Genuis or Genious? Confusing right? There is just a difference of one alphabet in these two spellings. Technically, the first spelling is the right one. It means the genius, the geek or whatever. But the second one is what one calls another person when they are trying to put down the other's intelligence mostly in a public setting. In a way, this can be compared to a sarcastic yet subtle way of belittling someone who claims himself to be super-intelligent. Often idiots call themselves genious ignorant of the fact that the word is spelled as genius, which is completely ironical. I was trying to think of the spelling for the word genius :P and well I wont tell you the spelling that came to my mind :D. I always wanted to become a genius in atleast some aspect. But then, for all I know you can only become a genious, but you have to be genius by birth and cannot artificially induce it in yourself :P.
The first time I heard this dialogue was when I watched this movie ‘He is just not that into you!’ .As the title says, it is a movie basically for girls who just don’t get it sometimes that the guy they are trying to date/dating is just not that into them. The one thing that stuck with me after I finished watching the movie was this dialogue that I am an exception and not a rule. And slowly I began to do a little bit of self introspection. Though, I may not have used the same exact words, but being girly as I could be sometimes: P, I also always have felt the same way. I always wanted to be an exception and not a rule. To me that was not just cool but also a way to get people’s attention. I always wanted to stand out from the crowd. It’s funny, it’s not just me, but almost everyone wants to be an exception and not a rule at some point in life. What happens at such times is that, we get this paradigm into our heads that in any situation, where normally the output is something very predictable, we expect miracles to happen, because we are an exception and cannot accept anything else. But I also noticed that the more I wanted to be exception, the more situations would prove me just a mere rule. In the process of trying to be an exception, I often failed to realize that I first have to be a rule in order to be an exception that rule. So what am I really talking about here? Well let me give some examples, as a kid, I wanted to be the most favorite grandkid of my grandparents, in school, I wanted to be the most favorite student of teachers and then once I went to college, I wanted to be the girl that all guys would want to befriend etc. However in every stage, I had experiences which proved that although I was often trying to be an exception, I was no more than a rule. Paradoxically many times, I did nothing really to become an exception, but it was a just a strong thought and wish in my head that I want to be special. On a positive side, it led me to work harder for anything I did, but on the negative side, it led to nothing more than disappointments, a low self esteem and trying too hard to eventually give up. So, I decided to stop paying attention to these things, though I got to be honest about the fact that even now for some extremely personal situations in life, I still only want to be an exception and not a rule. But overall, I decided to just do what I feel like, do whatever makes me happy and accept reality with a broad mind, instead of paying attention to being an exception. I have also come to realize that, each of us have something special which makes us unique and different from others. So being yourself is the best way to automatically become an exception. Besides, the other thing here is that it is not wrong to strive to be the best but striving hard to be different doesn’t help much. Afterall, being too different doesn’t always make us special and loved, besides, you got to live your life for yourself and not just to look exceptional in the eyes of others.
So, I am back after a brief hiatus. And as for the post title,well, I always wished, I could be a true hog of Epicurus's herd. For those who don't quite understand what I am trying to say, let me talk about Epicurus and hedonism here. Epicurus was a greek philosopher who taught that supreme tranquility and eternal happiness and peace in life were to do with pleasure and the absence of pain. According to him pleasure and pain are the measures of good and bad respectively. He taught hedonism and ataraxia. Without confusing this much, let me put this in simplest of words - to live a life devoted to pleasure and experience optimal and enduring pleasure. More can be found about Epicurus on wikipedia or google :P.
Basically right from our childhood we are taught directly and indirectly, the concept of 'no pain, no gain'. Our mind gets trained to associate hardwork with pain and to associate rejecting pleasure with moral good. So although most of us yearn to live a life full of pleasure, we reject the same pleasure considering it something very negative. And thanks to moral ethics and being taught to instill guilt into our ownselves, we often forcefully put ourselves through pain thinking it will remove the guilt and silence our conscience. This goes on and on almost throughout our life. I believe even in pursuit of pleasure, we put ourselves through pain thinking it would take us close to pleasure sooner.
That being said, a point to be noted is that, while brain knows both the concept of pleasure and that of pain, these are two basically two opposite phenomenons. Biologically our natural tendency is to pursue pleasure and avoid pleasure, which is part of what Epicurus taught as a part of hedonism. But our body needs both the opposing phenomenon for being well controlled. Modern psychology describes Epicurus's teaching in a slightly different manner in terms of a control system. A theory supporting this is the opponent process theory which treats pain and pleasure as two opponent processes for controlling the body. Without delving much into details, I am going to explain a simple phenomenon here called 'Hedonic contrast' using opponent process theory (Originally explained in modern psychology by Richard Solomon a professor in the University of Pennsylvania). Just as we have rebound in several other facets of life, pain and pleasure have the tendency to rebound in the opposite directions after an intense experience of either. In other words, after a strenuous and difficult experience, we feel a lot of pleasure and relief. Similarly, sometimes, after a having a period of extreme joy,we have the tendency to go cranky or even cry or get sad for no reason.
