience…You learn that most problems are not to be solved…they dissolve if you let them! You learn that your instincts are your best friends and your knowledge can be your greatest enemy! Yes! You grow both ‘by choice’ and also by the lack of it.

But most importantly…it helps you realize that you are just a lesser-mortal, a tiny bubble on the vast sea of existence…thus it makes you think what you really stand for, what your inner calling is and where you actually belong.

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So…get your backpacks ready and move out…out in the sun…where life is waiting to teach you at the school called ‘world’!

Well! I promise it won’t be comfortable…but then…‘who said evolution is convenient’