WE ONLY HAVE 60 SECONDS

It was a weird kind of a Saturday… I witnessed the paradox of life… In one evening, I saw two diametrically opposite sides of life... First, I attended a prayer ceremony for someone who could have achieved so much but didn’t get the chance to… And later that same Saturday, I attended a party to celebrate success and the successful… A celebration of the A game, and people who had achieved the kind of success most people only dreamt of in their lifetimes. 

He was only 26… He wanted to be the best actor in the world… He wanted to make movies that the world would remember long after he was gone… He wanted to marry the woman he dreamt of… And there was no doubt in his mind that he’d find her someday. He wanted to do so much… And he was going to do it all… SOMEDAY.

But death took away Akshat without any warning… And along with Akshat went all his dreams and hopes for that elusive someday.

The 40-odd people that had gathered that afternoon to say their final goodbyes, could not help but remember the smiling face that greeted you whenever you saw him… He was gone, but not without knowing that he had touched at least these 40 lives that had come to mourn.

That same evening I sat amongst Milkha Singh, Kapil Dev, Dhanraj Pillai and many other sportsmen who had given us Indians many proud moments. These were people who had chased their dream even in their most impossible moments and made them come true… People who had not just touched success, but embraced it… These were people who had done what Akshat wanted to do—they’d made history…

Two events... The same day… But just one lesson… That we only have the next 60 seconds... So let’s make it count.

I’ve entered my 40th year… You’d think it would shake me up. Take a closer look at my life and make life-altering and uncharacteristic decisions. In a way, that has happened… It’s only not quite that dramatic. I’ve realised that the one change I want to make is to find time for my cricket. I don’t want to miss practice week after week till it simply becomes something I was good at once upon a time.

For the 3 hours that I practice, I’m doing something for me. It’s the feeling closest to unadulterated happiness, and I need that in my life. It’s a different kind of fulfillment, one that’s got nothing to do with work, profits, losses and deadlines.

I know I should have played more when I was younger… I shouldn’t have wasted my 20s and a large part of my 30s doing things that I didn’t enjoy. But I did. And the things that I really wanted to do were always put on the backburner. Tucked behind the excuse of there’s always tomorrow, the next week, the next year…

But now the years have rolled into one another, and I still have a long, long list of things that I meant to do… Someday. But Akshat’s loss made me realise that there might not be a someday for me. It might not be something as final as death. But maybe something will happen the next week that will take away my ability to spin the ball, to chase it across the field.

Aren’t most of us guilty of the same crime? Aren’t we cheating ourselves of happiness, of precious moments of joy because we’re waiting for another day to let them envelop us? It might be a small, inconsequential thing for the others, but for you it might be the line that separates the dark cloud from the silver lining. Why are we so callous with our happiness? Why do we keep putting it off? And what makes us so damn sure that happiness is going to keep waiting for us to give it a chance? Why don’t we realise that each second that passes us by is a second lost from the gift of life…

That the only thing that we can be certain of is that one day it will all be over… Time is a gift that comes with a sell-by date… Much like the pack of chocolate that has to be thrown away… And all that will be left is a big pile of regret, because we kept waiting for tomorrow to devour the chocolate bit by bit. And when that tomorrow came, we realised that the chocolate had gone bad. Is that what we really want from life?

Youth has a tendency to make one feel infallible… To make one believe that everything is possible… It gives one the arrogance to believe that ‘I am invincible’…  That feeling that nothing can touch you… Not even death… It’s only middle age that makes you realise that what you felt when you were young was an illusion and the reality is that we are here on borrowed time… And we have only that much of it remaining to make the most of… That the clock is ticking and we’ve still got so many people to meet and so many lives to touch… To give something of yourself to the people that came in your life… To make sure that the gift of life we’ve received is not spent in believing the illusion that tomorrow is ours…

I’ve realised that I want to spend each day not just searching for any great meaning to my life but in cherishing and making the most of every second that I have here… In just doing things that really matter to me in my heart… things that bring a smile to my face… Do anything… Make anything… The choice is mine… But do something...

Whenever I feel like I have too much time to make true the unfulfilled dreams… I play a game with myself… I look at my watch and concentrate on the seconds hand ticking away… I blank out all thoughts from my mind and just keep looking at it… As it completes one cycle and then another, I think to myself and realise, that no matter what I achieve, how much money I stash away in the bank, what position I reach in my company, there’s no way I can bring back the one minute that just went by. That minute of my life is over… lost and irretrievable.