All said, Epicurus tried to preach the pursuit of pleasure to the extent where it can cancel the opposing force pain. According to him, when you get more pleasure than just what you need, it leads back to pain. For example, when we eat enough to satiate our hunger which can be associated to pain, we would feel pleasure, however when we overeat, we would feel pain again. Pleasure and pain are two opposing yet balancing forces, but no one ever said that in order to pursue pleasure we need to go through pain. We look for pleasure to get rid of pain. It is difficult to change our paradigms about pain and pleasure, but Epicurus did definitely have a point to make.
Sleep is often some lucky people's best friend, while, there are people who yearn to befriend sleep. I remember watching Insomnia, an Al Pacino movie, where he suffers from insomnia. All I can say is that it was a very well done movie. Whether there is a physical, mental or an emotional problem, one of the body's natural reaction is an affected sleep. So while I took psychology 101, I studied about sleep. I dont want to write too much in detail here, but instead I just want to talk about stages of sleep in real simple terms.
So basically sleep can be broadly categorized into two types:
Non-Rapid Eye Movement (NREM)
Rapid Eye Movement (REM)
Thanks to invention of EEG and other such devices which have helped in studies about sleep. During each stage of sleep, the brain produces waves which have been studied to identify the various stages of sleep.
Sleep firstly begins with the brain producing beta waves, and you will be pretty much close to awake and alert. As the brain begins to relax and slow down, slower waves known as alpha waves are produced. During this stage we do experience certain hallucinations.- hypnagogic hallucinations to be precise. I will be talking in detail about hallucinations in a different post. People also have what is known as a myoclonic jerk.
Stage 1-NREM
Stage 1 sleep is the beginning stage of sleep. In Stage 1, the brain produces theta waves. This period of sleep lasts only around 5-10 minutes.
Stage 2-NREM
Stage 2 is the second stage of sleep and lasts for approximately 20 minutes. During this stage, the brain begins to produce bursts of rapid, rhythmic brain wave activity known as sleep spindles. Body temperature starts to decrease and heart rate begins to slow.
Stage 3-NREM
Deep, slow brain waves known as delta waves begin to emerge during stage 3 sleep. It is during this stage, that body tends to get into a deep sleep.
Stage 4-NREM
Stage 4 is a deep sleep that lasts for approximately 30 minutes. Stage 4 is sometimes referred to as delta sleep because of the slow brain waves known as delta waves that occur during this time.
Stage 5 - REM
The 5th stage of sleep is known as rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. During this stage, there is eye movement, increased respiration rate, increased brain activity. REM sleep is also referred to as paradoxical sleep because while the brain and other body systems become more active muscles become more relaxed. Dreaming occurs due because of increased brain activity, but voluntary muscles become paralyzed.
Sleep basically occurs in cycles. Sleep begins in stage 1 and progresses into stages 2, 3, and 4. After stage 4 sleep, stage 3 and then stage 2 sleep are repeated before entering REM sleep. Once REM sleep is over, the body usually returns to stage 2 sleep. Sleep cycles through these stages approximately 4 or 5 times throughout the night. REM Sleep in itself is a vast topic and there a lot of funny phenomenon which we do experience once we are out of REM sleep, and I must say it is beyond the scope of this post ;).
I read about Renaissance as a kid in school. But I learnt the meaning of the word better as I grew up. Renaissance is a french word which means re-birth. Almost everyone sometime in life definitely feels, a need to be reborn again and to start all over again.But a close friend explained this to me in a very subtle manner yesterday, renaissance is not really just to die and be born again. In life, everytime we make a mistake, we correct it and then start afresh. In real life Renaissance may or may not be practically possible in the literal self. But metaphorically, it could definitely be compared to just grabbing on to the new chance life presents us to make amends and start over.
"Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending!"
It could begin with just setting up some new goals for yourself and working towards them. It could begin with accepting any situation as is and deciding to work on it instead if whining about it. It could begin with just letting go. Some people like me have been very lucky to have always had the support and affection of loved ones to help me when my efforts for renaissance are attempted to be ruined by any external forces. Afterall, to err is human, it is so very easy to fall into a pit and not rise up forever, but sometimes even if u dont get a chance to get out of the pit, I would say, create a chance yourself and do it. As silly as might sound, renaissance is really a choice we make. It is not something that we have to wait for it to happen by itself. Life's experiences lead us to yearn for it a lot of times. At the end of the day, all that we want is to be happy. Lets learn to be a phoenix.. :)
Last year sometime I watched Kungfu Panda, a nice movie. One thing I remember from the movie is the secret recipe for the soup, the Panda's dad was going to teach him and in the end Panda would be told that the secret recipe is that there no secret. In real life too we go around looking for secret ways to miraculously achieve success. But we almost all the time fail to understand that, the real secret of success is that there is no secret. We humans are often tempted to look for short cuts to achieving what we want. I recently watched a hindi movie called ShortKut. It was about two men trying to make it big in the movie industry. One of them being a very hardworking guy and the other one being the kind of guy who always looks for shortcuts to success. In the end in the movie, we are shown that the moral of the story is that people who look for shortcuts to success, never quite make it big. Hardwork would never fail you. Sucess comes slowly and doesnt come overnight, if it does, remember it wont last long. Just do your best you can in anything you do and success will come through eventually. For a student, there is no success without studying, for someone doing a job, success would be attained by working hard, giving in the best. No matter what profession you are in, no matter what you do, no matter how trivial or how super critical it is, dont look for secret weapons for getting done with things, you will get nowhere. So real secret to success is that there is no secret.
