Its Awesome to be a WOMAN

Today, after a very long time I thought of writing again. I know I make promises to myself that at least every month I will be writing and devoting at least one day of the month towards fulfilling my this hobby. But again as the promise made to myself get older in days, it loses it effect and tends to shade away.

Again today, when a reader praised me on my earlier blog some few days ago, I realized that how dead my blog page is without any new post and also without any new reader. So here I am, again to share an unconventional thought of mine on the subject related to “very me” i.e. THE WOMEN. Although this read will be a small read, but I promise that it will be worth reading every word.

The question “what is the essence of a woman” got popular when by answering this question, Miss India SUSHMITA SEN won Miss Universe title and made all Indians very proud. Her answer, in not so exact words, was “I think being a woman by the very fact itself is the gift of God. The origin of a child is a mother as is a woman. She is the one who shows man what caring, sharing and love is all about.” And although I cannot beat this answer, but just in the continuity of this very fact, I would like to add few of my own points as well which are as follows.

I have to be a woman. It is the inner beauty and the compassion and her aura, the calm that she always have inside her, makes me get strong on the fact that I have to be a woman only. The woman is the only one and can only be the one who reflects all of it.

She is unstoppable, not because she did not have failures or doubts but because she continued to move on despite all of them being present. A woman is a gift to a man and she is a gift to the world as well. The very essence of a woman is when she makes her gender proud on whatever tasks she achieve.

I am constantly improving on being a woman and I am sure all my readers will also work on the very essence of their own self and improve themselves in the way best possible for them.

In the end, I would just like to request you all, keep working towards betterment of your own self and be a better version of yourself every day. Keep reading and stay tuned for the next post J.

FACEBOOK? Lets play the "YES" "NO" game

Life without Facebook

All the original reasons why I always believed that one should delete his/her FB account can be summed up to the following reasons:

1. Facebook became a time-suck rather than a value-adding tool.

2.    As far as connecting with real life friends are concerned, I’m able to do that perfectly fine via other tools, such as via text messages, phone or email. Facebook served little purpose in this regard. If anything, it added a lot of “noise” in my relationships to others. There were too many alerts and notifications, and half of which didn’t mean much in relationship building.

3.    Facebook was doing a lot of funky things, like adding a whole list of features which I have zero use for (Games, Events, Groups, etc.). None of them had relevance to me.

4.   I had no use for the FB inbox and felt frustrated at the inability to turn it off. I felt like I had an extra inbox to check, and extra messages to process every day, all of which could be avoided if they just gave you the option to turn it off. FB wanted people to have a reason to repeatedly visit it every day.

5.    Due to #3 and #4, my FB account became a pain to maintain.

Possible Improvements to my life deciding on not having a Facebook Account

All of the things that I reported in “Life without Facebook” are still valid.

I realized that FB gave a lot of us an illusion of connectivity, because we’d be seeing each other’s wall updates and status feeds. But when the dust settles and everything clears, you get a clear sense on how close you are with friends, which relationships have been lacking, which friends you’ve been drifting away from, which relationships require more work, and so on.

But still Why Facebook is Important

One thing that will be missed after not having a FB page is the 1-1 connection with all of your friends on the Facebook account. The regular wall conversations with you guys, how I can immediately pose a question asking for help on my feed and get your insightful replies within half a day, etc. These were and are the great parts about having a FB account; it was just that the spam issues were so serious that it outweighed the benefits.

But I love connecting with people. Most importantly. Where that’s missing, there’s little incentive for me to write any further. When I lost that personal connection with all my friends with no FB account, I always felt like I was writing to no one, like a blank void in the universe. While I knew that thousands of people would be reading my next entry, I had no idea who was going to be reading, for what, how they were like in real life, etc. The whole blog began to feel empty. Meaningless, in fact, like I was writing for the sake for writing.

All of you are people whom I’ll love to know better, put a face to, and connect as individuals vs. a blob of statistics on my Google Analytics / Stat counter accounts. The former is what motivates and inspires me on my path; the latter means nothing to me at all, other than for measurement and performance tracking purposes. I don’t blog to get higher numbers on my blog counters, though it may occur as a result of blogging. I blog to connect with all of you.

I want to be accessible to all of you reading at the blog. I want to know who you are and why you’re here. I want to know how you’re doing, whether you’re well, what you’re thinking, and how you’re feeling. I want to use scalable methods to remove as many walls between us as possible.

This is why I’ve been thinking of a solution to address this. And I think I may have found the solution by way of a Facebook page. 