That Saturday just reinforced my belief… WE ONLY HAVE THE NEXT 60 SECONDS, make them matter… To you, if not to anyone else.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

It’s a little late, I know… About 20 days late, but Happy New Year, my friends!

I’ve been wondering why we celebrate the end of the year the way we do. Why do we throw this big party on 31st December every year…? Is it to celebrate our happiness, achievements and the good luck we were blessed with in the year gone by? Or are we celebrating the hope that the coming year will bring us more, bring us better things? Or do we get piss-drunk and party like there’s no tomorrow because we feel like we really don’t have much to celebrate in the rest of the 364 days in the year? What is the reason?

For some reason, I was thinking about all these things as I sat on a lovely beach in Bali, waiting for 2012 to begin. Maybe it was the generous dose of magic mushrooms in my system, but I couldn’t shake off this one nagging thought: what was so different about  31^st December? For those who doll up and head out to party the night away, how was this night any different, any more special than the average Friday or Saturday night? Every weekend, we follow the drill: dress in your finest –high heels for women, best cologne you can buy for men, head to swanky club, meet friends, get drunk, stumble back home.

But if the 31^st IS special. If we’re saying goodbye to an important year, or welcoming a year that promises happiness, shouldn’t we be doing it better? Shouldn’t we be treating it with more respect? Treating the end of the year like any other weekend is like treating your Lamborghini the same way you would your Honda City. While both are machines meant to transport your from point A to B, theirs IS a difference, isn’t there. In the same way, while a Friday night might mark the end of taxing week and the 31^st might help you see the last of a trying year; and both might simply be markers of time, there IS a difference.

I personally believe that the last 31st of the year must be different. It should mean something to us. Because it’s important to at least start a new year thinking we’re going to make it count. And take lessons from the year gone by in the future.

When we wake up on the morning on the 1^st of January, nothing really changes. We wake up a little later than usual, go to work in the same office, sit at the same desk, meet the same people, deal with the issues we’d left incomplete, fight the same fights, hate the same people… Same relationships, same friends, same us. Just a different calendar.

But maybe it doesn’t all have to be the same. Maybe more the new calendar should be joined with other changes…

I think that every year should be treated like a chapter of your life… A chapter that means something in the story of your life… And the lessons from that chapter have to mean something as well… All of us make mistakes; sometimes they are minor blips, sometimes major blunders… I think we should at least try and use the end of a year to say a final goodbye to those mistakes and blunders… We need to flush them out of our systems and promise ourselves to at least try to never make them again…

I think the best way to celebrate New Year’s Eve is by using it as a day meant for spring-cleaning the relationships closet of our lives… Get rid of the dead wood that we’ve accumulated through the year and make amends with the people that we may have knowingly or unknowingly hurt. It’s the time to either build the bridges that we’ve broken or burn them for good.

Let’s start treating the end of the year as a time to sit back and take stock…  As a time to sit back and take a long, hard look at ourselves and our lives… It is an important milestone, one that arrives at its designated time with military precision.

Very often, we tend to sweep everything under the carpet… All our emotional baggage, our hurts, aches, disappointments… We sweep them off the bed and shove them under the carpet and refuse to deal with it until one day some of the garbage underneath begins to stink up the place and you end up falling sick.

Imagine if we were to start using the end of every year as an excuse to spring-clean our heart and soul… Emotional baggage is the heaviest to carry and it keeps us from enjoying simple pleasures of our lives. So every year it needs to be cleaned… Every year we ought to make sure that we get rid of the hatred and negativity that we carry within us for things, places and people… At least at the beginning of the year, our slate needs to be clean. Don’t we owe ourselves that? We all make resolutions, but how many of us actually see them through? Sadly, most of us end up treating our resolutions like fads…

Let’s make the end of a year and the beginning of the next one count for something… Let’s write a new end…  The end of what we will not be and do next year… And let’s write a new beginning … The beginning of some new life experiences… Let the start of the New Year be more than another drunken haze. There are 52 other Fridays and Saturdays for that! HAPPY NEW YEAR! 

ALL THAT WILL REMAIN IS A BBM UPDATE...