Often people say that good music can relax your soul. People have different choices when it comes to the type of music which they feel relaxes them. But when it comes to tamilians, I can almost guarantee that 90% of people would agree with me that Illayaraja's melodies are soothing to the ears. During my college days, often during late nights, I would have my hostel room windows and later my house windows open, letting in the beautiful Tanjore breeze and Illayaraja's melodies playing on the radio or on my computer. That was one of the best relaxations I could ever have. Today again, I am doing the same, listening to some of Illayaraja's melodies. Illayaraja is a living genious, I am sure everyone would agree. :)
Intelligent conversation - lately I have been hearing this more than often. Someone I was talking to, the other day, mentioned about this. At that time, I just said, I have to intelligent to have an intelligent conversation. Later on that day, I tried find out about what an intelligent conversation is, just to make sure, I didnt have any funny conceptions about the same. As I did that, I realized, one of my big turn ons is intelligent conversation. What I also realized is that, you dont have to be a genious for having an intelligent conversation. But I do feel this is more of a lost art now. When two people are talking, if one of the two people is hardly talking, of course, the whole question of an intelligent conversation doesnt arise there. Similarly, when two people are only trying to defend their points, the conversation may well be called an argument. Intelligent conversation goes along the lines of a healthy discussion, where two people share their views on various different things though with an open mind.
I believe I have an intelligent conversation almost 90% of the time when I am talking to my mom. We discuss various different topics. Many a times, I have taken cabs and have really good conversations with some of the cab drivers. Similarly with some of my friends. While with a lot of my friends, I just yak around, but there are some close friends of mine, who are capable of and love having intelligent conversations. Often time we talk about topics which could include anything from psychology, general human tendency, movies, computers etc etc. But as I mentioned earlier, this is more of a lost art now. It is sad but true that these days, people get bored of each other too soon and have low levels of tolerance and dont even want to have a conversation with others.
I am the last person who should be talking about this topic. :). But still I am going to take a bold step and write about this. From my experiences, I am writing this. Up until my undergrad days, I believed I was happy. I guess the reason was, I did what I felt like, had goals, worked to achieve them, apart from them,I had my little hobbies which kept me occupied. Besides I was living with my parents and brother. So I was overall happy with my life and secure in my life. Then came my undergrad days, starting which, I realize now, I started looking for happiness in others as opposed to looking for it within myself. Since then up until recently, mostly I have been looking for happiness in others. Although, I continued to have goals, but I started depending so much on others for my happiness, I believe, I gave up on a lot of activities which probably used to make me happy as a kid. I guess, a lot of us make the same mistake. Be it from parents, or friends, or gfs/bfs or your spouse, we can definitely try to make them happy and it might make us happy. But in return, you might start depending on them for your happiness, at one point, without your own knowledge you will kind of stop loving yourself. Your dependence on others for love would increase a lot and soon, your expectations of others will also increase a lot. All this will lead the others around you to feel pressurized by your expectations. What this leads to is, people leaving you or kind of running away from you and ultimately loneliness. Instead of scaring away people from you, would it not be smart to look for happiness within? I am not preaching staying away from people altogether, all I mean to say is that, your happiness lies right within you, so dont go around looking for happiness in material objects or in others, you might get some temporary happiness and if by any chance these people or objects dont exist in the future in your life, you will be depressed and would be desperate to find a replacement for the people/things we assumed made us happy.
Hardworking ( ha ha ha) people like me are often stressed out. Thanks to a million things for that. So I decided to treat myself today. Spent about several hours at a spa today. Got a full body massage, a facial, a pedicure:). I guess, it was a much needed break I gave myself, owing to the extremely stressful days I have had recently. A lot of us, particularly women, sometimes get too engrossed in several things and forget that their body needs to relax. An occasional trip to the spa is definitely a great way to relax and get rid of some stress. One thing I have noticed often is that people who get into a relationship, become so attached to and engrossed in the relationship that they forget to spend sometime on themselves. In the process what happens is when by any chance the relationship ends, these women, find themselves completely lost. Unlike this, if people spend sometime on themselves and relax themselves every now and then, the relationship would be much more smooth and easy. Similarly some people get extremely engrossed in their work and their daily schedules that they keep accumulating stress and this stress shows up as different types of aches in their body. Each person has their own way of dealing with stress, but be it any way, but do take out time for relaxing and getting your stress out.
