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If you don’t feel like working, remind yourself that there are ‘bills to be paid’.  

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I am a great proponent of working with ‘inspiration’, however no one can depend entirely on inspiration for work, sometimes a healthy proportion of desperation is also good. The reason is simple! Inspiration and desperation are at best just triggers, what actually propels achievement is ‘perspiration’.

So whether it is inspiration or desperation, their importance lies in getting the perspiration triggered. And once that happens, the pursuit gains its own momentum, and takes its own course. So if, in spite of inspiration, you feel lost, disillusioned, bored, sluggish or uninspired, just remember that…

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…‘Bills to be paid’ don’t wait for you to feel a spark to go to work.

The best gift you can give to your ‘mother’ is to let her be a ‘woman’ as well.  

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She did not realize when she began being more of a mother and less of a woman. Now, it’s up to you to not let her become a sentimentally-blackmailed, overburdened, emotionally-dependent, eternally-worried sacrificial being, who works on all seven days from dawn to dusk and still feels the guilt of not doing enough. It’s up to you now to save her from the tag of ‘Being next to God’.

Let her stay human. Let her feel light. Let her laze around, have fun, enjoy her space, get romantic, be ambitious, pamper herself, spoil her indulgences or simply ‘be herself’. Go and tell her “I love you a lot Mom, but I also love dad, granny and grandpa. You are not ‘The ONE’. And I will also not hog your spotlight anymore. I’ll be OK. Focus on yourself, and elsewhere. Breathe easy mom”.

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After all it shouldn’t be Happy “Mother’s Day” but “Happy Mother’s” Day. 🙂

अपनी ज़िंदगी पर अपनी पकड़ मज़बूत करने की कोशिश शुरु कीजिये.

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हम अक्सर एक अजीब से दायरे में फंस जाते हैं. अपना हर दिन पिछले दिन की तरह ही जीते हैं – उसी तरह शुरु करते हैं, उसी तरह बिताते हैं, उसी तरह ख़त्म करते हैं; वही ग़लतियां दोहराते हैं, अपनी उसी कमज़ोरी से लड़ रहे होते हैं और अपनी उन्हीं ख़ामियों का शिकार होते हैं. ऐसा लगता है जैसे एक पहले से लिखी तहरीर है और हम उसे निभाने को मजबूर.

पर सच तो ये है कि बीमारी, हादसों और किस्मत की कुछ कारगुज़ारियों के अलावा हमारी ज़िंदगी में जो चल रहा होता है उसके पीछे खुद हम होते हैं. हमारे हर किस्से में हमारा हिस्सा होता है. और फिर एक दिन अचानक जब हम इस सच की तरफ जागते हैं तो पाते हैं कि हमारी ज़िंदगी में जो कुछ हो रहा है वो सब दरअसल ‘हो’ नहीं रहा बल्कि हम ‘कर’ रहे हैं.  

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अपनी ज़िंदगी की कमान संभालिये, वरना निशाने ग़लत ही लगते रहेंगे.

When you grow old, very old, make sure you ‘have’ a story to tell.   

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A story that has emotions of a drama, softness of a romcom, hopes of a mystery, twists of a thriller, giggles of a spoof, possibilities of a fantasy, search of a sci-fi, spikes of an action, experiments of an adventure, message of a social, and flow of a saga.

A story about someone who saw and felt, who walked and fell, who learnt and grew, who hugged and held, who sobbed and sang, who loved and lost, who risked and frisked, who tried and failed, who earned and gave, and then who forgot and forgave.

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When you grow old, very old, make sure you ‘are’ a story to tell.

Everyone deals with their pain in their own unique way.   

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Some people cry their heart out. Some people weep a silent tear. Some people lock themselves in their room. Some people scream at the top of their voice. Some people sip something that can help them forget or bear. Some people talk their way out of it. And then, some people…work their butt out.

Yes, work can be such a healer. It can hug you tight and let you in without asking any uncomfortable questions. It can soothe you. It can help you dispel the clouds of distress. It can help you deal with what you are not able to decipher or name. But I am afraid to say that…work cannot ‘solve’ or ‘resolve’.

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Work can heal you, but then it is ‘you’ who has to heal what pains.

“You will know when you will become!” is possibly every parent’s patent line.  

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And it isn’t wrong for sure. When you become a parent, you know how tough it must have been for your dad or mom. When you become a leader, you know at times how lonely it can be at the top. When you are hit by sadness, you know why ‘depression’ is such a dreaded word.

That’s why ‘empathy’ is so important. Well, you may not be able to soothe everyone’s pain or relieve them of it. And in fact, sometimes that pain could be unavoidable or necessary. Yet it is required to at least be respectful towards a person’s unique ‘circumstance and stance’.

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Respect what someone goes through, even when you don’t know…‘what it is’.

Most of us figure out how to live our life after most of it is gone.   

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Isn’t it strange, and unfair as well! Well, even if it is, believe me, that’s the way it turns out for most of us. After all the costly mistakes and avoidable losses, one day, the ‘way to be’ suddenly dawns upon you. And you wonder why, all this while, you couldn’t see it.

But you know what! It’s not for nothing that they call life a journey…an exploration. Yes, agreed, that with some more patience and maturity, you could have learnt it a less harder way, but isn’t it good that at least now you know how to do it a bit better…live a little wiser.

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So why not start afresh! From here, now, and make the best of…the rest of it.

It’s amazing how, apparently, one gender is more comfortable with ‘living with contradictory feelings’ than the other.  

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They can’t handle ambiguity. For them, it is suffocating. Their worldview is binary – black or white. Either you are on their side or are against them, either you are like them or you are different, either they can live with you or they can’t, either you are good or you are bad, either they trust you or they won’t. Either they are ‘in’ or they are ‘out’.

And then there are other ones. They are far more accepting towards ambiguity – the ‘gray’ shade in life. They may be jealous of you and can still meet you with all the affection, they will crib but won’t even think about leaving, they may be in the same room and can behave as if you don’t even exist. You are always ‘in’ and still strangely ‘out’.

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It’s amazing how each of us still knows someone who is of one gender and is emotionally more like the other. 🙂

Approach the new world, not with skepticism or faith, but with curiosity.  

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Rebuilding something is as much an emotional & social task as a mental & physical one. It requires all you’ve got in terms of social reservoir and emotional resilience. That’s precisely why when the world has pressed the ‘reset’ button, it’s important for you to change your emotional status to ‘sorted’.

And a sorted person is the one who doesn’t overreact or underrate… exaggerate or undermine! He looks at ‘what comes’ as ‘it is’, without coloring it with his apprehensions or expectations. He considers something on its merit and then controls what he can, while learning to live with what he can’t.

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Yes, let’s sort ourselves inside before we roll up our sleeves outside.

We just say “And then that man simply jumped off the bridge”.  

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But do we ever ask what drove him to the bridge? – probably a lifelong struggle to live up to a benchmark, or a constant regret of never being understood, or the pain of series of compromises he was forced to make, or an abusive relationship he was a part of, or a never-ending identity-crisis, or a consistent fight with one’s inherited predisposition, or a never-satiated hunger for companionship.

The fact is that, we as a society, have never given due importance to the emotional aspects of one’s life. We have either exploited those aspects in cinema & advertising, or leveraged them in speeches & books, or put them in topics of discussions to fetch more eyeballs and audience. Yet we have hardly ever made a serious, scientific and structured attempt to prepare & teach or understand & learn.

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And people continue to jump off the bridge, symbolically as well as…actually.