I was in sunny Cape Town and about 3 hours behind India, time-wise… So when I woke up that morning, I was surprised to see that my BBM was inundated with the same update over and over. Everyone was talking about Dev Saab’s sad demise… Some had his song lyrics as their status messages, others used a quieter, ‘RIP Dev Saab’, to pay tribute to him. But each and every person I knew back home was feeling the loss. And here I was, in a land far, far away from home… Amongst people who maybe had heard of Dev Anand, but in most likelihood had not, and were detached from his death… Unaffected and uncaring. As the morning turned into afternoon, the BBM updates turned to the mundane for fodder. Work stress, deadlines, schedules, joys, sorrows and fights demanded attention. And the time for mourning was clearly over. The world was moving on, minus one amazing man this time. And as I sat on the beach, looking at the sky above me, I couldn’t help but wonder… Is this what is to become of us all? That no matter how amazing someone’s journey, a common fate awaits us all at the other side of the finishing line… To become just another BBM update?

Dev Saab was a man possessed by the art of film-making and his love for cinema... For him, the celluloid world was far more real, more his own, than the physical world we all live in. And he enjoyed his world till the very end… making and talking films till his last breath. All his life, all that he’d ever done was to make films. Good, bad or unbelievable, he’s made them regardless of what anyone thought. And as I sat in Cape Town, away from Mumbai and the life that I have here, I began to realise that somewhere, we all do this to ourselves.

We become so obsessed with what we do... With our lives… Our existence… Our goals, purposes, wants and wishes, that we forget that there exists a huge world outside the box we call our mind… A universe that doesn’t really know who you are or what you do. A universe that doesn’t care about your achievements or ambitions… We forget, far too easily, that at the end of the day, we’re just a tiny little speck in the universe… And we start believing that the world revolves around the speck that is us. All our time is spent in thinking about what we’re doing and what our lives mean. We get so engrossed, so involved in our lives that we forget the larger picture... we forget that there is more to life than just us. No matter how big we think we are, there will always be a part of the world that doesn’t even know who we are or what we do. They don’t care whether our last film was a hit or not… Whether our client got media coverage or not… Or whether the actor is happy with his clothes or not… They don’t care what’s happening in OUR universe.

One of the things that traveling has taught me is that we shouldn’t take ourselves, our lives, our work and everything around us so seriously… We shouldn’t get so obsessed with it that everything starts revolving around one tiny cog in the wheel… Because when that happens, we tend to blow up and exaggerate that cog’s importance. Everything around it becomes larger than life. We lose perspective. And once you lose perspective, you’re in no way different from a headless chicken that clucks around in all directions.

I’ve witnessed two football world cups and travelled across several countries for it. And some of my most cherished memories from those times revolve around the people that I’ve met while travelling. I’ve met people from those corners of the world that have never even heard of Mumbai or Bollywood. Nor do they want to. I’ve met people who don’t give a damn about Shah Rukh Khan and would look at me like I’d sprouted horns if I started discussing the falling TRPs of shows on Indian TV… When you are in this large gathering of people from all over the world, people who don’t care about the things you do, people whose lives are diametrically opposite to yours, you learn to look at things the way an outsider looking in would see them. And most often, you don’t end up liking what you see. And things that seemed life-altering, stop mattering… The definitions change and the glass casing in which you had unknowingly locked yourself, comes crashing down. It becomes easier to breathe when that happens, doesn’t it? Because the air isn’t thick with the tension of failed expectations, mental pedestals and broken dreams. It is clean and pure. And infuses you with life, instead of sucking it out of you.

But it’s not just work that we use as the hinge for our precarious lives. Our relationships have an equal role to play. We become dependent on the people around us. Sometimes for material gain, sometimes for what they do for us mentally, emotionally or physically. What they say and do and think becomes prism through which we see ourselves. So a lot of our effort goes into acting in a manner that they will approve of. But we forget that our happiness is bigger, and much beyond the scope of what someone else’s perception of us is.