Today is Friday the 13th :). Reminded me immediately of the movie Friday the 13th. Also reminded me of a common belief, that Friday the 13th is associated with badluck. So I went into wikipedia.org and looked up Friday the 13th. This is what I found-
"The fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskevidekatriaphobia, a word derived from the concatenation of the Greek words Paraskeví (Παρασκευή) (meaning Friday), and dekatreís (δεκατρείς) (meaning thirteen), attached to phobía (φοβία) (meaning fear). The term triskaidekaphobia derives from the Greek words "tris", meaning 'three', "kai", meaning 'and', and "deka", meaning 'ten'. the whole word means three and ten. "
I was watching this talk show called Neeya Naana on the internet the other day. For those who don't know about this show, it airs on Star Vijay- Tamil channel. A debatable topic is presented to two groups of people and everyone expresses their views on the topic. The last time I watched this show, the debate was about the kind of girls preferred by guys for marriage. The two kinds being - highly educated girls and beautiful girls. The argument started on a calm note and eventually there were heated arguments. Overall, I loved watching this episode of the show. But, its sad that the feeling the arguments gave me was that, marriage is about power struggle. I believed marriage is a lifelong companionship with your partner and is a bond of love, care and affection.
I cant speak for girls and guys all over the world, being from India, I do know quite a lot about people in India. Most girls and guys who are getting ready for marriage come into the relationship with tons of expectations. Eventually, it becomes a power struggle between the couple. The husband wants the wife to listen to him, thats the prime expectation I keep hearing from men. Meanwhile wife wants her opinion to be valued. My mom keeps saying that, the tolerance in people of current generation is much lower than people of the older generation. While traditionally, man of the house always got powers to make decisions and lead the family, now, wives find it difficult to accept it because they feel men are being chauvinistic. What should be a love bond slowly starts becoming an ego clash and clash of ideas. Eventually what happens is, there is a power struggle as to who is right and who is wrong and shade worse situation is where husband and wife do everything to contradict their spouse even if the spouse is making sense.
So during the debate when men were asked if they wanted a beautiful wife or a well educated wife, few said they wanted a beautiful wife and very few said they wanted well educated wife. While quite a few responses were in favour of having a wife who was both beautiful and well educated, overall, maximum number of guys said leave apart beauty, they wanted a wife who wasnt more educated than them and the reason being, a well educated wife would not listen to them and would not respect them. It kind of gave me a feeling that men get intimidated by a well educated and well opinionated woman. Ultimately most guys on the show were talking about how they want their wives to listen to them. It depresses me when I think about all this. Afterall, is this what marriage is all about? Marriage is a lifelong bond and when people come into the relationship with a mindset that they would not let the other person dominate them, marriage is going to be in big trouble. Rather I would go into a relationship with a mindset that I would not dominate the other person. Everyone wants to be accepted and wants their points to be agreed upon by their partner. But when proving your point becomes a priority in the relationship, it is not going to help anyone. Accept your partner for the person they are. There is no point in getting married to someone with preconceived notions about them.
God is everywhere. God resides inside each one of us. I strongly god resides inside us in the form of our instincts. A lot of us have the habit of taking our insticts lightly. But trust me this is my experiences talking here, instincts never ever lie. My second experience with the so called bharatmatrimony was huge disaster. My instincts told me quite early on, something about the guy did not feel right. Similarly several times my instincts have held me up from doing certain things. But human that I am, I do possess the disgusting habit of going against the norms. Everytime I have done it, I have ended up in big troubles. Life does pose us with lot of confusions and problems but we get one first chance of dealing with it in the form of our instincts. This is useful in almost every action you take in life. But I believe when it comes to relationships, instincts are life saviours though not everyone would agree. It is very easy to give in to temptations and take your instincts lightly. But 9/10 times you can rest assured you are going to be in trouble. When you are trying to date someone or looking through a matrimony website to find a potential life partner, trust your instincts more than anything else. Now I don't mean to say, you have completely give in to your instincts, I just mean to say, keep in mind what instincts have to say and get data. I hate jumping into conclusions about someone with limited data. But almost invariably most of the time my data ultimately tells me what my intuition was trying to tell me earlier. So trust your instincts. If something doesn't feel right accept it and do not proceed until it feels right.
Ghosts! This is a topic which I guess intrigues almost everyone! Parapsychology is a very controversial field in psychology. A lot of people dismiss talks about supernatural forces, ghost etc saying that there are no scientific proofs for any of these. But these same people believe in stuff like astrology and horoscopes. Isn't it absolutely weird? We tend to believe in anything which may have a positive influence on us, even if it could be false. I have heard several stories about ghosts particularly when I used to live in hostel during my college days. Apparently, my hostel was built on a land which used to be a graveyard earlier. As a kid I used to be absolutely scared of watching horror movies. But then as I grew up, as weird as it sounds, to get rid of my fear of horror movies, I actually started watching more horror movies and mostly alone. As I watched more and more, at one point, I started finding these horror movies to be funny than scary. Even as I am writing this, I am actually watching a horror flick.
Today I heard about this movie called Paranormal Activity, currently being claimed to be one of the scariest movies ever made. Lets see if I would watch it sometime. I think the success of a horror movie lies in the element of fear created in the movie. A horror movie doesn't need to be gory in order to be scary. Movies like Grudge are much more scary as compared to movies like Evil dead or The exorcist. Apparently Paranormal Activity is not a gory movie, but is very scary. Someday when I take psychology seriously, one of my fantasies is to research in the field of parapsychology.
So here I am back to blogging. I try my best to write everyday, but somehow, it just doesn't seem to work out. I am going to talk about another lesson learnt in life. Sometime last year, my younger bro was telling me, about how much happier I will be if I choose to be with someone who loves me as opposed to being with someone I love. At that time, what my brother seemed to be right to me, but not much acceptable to my heart. I guess I always learn things the hard way. I always define success and happiness in single lines. Success is getting what you like and Happiness is liking what you get. I think the definitions of these are no different when it comes to relationships.