Daily Habits for SUCCESS

It’s been since few days, I have been trying to figure out that if there exist any mantra for success? I tried, tried and tried and found out that there is no direct formula to a successful life but yes, few things in your life, if you adopt, no one can stop you from being successful.

I have tried to make a list of all those things which I am practicing since some time and these are the things helping me to fight the frustration and to cope up with the failures.

Although thank God, every day is not the same and every bad time passes away as the good one. But still everyone finds a solution around them to live through the bad time and failures. So here are few tips, not from someone wiser nor very intelligent, but at least from a lady who learns from every step and every small little thing in life. And here is the list:

• ü  Try one new thing each day
• ü  Don’t do bad days
• ü  Stay informed about what’s trending
• ü  Accept invitations to as many meetings and events as possible
• ü  Experiment constantly
• ü  Fight brain blocks with building blocks
• ü  Never be afraid to email someone who is “too big”
• ü  Make punctuality a priority
• ü  Never ask somebody to do something you wouldn’t do yourself
• ü  Watch YouTube to learn from other great leaders
• ü  Exercise and meditate
• ü  Listen to self-improvement books/talks in the car
• ü  Start each day with an infectious positive attitude
• ü  Make time for everyone on your team, no matter where they are
• ü  Make the most of drive time
• ü  Make every meeting the second meeting
• ü  Find your inner YOGI
• ü  Surround yourself with people whose skills complement your own
• ü  Walk before bed
• ü  Make time in your life for fiction
• ü  Focus on nutrition and appreciation
• ü  Leave your work out of the bedroom
• ü  Use pictorial language to help the people “see the future”
• ü  Exercise everyday
• ü  Don’t panic, don’t run
• ü  Use 70/30 approach to professional life
• ü  Make lists
• ü  Encourage questions
• ü  Talk to at least one new person everyday
• ü  Start your day with a clean inbox.

Finally thank God, writing is something I don’t get my earning from. Else for many or rather most of the days I would have been starving for my bread and butter. Just because, I am not a regular writer nor I write for a particular segment’s readers. It’s a hobby for me and I am enjoying typing every word which is coming out of my mind and taking a shape of word on this document.

Thank God for granting me this freedom to express myself and the capacity to express these feelings in this form.

Where Religion Divides, Cricket Unites

Let me begin with a disclaimer that my knowledge of religion is limited. My knowledge of cricket is even more limited as till sometime back I thought that Virat Kohli is just a name linked to Anushka Sharma, fine leg always reminded me of Deepika Padukone, Bipasha Basu and Sushmita Sen and Mandira Bedi was only popular for her role in Shanti and DDLJ for me.

       

But off lately I have realized that Cricket is something more than just a game in India. The World’s noisiest democracy is a celebration of differences, which are accentuated by every shade of salvation, ranging from sub-rural socialism to the neo-soviet variety. And it has survived the worst instincts of its political class. When arguments divide nations, India is united by their variety. We, as a nation, are not in a permanent pursuit of definition: who are we? Because we know that we are Indians. And this definition gets stronger because of another important influensive instrument called CRICKET. Cricket in India is a great leveler. Rich or poor, no matter! What only matters and talk in the cricket field is talent. Cricket is an instrument which binds people, cultures, societies, religions and everything else possible in our country. 

        

Indian Cricket team was able to inspire the entire nation across religious and caste divides. It has been fascinating to witness the ease with which the teams have mingled across religious ethics and cultural divides. It has become cliché to talk of the power of sport to unite humanity. These are powerful sentiments in a fragile sensitive environment and only cricket seems able to provide the means through which they are expressed. Right now, cricket match seems irreplaceable.

        

We, Indians just need an excuse to celebrate and cricket has given many such excuses. OK, on the day of the cricket world cup final in 2011, let me admit, my interest in cricket was much more than my religion. Rather, I think, it is true for all of us. Hindu? Muslim? Sikh? Christian? When it comes to cricket we all are Indians! Tall, short, fat, thin, slow, fast, with or even without stadium….anyone can be good at cricket. In India, we eat cricket, sleep cricket and live cricket.

        

One thing I believe in is, CRICKET IS NOT A RELIGION relatively it unites all religions. Have you ever seen or heard of any riots happening over cricket? Do we have any book on cricket which is banned? Did you got any compulsion from anyone, be it your mom or anyone else, ever that you can watch cricket only after taking bath? Do you think anyone would have become God, had he followed religion instead of cricket?

        

In short, Cricket have always and will always provide one final opportunity to celebrate unity – Atleast In India. 