We lead such self-centered lives, don’t we? All we care about is what is happening within a radius of 2 sq. kms of our lives… The people who live there and the work that we do in that area… We obssess about it and make it the centre of our existence. We push ourselves, our bodies, our limits to reach that elusive thing called success… Something that lingers just an inch away from our grasp. We’re constantly climbing the hill, hoping that someday we’ll reach the top, that one day we’ll be on the number one position. We’re forever hungry for that look of appreciation in someone’s eyes… For that pat on the back... Not realising that it doesn’t really matter… Because once you jump out of the fish-bowl and into the pond, you will see a world that you had never imagined. A world where there will always be a bigger fish, a world that will make you realise that you’re just one tiny part of a large, complex, multi-layered eco-system.

No matter what we do, what we achieve and what journey life ends up taking us on, ultimately, it’s all going to come down to a one-line BBM update… And only for a few short hours. So let’s not think that everything begins and ends with us… Because it doesn’t.

I WANT TO BE NUMBER 1 BUT I CANT!!!

Two recent events have prompted me to write this post. Two completely unrelated events, except both the events had two things in common—super successful men and their detractors. Both the cases had men who were at the top of their game on one side; and a bunch of boring, mediocre people whose greatest pleasures in life came from finding chinks in people’s armours, on the other. The eternal pessimists. The clouds that’ll do everything they can to hide the sun.

A few weeks ago Steve Jobs passed away. He was a great, one who can proudly claim to have invented and designed some of the finest gadgets that the modern world has ever known. Here’s a man who came from nowhere and had nothing but his talent, vision and ambition. And yet, he managed to make it to the top, all thanks to his sheer determination and relentless hard work… And yet, within days of his death, the scavengers had come out to party. Almost every part of his life was put under the microscope and scrutinized. Each shortcoming amplified and all achievements dismissed. Newspapers, magazines, websites, the TV, etc. were flooded with unflattering stories about his working style, his arrogance, his unethical business practices and whatnot. He was made to look like a heartless, soulless man with no morals, no ethics. It was like his death had opened up the floodgates for all the people who had a problem with him. And they weren’t about to let this golden opportunity to last out at Steve pass.

Last week saw the release of RA.ONE, a movie that led to an almost uncontrollable outburst of emotions online. Some liked the film and others hated it. Which is understandable. But what astounded me is the venom with which the movie and everything associated with it has been attacked. It is in a league unto itself. Right from SRK’s acting prowess: “over and done with”, to his business sense: “wasted his money on a trashy film”, everyone had something nasty to say. It seems like the hate SRK campaign had taken on a life of its own.

Both these instances made me wonder: why do love to hate successful people so much???

Remember the time in school when the report card was read out? We always had an opinion about the student who came first... For the one who stood second, he was teacher’s pet and was given extra marks... For those that didn’t do as well as they hoped, it was because he spent hours taking tuitions. For the ‘cool’ ones in class, he was a dork. For the unimaginative ones, he was simply lucky. Everyone had a convenient explanation, an external factor that his success could be credited to. There were a million explanations, and none of them were ever flattering. No one could simply acknowledge that perhaps he had studied hard, perhaps he had decided to work as hard as needed to come first in class. Because to do so would mean acknowledging the fact that he was, indeed, special. That he was, in fact, better than the rest. It’s an uncomfortable thought, and so we look for excuses.

We never miss a chance to criticise successful people—whether it is the team that won a cricket match or the boy that the most beautiful girl in college chose to be with. The team must have cheated or the girl must be with him for his money. Aren’t the most enjoyable dinner or coffee table conversations those that are spent dissing the lives of the rich and famous? We love swapping tales of their inadequacies. We love pitting them against each other—who is the most corrupt of them all. We love nothing more than to find out that an actor is an immoral bastard. Or an actress slept her way to the top. Every success story must have an evil, sinister side to it. We must find something fallible even in the strongest of them. There must be some force than can bring even the best man to his knees. It’s sad when people spend their entire lives searching for that one imperfection, that one moment of weakness, when the game-changers can be pushed off their pedestals.

But in the race to see who will lead to their undoing, we often forget, or perhaps don’t care about, the fact that the number one man is human too. And as vulnerable to hurt as any other man. Perhaps more so even, considering the whole world is playing judge and jury to him.

Perhaps that is the reason that the population of hyenas and jackals is ten times the population of tigers and lions in a jungle. It’s only when the kings of the jungle are slightly vulnerable that the hyenas and the jackals have the courage to come out of hiding and join forces to corner and hurt them. Aren’t we a lot like these jackals and hyenas, always lurking in the shadows, waiting for that priceless nugget of information that will destroy the jungle cats??