Oftentimes, we supposedly like people, fall in love with them or whatever. We begin to rationalize their actions, though not all of their actions make us happy. I am absolutely no exception to this. Infact I believe, I do this almost all the time. But on the other hand, when someone likes you, they rationalize your actions, they understand you, they try to do things to make you happy. In the long run I think one will be happy being with someone who loves them as opposed to being with someone they love. Success might give you a feeling of triumph and a temporary happiness, but it is not going to give you the eternal happiness and peace of mind you need in life. By being with someone who loves you, you are making yourself happy and making them successful, win-win right? There might be people who would argue with what I am saying. As a matter of fact, I might have argued this point myself earlier in my life.
Ultimately all of us want to be happy, accepted and liked. I have seen many people do this, and of course I am absolutely no less, I have done this. What I am talking about is going after someone madly just because you like them whether they like you are not. You give up your ego, and beyond a point your self esteem and go after someone who may not really be worth it. You cry, you let them break your heart, you let them act just as they want just because you believe you like them. Think about it, what is the point in doing all this? When someone doesn't care about you, your acts are only going to make you appear claustrophobic and clingy. And after a point you will ultimately give up and then think about it and be annoyed with how stupid you acted. There is this quote about tears that I love-
" No one is worth your tears, and the one who is, will never let you cry."
So very true. Instead of putting all these efforts and losing your mind on someone who doesn't care much, if only we put half of those efforts on liking someone who loves us, we would be so very happy in life. That reminds me of another one of my favorite quotes-
" Why love if losing hurts so much? We love to know that we are not alone. "
Someone who loves us will never leave us alone and even if they do it, they probably would do it to make us happy. Loneliness hurts more than any pain one can have. Think about it, do you want to be happy or successful in a relationship? I have decided atleast for myself that I will be with someone who loves me and values me.
Well, having always been interested in how relationships work, I am going to write some ugly truths about relationships,I have been learning in my life. It is true we always make time for things we value- be it career, studies, sports we play or follow, or anything we are passionate about and think is worth our time. So I guess people are no exception to this list I just mentioned. When you value someone, for the most part, you will not take them for granted and treat them well. By treating someone well, I dont mean just talking to them nicely when you do talk to them. But it really means, making the other person feel that you value them, consider them important, like talking to them, spending time with them and for them etc. Oftentimes, we feel powerful when we kind of ignore someone and know that they would be waiting for our call or waiting to hear from us. Call me egoistic or whatever, this is the truth, doesnt it make you feel great when you know someone likes you and is waiting to hear from you. But just think about how you will feel,if you like someone and are waiting to hear from them and they dont bother getting in touch with you. You might raise your ego and say, well, I dont really care. But there are times you do really care, but just dont want to show it out. Anyways, coming back to my original point, you will always make time for things you value. If you value a person, no matter how busy you are, no matter what is happening in your life, you will make atleast a minute for them.But then, there is just another piece to this. Make time for someone if you really like them and not just for the heck of it. Ultimately if you dont really care about someone, its going to show up someway or the other. Most often we find it very convenient to assume that the other person is not aware of what is happening. In the sense, we assume, the other person is not really sure, if you are avoiding them, or just making the least possible effort to hold on to them. This could be true for a while, but afterall how long will the other person be ignorant about your attitude? Lets consider this, as humans we have this disgusting habit of making excuses for the other person. When someone doesnt call you when they said they would, you make excuses for them,may be they lost my number,may be they lost their phone, may be this, may be that. It could be true for once, or twice or may be thrice, but beyond that, who are you kidding? Truth is, when you want something badly,u will do everything for it. Similarly, when you really value someone, you will not take them for granted and will do everything to make them happy.
The day started pretty nicely this morning. Overall I had a smooth weekend, or atleast I thought so. I had taken an oath to do everything I could to get rid of the dark circles under my eyes which have developed over last couple of months. I laid down a few plans for the same too. But boom...what happened at the end of the day now at almost 2 AM. My eyes were filled with tears. I cried cried cried and cried and now, i look into the mirror, my eyelids feel swollen. All my efforts went for a six in just a matter of few minutes. Guess certain things become inevitable despite all planning. All I can do now, is to start all over again tomorrow. I am sincerely hoping that tomorrow will be a better day. Tomorrow being Monday, I wish, me and everyone have a great week ahead.
Wondering what these are? Well,Canned responses are predetermined responses to common questions. Rather than typing again and again the same answer, or pasting from some other resource the operator can insert a canned response triggered by keystrokes or from a drop down menu.