Judgement is no Definition

“My boss drove a luxury car every day and it was my duty to greet him and to open the gates for him, as I worked as a watchman in his villa. But he never responded back to my greetings.

One day he saw me opening the garbage bags outside the villa in search for any leftover food. But, as usual he never even looked at me, it was like as if he never saw anything!

The very next day I saw a paper bag at the same place, but it was clean and the food inside was covered well. It was fresh and good food like someone had just brought it from the supermarket. I didn't bother as to where it came from, I just took the paper bag and I was so happy about it.

Every day I found this paper bag at the same place with fresh vegetables and all that we needed for home. This became my daily routine. I was eating and sharing this food with my wife and kids. I was wondering who this fool could be?! To forget his paper bag full of fresh food every day.

One day there was a big problem in the villa and I was told that my boss has died. There were too many guests coming to the villa that day and I didn't get any food that day, so I thought that one of the guests must have taken it. But the same thing happened the 2nd day, the 3rd day and the 4th day.

It went on like this for a few weeks and I found it difficult to provide food for my family, so I decided to ask the wife of my boss for a raise in my salary or else I would quit my job as a watchman.

After I told her, she was shocked, and asked me, how come you never complained about your salary for the last 2 years? And why is this salary not enough for you now? I gave her so many excuses but she was never convinced!

Finally in the end, I decided to tell her the truth, I told her the entire story of the bag of groceries, and as to how it was my daily provision. She then asked me as to when this stopped? I told her after the death of her husband. And then I realized that I stopped seeing the paper bag immediately after the death of my boss. Why didn't I ever think of this before? That it was my boss who was providing this for me? I guess it was because I never thought that a person who never replied to my greetings could ever be this generous!

His wife started to cry and I told her to please stop crying and that I'm really sorry that I asked for a raise, I didn't know that it was your husband who was providing me with the meals, I’ll remain as a watchman and be happy to provide my service.
His wife told me, I'm crying because I've finally found the 7th person my husband was giving this bag full of food. I knew my husband was giving 7 people everyday, I had already found the 6 people, and all these days I was searching for the 7th person. And today I found out.

From that day onwards, I started to receive the bag full of food again, but this time his son was bringing it to my house and giving it to my hand. But whenever I thanked him, he never replied! Just like his dad!

One day, I told him THANK YOU in a very loud voice! He replied back to me to please not be offended when he doesn't reply, because he has a hearing problem, just like his dad!”

Oh! We have been wrong so many times judging others without knowing the true story behind their actions. Be kind and courteous in dealing with others, for everyone is fighting a hard battle. Be careful, not everything is about you. Before you assume, there is this thing called ASKING.

Don’t just jump to conclusion, because that is truly not an exercise, it may cause you more harm at the end of the day. Many of our problems are caused by how we process what happens around us. Don’t judge a situation you have never been in. Be humble enough to learn. You do not know it all. Let’s change the way we feel about ourselves and others.

There are two sides to a story: Don’t believe everything you hear. Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about."

- Story Credits: Internet.

One day up, next day down: That's a symbol of silver lining over my life's dark cloud

Everyone in life once or often feels that

I don't regret what I've been through. I've had ups and downs, super highs and some really low lows. I've been so blessed that I could never say, 'I wish this didn't happen.' It's part of who I am. There's nothing in my life that's so simple and easy.

Some days I wake up feeling great and don’t know why, other days I wake up in a low mood with or without consciousness of the reason. What I didn’t learn in childhood is that ups and downs are not always related to problems or something you did to cause them. And on top of that, attempt to suppress and analyze bad feelings sometimes makes me feel even worse.

The need to be proactive arises in times when I just want to feel good and don’t know how to get there. I confess that I am just as confused by my high energy, optimistic days as I am by my slumps. I am mostly not aware of how I feel or why I feel happy or sad, frustrated, lonely, guilty, or just overly sensitive. I often hear people saying “I’m having a bad day” followed by a list of the terrible things (which individually are really not that terrible) that happened, in an effort to try to explain away their low mood. It doesn’t help to pile them up and vent.

The fact is, every day has its good moments and unfortunate glitches, but sometimes we only see the negative and start to collect it throughout a day or week or month. The question of why I feel this way is not as important as how I can change my emotional state when I cannot simply fix a problem of which I am aware.

Through my own life experiences I have learned that I do have some power over my moods beyond the “snap out of it” and “don’t feel that way” approach. It takes a little time and effort, but with practice, we can get better at identifying, accepting, and yes – managing our own feelings. And finally I’ve arrived at a list of solutions for all those, who are somewhat like me. If you want to feel better, there are few things that can help.