Success is difficult... It is elusive and comes to only a select few… very few. We don’t want the successful few to flaunt their cars, their money and their elevated position in life… Why? Because it makes us feel small and brings us face to face with our own mediocrity. But that’s life and we should just suck it up and get used to it…

Why is it that we’re unable to accept that the rich and successful are where they are not because nature conspired against us, but because they somehow karmically deserved it…? If we believe in god, then it was their destiny… If we believe in karma, then it was their good karma that led them on the path of success… Whatever the reason, the fact remains that some people make it and others don’t… And all we can really do is accept and make the best of the life we’ve been blessed with. But we won’t do it. Instead, we’ll look for the sinister side of success.

Whys is success so lonely? Why is it so difficult for the world to handle it and let the person who has earned it revel in it…? Why is it so difficult for us to not be jealous and negative when someone else succeeds?? Are we as human beings incapable of accepting someone else’s success, popularity and wealth? By channelising all our energies on what others have more than us, are we not disrespecting what we do have? Not all of us can be at the peak of the mountain called success. Let’s accept this and respect those who have reached there… Because they have done something to be there… And I’m yet to find a man who wouldn’t want to be there. It’s another thing that most of us couldn’t reach there.

I think the ability to be happy for people better than you, to be able to celebrate their successes without veiled contempt is the true test of a person’s character.

 It reminds me of something I read in Readers Digest a while ago: “It is the mediocre and weak who are cruel… Those with strength are gentle.”

I'll Be There For You...

Some things are just meant to be… This post is one of those things. It was simply meant to be written. For a while now I’ve had a couple of topics on my mind. Yesterday, I knew it was time to put pen to paper but the only thing holding me back was the debate in my head: what to write? I switched on the TV and the answer presented itself. FRIENDS was playing and so the decision was made.

I came back from a trip from Colombo a few days ago… It was a 3-day trip with 3 guy friends… We try and do this once every year. Just take off for a bit, leaving behind our stressful careers, demanding lives and daily struggles. Luckily, things fell in place and we managed it this weekend. And that’s how Tony, Kallu, Sammy and I found ourselves in Sri Lanka. What’s important is not what happened there, but the things that I realized after the trip… About friends and about friendship.

We have so many notions about friendship, ideas about what it should be like and how friends should make us feel… Most of us believe that friends should be there for us, that they must be around when we need them... That our friends know the real us, that they know us… Basically, our idea of friendship is based on everything we’ve heard and read, things that people tell us, things that we’ve learnt to accept as true… We’ve all read enough about friendship, but here’s what I believe friendship ought to be like…

Friendship is about accepting friends the way they are… And yet, being able to tell them what you feel is the right thing to do… And they should have the courage to accept and respect your views… They might not like what you have to say, but you still have to be able to say it… You have to be able to tell them if you think they’re wrong. If you’re scared of saying what you feel, then that’s not friendship… Friendship isn’t conditional. It doesn’t revel in saying ‘I told you so’. Just the way you should be able to express what you feel, even if they’re wrong, they should have the unwavering faith that if they fall, you’ll be there to help them up. That you’ll love them—warts and all—even if they keep making the wrong decisions over and over. Friendship is not about finding the similarities; it’s about learning to accept the differences.

Friendship is about not being embarrassed to be seen with the people you call friends… They might not adhere to what your definition of appropriate dressing and behavior, but that shouldn’t matter to friends… They might not say the coolest or most intelligent things… There might be times when they subject themselves to public ridicule, but those things shouldn’t matter. What matters is that they should make you happy. If they do, then you should be able to stand by them and look like a fool too. Friendship means not stopping friends from being the way they are, no matter what the price of keeping that honesty intact is.

Friendship is about not wanting anything from your friends except themselves… Most of us confuse our acquaintances and lovers for our friends. But there’s a very clear difference between them. We need something from our lovers… We want things from our acquaintances, but friendship doesn’t have such clear-cut rules. We should be able to have friends that we don’t want anything from… They should be able to give us what they can and we should be able to find happiness in whatever little that might be. Expectations lead to pressure and pressure causes rifts… Friends aren’t meant to be at our beck and call all the time… They’re not supposed to have the answers to all our questions… Friendship isn’t about give and take, it’s not a balance sheet that should be closely monitored so that it doesn’t go in the red.