I was working on writing a software requirements document today where I had to write about canned responses. While writing about it, it just struck me, how even in our daily lives, we use various canned responses. Let me give you some examples. When a wife wants the husband to take her out shopping, the husband has a few canned responses he would always pick from to avoid going from one shop to another carrying bags. These canned responses could include, having lot of work and not being able to come home soon, or, feeling very tired and not feeling too well etc. When a girl brings up the marriage topic, the boyfriend who is not ready for commitment will pick from his set of canned responses. Similarly, for showing up late at work, we always come up with one of the few usual responses which include, heavy traffic or an accident, or flat tire etc etc. Often people give me any one of their canned responses, for any question that I ask them frequently. Amazes me, how we use such responses as a way of escapism or avoiding confrontation. Oh by the way, I am not any good either, I am a queen of using canned responses, but, then I try to vary them a lot.. ;)
In the last week, on more than one occasion, the word ego sprung into my conversations with people. This made me wonder, if I am an egoist? I decided to google what ego is and damn, I found too many results. The most sensible data I got about ego is right here in quotes - " A simple psychological definition of the ego is something like the "self-organizing principle," that all-important command center in the psyche that coordinates the different aspects of the self. And that command center must be in good working order for a human being to be able to function in the world with any reasonable degree of competency. The ego as self-organizing principle is neither positive nor negative; its function is mechanistic, and in that, it has no self nature. But there is another definition of ego— the ego in that definition has self nature. The human face of that ego is pride; is arrogant self-importance; is narcissistic self-infatuation; is the need to see oneself as being separate at all times, in all places, through all circumstances—and that ego is the unrelenting enemy of all that is truly wholesome in the human experience. " This kind of answered my question. A lot of times, frankness and speaking your truth, comes as arrogance and egoism to a lot of people. My introspection gives me data which says that, per the above definition of ego, I am egoistic if the first definition of ego is considered right and I am not egoistic if the second definition of ego is considered right. I could try to make every person I know, understand that I am not really an egoist, but then whats the point? I am really not trying to prove any point here. All I really am trying to say is, if speaking out my mind is egoism, then yes, I am an egoist. Similarly, if being assertive is egoism, then yes, I am an egoist. If standing up for myself is egoism, then yes I am an egoist. If defending myself when others treat me like a piece of crap, then yes I am an egoist. As humans, every single one of us is selfish. Afterall, that is why we are humans. Don't we remember, Darwin's theory? But sometimes, being focused and determined, is misinterpreted as being selfish. I believe that as long as you don't have an intent to harm anyone emotionally, mentally and physically to achieve your goals, you are not to be called self centered.
I never knew, that I would fall in love with little kids. When I was in my early teens,I used to always like to stay away from kids, except of course my younger bro. Slowly, the feeling changed as I grew. But recently I got a chance to spend an afternoon with second grade kids. Infact,I will be doing that every week till next summer I guess. :). I have to admit, when I was in the school with the kids, I forgot my worries,my stress and everything on my mind. I was supposed to teach about jobs and businesses to kids. What ended up happening was, as I was telling them things, I was letting them tell me little things about themselves. I loved to see that curiosity, that eagerness of kids to speak. I wanted to make sure, no kid was left out. And believe me, kids these days are really really smart,not sure, if I was as smart as these second grade kids when I was in second grade :P. As I was walking inside the school,looking for the classroom I was supposed to go to. I was slowly transported to my school days and it made me unbelievably happy and it took me a few minutes to realize that I was actually smiling all along the way. The days when I went to school alone and then the six years I went to school with my younger brother were like coming back to life. What I realized was that, it is so much fun to be with kids, because their love is unbiased and true. I cant wait to go back and visit them again. :)
One of my ex boyfriends, used to tell me this line " Dont give anyone more importance than what they deserve", during the short time period of our relationship. I later realized that I should have done the same for him. I probably had done for the most part, so when the relationship ended, neither was i broken, nor surprised. But there was one thing which he did, to completely sabotage my self confidence. Breaking up is a part of life, but there are nice ways of doing it, while leaving, he called me a liar, said that he had wasted all of his time on my problems though in reality, he never even had time to talk to me. For quite sometime, my mind believed what he said, though it was absolutely false. May be i was so shocked that I believed the crap i was told. It took my bff almost a year to get me out of that belief. This was just an example of how some loser in your life can shake the self confidence and self esteem you have. It is so easy to say that you have to be strong, and should not let anyone damage your self esteem. I was always one of the most confident and sharp persons who was loved by several people, may be still am ;). But some events like these can shake the base of the strongest of buildings too. However, I did recover and then as history repeats itself, a similar story took place in my life. But this time in the worst possible way. These things have made me wonder if it is worth loving someone? Is it worth showering affection on someone? The question that comes to my mind is am I not supposed to give up my ego completely for someone, but in the process dont I lose my self esteem. It has always been tricky. I havent found a solution to this issue. But one lesson I have learnt is that, ego will automatically hide itself for people who love us, and not who we love. If someone loves you truly, there would be no question of ego. But people who try to treat you like trash, dont deserve a very nice treatment. I used to be a follower of Gandhiji and probably still am for the most part and used to believe in loving all and hating no one. I have learnt now, u need not hate anyone, but you dont have to love everyone. That brings me to the line my ex bf told me, dont give anyone more importance than what they deserve. People who love you, value you and respect you deserve your importance, love, care and concern, but those who are trying to put you down are losers. You can try to love them, but remember it could cost you your sanity. I am not preaching tit for tat concept here. But I have come to learn that people who dont care about you are not worth your time, your thoughts.