The most likely causes of feeling low are physical; not enough sleep, low blood sugar, or the need for exercise. It could also be stress, lack of fun, need for human contact, lack of choices, or worries about other people. It is also important to recognize that when you focus for too long on what you don’t like about someone or something, you are guaranteed to end up with a low mood and find yourself attracting bad feelings like a magnet.

First of all, remember there is probably nothing wrong with you except that you are human and this is what human beings experience. No one is happy and energetic all of the time. It is ok to allow yourself to feel down, but if you want to feel better, these things may help. With the help of these things, it is likely that you may feel better

1.    Unless it is something obvious, stop trying to figure it out.

2.    Breathe deeply and drink more water.

3.    Don’t push and drag yourself through the day. Allow your feelings and thoughts to come and go on their own without judging.

4.   If you usually race through your day, slow down; drive slower, walk slower, talk slower.

5.    If you tend to be immobile when you are down, move more and be sure to continue to open up your posture throughout the day.

6.   Use all of your senses to notice good things around you – nature, laughter, love, kindness, music. Comment on those things or write them down.

7.    Skip the morning and evening news. Avoid reading or listening to anything negative.

8.   Eat healthy at least for today – make it something delicious.

9.   Make eye contact with people. Emotional connections with people raise our spirits.

10. Gather your “tools” and use them – pray, read positive things, be around those people you like, smile, and allow loving energy to flow from you.

11.  When a better mood returns, notice what you are doing that makes you feel good.

12. Bring a feeling that there is a problem, but it will resolve by itself.

13. Or maybe, there is a problem, but it is smaller and less important.

14. Or, there is a problem and I know I need to address it but it’s not essential that I do it today.

“It is in darkness that you find the light; it is in storm that you find peace; it is in sorrow that you find joy because life is a paradox and a polarity.” ~ S. Birch

This too shall pass.....

Every thought, form, feeling and situation in life is temporary

In chapter VIII of “A New Earth” by Eckhart Tolle there’s a story about the inevitability of change. That story made me aware of how powerful an influence, temporary feelings have on my life. It also gave me a tool against that destructive behaviour. I am hoping it may do the same for you.

According to an old sufi story, there was once a king in the middle east, who was constantly torn between happiness and despair. The slightest thing would provoke a strong reaction in him, and when he felt happiness, it would swiftly turn into disappointment or hopelessness.

The king eventually became so tired of himself, and his life, that he decided to face his problems and call for help. He was notified of a wise man in his kingdom, who was said to be enlightened. The king pleaded for his help, and when the wise man came to see the king, the king told him: “I want to be as you are. I want balance and clarity in my life – And i will pay you any price you demand for that insight”.

The wise man responded: “I might be able to help you, but this insight is so valuable, that the entirety of your kingdom will not be enough to pay for it. That’s why i will give it to you as a gift, if you will honor it”. The king promised he would, and the wise man went on his way.

Weeks later the wise man came to the king again. This time bringing a jade shrine. The shrine contained a golden ring with arab letters inscribed on it. The letters said: “This too shall pass”.

“What is the meaning of this?” the king asked as he stood baffled. The wise man told him to always carry this ring on him, and to always look at it before he judged anything again. Good or bad. “Do this and peace will be with you always” the wise man said.

What “This Too Shall Pass” really means

It seems that this frame of mind will not only serve as consolation when you feel pain in life – It also sounds like you shouldn’t get too excited about good things, because your joy will ease away soon enough anyway. Let us examine it a bit deeper.

What the sentence really means is, that you should do your best, not to judge the situations you find yourself in. Be they good or bad. The words do not that mean you shouldn’t praise happiness in life, and they are not meant to simply comfort you when you feel pain in life. They have a more profound purpose, which is to make you realize that every situation is temporary. Every situation is temporary, because every form and every feeling in life is temporary.

Becoming aware that change is inevitable

When you are aware, that every form and every feeling is temporary, you can develop an abundance in your life. It will be possible for you not to identify yourself with form and feelings. Not identifying yourself with your situations does not mean you will fail to experience all the good things in life. It will actually make you enjoy them more, when you accept that all things are temporary and that change is inevitable. Because realizing this will make you praise the good situations in your life, as long as they last, without the fear of losing them. When you are free of the chains linking you to your current situations, you are free to develop a higher perspective of the situations in your life. You are no longer trapped in them.