Friendship means not having to be nice to each other all the time… You don’t have to be a standard that has to be upheld, an example for others... We are all mean to the people we love at times… We’re cruel and selfish sometimes. Friendship is about giving your friends the freedom to be all these things. And having the freedom to show the less-than-perfect side of your personality to the people you call friends… It’s about being able to be cruel and selfish and thoughtless at times and being forgiven for it without having to apologize.

What I learnt on this trip was that you don’t have to be on your A-game all the time… You don’t have to put your best foot forward… And you certainly don’t have to be on your best behavior at all times… It’s okay to not always be sensitive to each other… If you have to pretend, pretend with your acquaintances, not with your friends

Friend are also not people we interact with over a season and lose touch with.. even if you lose touch with a real friend you can pick up from where you left off…..some  people come into our lives cause we needed them at that time or worked with them at that time and then they move on…friendship is like a single malt you have …it takes time and a lot of hard work to reach that taste….seasonal acquaintances are like rum and coke..great flavor when you consume it but it would  not have that lingering after taste that a single malt will give you

I’ve also learnt that as we grow older, it becomes tougher to make new friends… People are less tolerant of you… People have lesser time to give to you… You get one shot at everything. If you’re very lucky, you get two, but no one gives you more than that. Which is why most of us stop making friends after a certain point in our lives... We make acquaintances… Collect people around us and then we learn to tolerate them. We laugh with them, hang out and party with them, but they’re not our friends.

I think we use the term ‘friends’ too freely… We fling the word around to carelessly, too loosely. We’re undervaluing our true friends when we do this. They deserve to be differentiated from our casual lovers and acquaintances. So for those amongst us who are lucky enough to have true friends, hang on to them… They’re in short supply.

Permanence is a myth!!!

It’s the biggest fallacy of the human brain and something that never ceases to amaze me: our endless struggle to hold on to everything and refusal to accept change and move on.

We want the world around us to never change. The day should never turn into night, Winters should never go away and summers should never come. We want our children to never grow up and ourselves to stay young for ever. We want all the images that are imprinted on our memories to remain a reality for ever. All we want is permanence, and we spend all our time chasing that impossible dream.

Why are we so afraid to change and let change become a part of us and our lives? Why are we scared to let go of the emotions, people, situations, relationships and everything else around us and allow new ones to take their place? Why are we scared of the unknown? Why don’t we embrace the new, instead of holding on tight to everything that already exists? Is it just the comfort of familiarity? The false sense of security that comes with the knowledge that you’ve been there, done that and lived to tell the tale? I think that the very fact that you’ve lived to tell the tale should make you want to open your palms and let the rain soak you, instead of diving for cover the second you spot grey clouds.

It’s like our old tooth brush and the t-shirt we sleep in… They give us a sense of comfort and familiarity. We know that no matter what else changes in the world while we’re asleep, when we wake up we’ll find these two just where we left them last night. Don’t we treat people, our emotions and life somewhat like that old sleeping t-shirt? We hold on to them because they help us make sense of the madness, sometimes despite the fact that we know it’s time to let them go…

We all hold on to people and our relationships, hoping against hope that they will never change, that everything around them--the way they make us feel, the sense of belongingness--remains permanent. The way they look, the way they behave, the way they react to us… Everything that will made us feel comfortable and gave us a sense of well-being is held on  to very fiercely by us. Mothers do it to their children, couples do it to their better halves and friends do it to each other… We refuse to accept that people have changed, are changing and will always change. And we almost never appreciate the change. We know that life will change. Our wants, dreams and desires change all the time. Then why do we fight the inevitable? Why is it so hard to accept the change?

Our biggest complaint against people is, invariably, “You have changed”, or “You are not the same person anymore”. Life moves on and we grow older, but when it comes to relationships and people, we often live in our pasts. Our bodies might live in the present, but our mind is filled with thoughts of what was. We want to have the same people around us and feel the same emotions always. We fight ourselves and everyone around us so that we can keep living the dream, but it doesn’t really work that way… and ultimately, we are saddened by the change. All because we couldn’t bring ourselves to befriend it, to look it in the face and give it a chance. Instead, we make it out to be a monster, let it disturb us and bother us till we break down.