Right from my childhood I have often suffered from this disease called insecurity. As a kid, when people teased me, I used to so often feel low about myself and feel I am not good enough. Thanks to my parents, later my brother and then of course my bff that during several phases of life everytime I felt insecure they were always with me, they still are.
I have tried hard to understand why people feel insecure, in particular, I paid attention to why I have always been insecure. At different times of introspections, I have gotten different answers to this question. Yet what I have come to realize is that, a lot of times rejections lead to insecurities. When people who were close leave your life and go, when someone rejects the person you are and when all efforts you put in to make someone happy ultimately yeild in nothing but tears, insecurity is natural. But what I have also come to learn from life is that, one of the best ways to get rid of insecurity is to accept first that you are insecure. This itself is like half battle won. When you have the guts to accept that you are insecure, smart thing to do would be to avoid any sources of insecurity. We always feel that we are not good enough for some people, but in the process, we forget that we are loved and liked for what we are by some people. It is these people who really care for you. I always try to be upfront about my insecurities, and most people try to run away from me when I talk about them, but there are some gutsy people who really care about me and stay with me and with time, they give me so much of confidence that, I forget insecurity with them.
This is one side of the puzzle, the other side though is to work within yourself to get rid of this beast. As i mentioned, acceptance is the first step. After that, remind yourself that you are worth everything and everyone. Remember god has made each of us with a purpose. Just because a bunch of losers make us feel low does not in anyway mean that we are bad or low or inferior. I am not going to say, look into the mirror and smile at yourself. But then remind yourself that afterall you are also like any other human being and deserve to be happy and loved and people who cannot love are people who have issues of their own. One thing insecure people always do is sulk from within and keep pitying their condition. Self pity has never ever helped anyone. These people eventually become so miserable that they live their lives with a fear. That reminds me of Po Bronson's line - Get rid of the fear factor, pursue your dreams. Easier said than done, but definitely not impossible. Surround yourself with positive thoughts and positive people. Remember you cannot be nice to everyone and cannot please everyone. If someone leaves you, that is not because you were not good enough, but because they were losers, who did not have the courage to be with you. People who really love you will never ever leave you and be with you, even when you are in the worst of your shapes.
I have also been always taught by some of my well wishers that sometimes, you can be happy with yourself and happiness does not have to come from the people around. I always get confused on this statement that happiness comes from within. But may be it really is true. Pursuit of happiness should probably begin from within.
The reason, I am writing this blog here today, is because after a lot of struggle, yet again today, I felt insecure and I had to go back to basics and convince myself that I am good enough and if someone ignores me then they can very well go hang themselves. Afterall we have this one life and all we want is to be happy.
As messed up as I always I am, I pose a hundred conditions to my parents when they talk about finding a guy to marry me off. Sometimes when I think about it, I cant help laughing at myself and my conditions. My first filter is the pictures of the guy, I would just tell my parents, dont even talk to me about a guy without is pictures. :P. The next filter is his writing abilities, which I feel tells me about his attitude, so if he messes up his about me section of his profile, there he goes, he gets rejected :). If a guy crosses these filters, next level is yakking with the guy on some instant msgr and again I believe a lot about a guy comes out when he yaks on the msgr. Thanks to my experiences with bfs, I safely assume, that I can find out pretty much a lot about a guy while i am chatting with me. Of course while IMing him, if he doesnt know what to talk and keeps saying, "so what else?", it is enough to piss me off. I always avoid that phrase, makes me feel that u r not capable of conversations. Mind you, I could of course be wrong. During the IMs i also check if the guy seems very desperate and if the guy knows how to talk to a girl. I can safely bet there are tons of guys who suck at that. Anyways, if a guy passes this stage, next filter is a phone conversation, again, the way a guy speaks on the phone speaks volumes of his conversation abilities and also his attitude and confidence. Past all these phases, the next thing obviously meeting the guy in person, because u see, photos could be deceiving. Well my experiences with matrimony are countable in number. In my case, most guys dont even make it to the IM phase. Couple of guys have crossed that phase and one turned out be a huge disaster...lets see whats in store for the future. :).
Oftentimes, I get to listen from my parents that I am arrogant, I am probably thinking too high about myself and blah blah for all my filters :P and they even ask me, how I would feel if I were to feel if I would get rejected. Honestly speaking, i dont think I will be pleased getting rejected, but see I am not that mean, i reject people before having a conversation with them, that way, everyone is happy. And what my parents dont understand or pretend not to understand is that of course like every human being, i have been rejected in many situations may be not particularly in a matrimony sort of thing. But yes I have been rejected. I hate being rejected but then now, I just tell myself, someone who rejects me is missing out on something :P. I am sure I am in for more fun in this whole matrimony business. Lets see what happens.