Life is a journey of constant change and charting new territories. If it was possible, we’d have loved to be presented with the blue print of our lives when we were born. If we could, we’d remain young forever… Live in the same house, have the same friends, love one person and grow old with them. But isn’t the fun of life in going into the unknown and exploring the unexplored? In discovering a new jungle, finding the pond in the middle of the desert and reaching a destination you hadn’t yet imagined…?

Change is what makes life so much fun, makes it an adventure, a trip that is unpredictable. Change is what makes me want to open my eyes every day, knowing that a surprise awaits me and I just need to get out of my bedroom and make it mine. True, sometimes the surprises aren’t as nice as we might have wanted them to be. Sometimes it seems like ‘this’ wasn’t worth the effort of waking up, but I still wouldn’t want to take away that control from life. Because nasty surprises are like a curveball that life throws our way, and we could all do with a little practice on our swerves.

Don’t let change bother you… The lack of it should be the worrisome fact. If we embrace it and treat it like a buddy that will always turn up at unexpected and sometimes inconvenient hours, change can actually be a lot of fun. It brings with it a newness which makes for interesting living…

We have to accept that everything around us will change one day or the other, that nothing can ever remain exactly the same… Days will turn into nights, seasons will change and no matter how hard we try, we will never be 21 again..No matter what the beauty ad’s claim:)

To Say Or Not To Say

I wanted to say it so much and then finally I did… I missed her and I wanted to see her. I had held back, not wanting to say it… But then I finally decided to take the plunge… What happened after that is irrelevant… What’s important is that I was afraid to say it… To say what my heart was feeling, to express my emotions. It’s the question that plagues us all—To Say Or Not To Say.

One of the things that has always been a topic of debate, and for many of us a problem in most of our relationships, is our inability to say what we feel… To express our thoughts and to let the other person know what’s going on in our hearts and minds, regardless of whether it’s good or bad… We’re afraid to tell people when we miss them or when we love them, all because we fear the consequences of our words. We almost never say things the way we feel them, the way they are...

Whether at work or in our relationships, we’re always holding back for fear of getting hurt and having our hearts trampled on. Work, I can understand… It’s a political world with as many egos as there are people, so keeping your mouth shut about how you really feel might be a good idea, but should we do the same in our relationships and in matters of the heart?

Why are we so afraid to tell a person that we care about him or her, and want to be with him or her? Why are we so afraid to tell people when we miss them? When we love them? Why are we so afraid to open up heart and let someone see it?? Is it for the fear of it being broken and not being appreciated…? Why do we let the fear of rejection paralyse us? Why are we so averse to experience even a little bit of hurt? We want to love, we want to be loved, but we don’t want to be hurt… We simply never want to be rejected… We are afraid of showing our vulnerability and are scared of being emotionally manipulated… We’re scared of  hearing something we don’t want to know... All valid fears, I agree. But should those fears be allowed to become bigger than our feelings? Should we keep holding back, keep preempting and gauging the possible reactions to what we say before we express ourselves? Should we keep waiting till we’re sure that our feelings and questions will meet a positive response? Is it even possible to do that?

We can’t eliminate the possibility of getting rejected or hurt or not getting a favourable response… Because love and life don’t come with guarantees. Life doesn’t always pan out the way we want it to, nor do feelings always listen to reason. We can’t manipulate how someone thinks or what they might say... But that shouldn’t stop us from saying what we want to... If you miss someone, say it… If you want someone, say it… If you love someone, say it… Those are your feelings, they’re positive emotions and they should be expressed, if you’re feeling them. You shouldn’t be held back by thoughts of what the response is going to be, or the fear that they will make you vulnerable… Because it’s always better to say what you’re feeling than to not say it at all… There is no love without hurt, there is no emotion without the heart feeling somewhat vulnerable. But some risks are worth taking. We all fear rejection and heartbreak, and so we hide our true thoughts. But sometimes, unless we take that leap of faith and say it, we miss being with the one person that our heart wants… If only we had found the courage within ourselves to just say the words… We lose a friend we could have saved, if only we’d picked up the phone and told him that he was special, or we miss hearing the words ‘I love u too’, because we could never get ourselves to say 'I love you' in the first place. Hurt and rejection and exposing your heart to vulnerability is all a part of living… Say it… Because regret is the worst feeling to live with… Worse than rejection even.