I am a die hard fan of Siddharth. So much that you will find his photo even on my cell phone as a screen saver. I am sure most of you all would agree that he is fine actor. I am not going to write this post yakking about which college Siddhu went to or how he became an assistant director to Mani Ratnam. As my blog's title says, Vanity is my favourite sin...:D...This post is just to make a mention that I am a big fan of Siddharth. Thats all.. :)
Wondering who this is? Or what am I trying to say here? Well Clingboy(CB) is a guy at my work place who yaks more than I do, now can u believe it? Well its true. Why is he called CB. Simple reason, he tries to cling too much and can test anyone's patience. Some people are often overly persisting in nature and they eventually tend to become very clingy. Like Dr. Lecter says, we covet what we see everyday, these people unknowingly start coveting. So wherever u go, u are bound to come across some people who would try to cling on to you. To a moderate extent it is ok and can be dealt with, but beyond a point, it is not fun. Just to get your attention for a minute atleast, these people would go to any extent. For example now, CB used to ping me day in and day out hoping to get my reply atleast once, he would constantly call me and leave me voice msgs, he would text me all the time. Oftentimes I have even felt, that he is crazy and keeps bugging me. But its sad but true that there are a lot of times any of us could become like this. There is a clingboy or clinggirl in each of us. It is just about how much control we have over our minds that decides whether or not the clingboy or clinggirl in us is going to come out or not. Talking of this, I just realized, how many times, I have myself done this to my bf and believe me it is not exciting or fun. It is actually painful. This just comes down to a previous post of mine where I was taking about craving for attention. Weirdly though, I have been realizing that I havent done much good to my relationship with my bf by being clingy. And I have just realized, the more attention you give to certain people, the more they take you for granted. Its simple, never give anyone more importance than what they deserve. As for CB, I am a little sorry for him, but sadly I cannot really help him. The moment there comes a CB or CG in his life, he would himself realize what he has been doing.
It is easy to day dream, it is easy to assume that life is very cool. However, have u ever been lonely? I am not talking about solitude. There is a fine line between solitude and loneliness. Sometimes I wonder how I could be lonely when I have caring parents and brother and some friends too. My parents and bro are great but are miles away. Isnt this enough to feel lonely? I think loneliness is at its peak when someone u want to listen to you, is not much interested in what you have to say to them, when u want to see someone, but that someone isnt as interested as u, when u want to hear someone speaking but that someone doesnt have much to say to you. Loneliness could drive you mad, could kill you, could do anything to you. I wish I could learn to enjoy the loneliness too. I have tried a lot many things which people are always ready to give me advice on. I am still all alone...
Day dreaming is really fun...remember it is a dream, so stop trying to bring any practicality into your dream. Po Bronson in his book says, 'Get rid of the fear factor, pursue your dreams.' Life is a bitch not because of all the several problems that we are made to fight every day, but also because we as human beings pose several bounds on ourselves and our lives, thanks to our 'society' for this. We keep bounding ourselves and we put bounds on our thoughts too and keep telling ourselves that a particular thing is 'supposed to be' a certain way. Have you ever thought about how much these mental bounds frustrate us. However I often try to let myself loose, by forcing these mental bounds to loosen up a little bit and try to look at things as is, than with the 'supposed to be' outlook. Oftentimes, it makes problems look simpler and lets you accept the situation or problem, which in most cases is the first step to conquering a problem. Sometimes I just close my eyes and visualize, I visualize all the things I had been expecting to be happening in my visualizations, and let my imagination loose and try to take off all my mental blocks and visualize peacefully. In my dreams and visualizations, I rule the world, everything happens the way I want, there is no place for sadness, because there is no place for practicality in my dreams. After sometime, I feel much better, I feel lighter and something you would be surprised to hear about also happens. I realize all these visualizations of mine were too good to be true, in real world, things arent so easy, but since my dreams and visualizations calmed me down, now I look at my problem with a more relaxed outlook and it feels much more easy and not so life destructing. That was a fun part of dreaming, however some great minds visualize things and come up with some of the best ideas in the world. I long back visualized several little things I have achieved in my life and believe me it definitely helps. So breakfree today, dare to dream, dreaming is a lot of fun and tons of relaxation.
This question has always popped up in my mind. I have seen people having affairs at varying stages in life and at various ages. One of my ex boyfriends was seeing several girls at the same time. Till today I have not been able to understand what he was trying to accomplish. I tried researching and as a part of my research, I even asked this question to a lot of people i know - "Why would you have an extra affair if u r given a chance to have that?". I have gotten various types of answers for this. Some people have said for sex, some for attention, some for fun, some just to wreak vengeance on their partner who might have been constantly hurting them, some for forgetting the issues they have in their marriage life etc etc. But in essense the most commonly heard reason was- Attention-Lack of Attention. I often wonder as human beings we all expect a lot of attention, however why is it that sometimes we are pushed so much to crave attention and go to any extent to get that attention. I really am no exception to this, I crave attention, tons of it. I crave a lot of attention from my boyfriend and there have been times when I have gone mad with rage when he didnt give that attention to me. When I am much more calmer and think about all this, so many people like me who crave for attention are actually very insecure deep inside, and keep looking for approvals and assurances from others, however think about it calmly, one doesnt need other people's approval or assurance, I agree it definitely helps, but I am sure we can assure ourselves. Life is too short to keep trying to live other people's lives, live your own life, assure yourself, u need approval from urself and not others.
Yes it is so true. We are all messed up, we are all selfish. Some of us have the guts to admit it, while most of keep looking for excuses or things to blame. The other day, one of my co-workers at office was just telling me about the blame game that we play all the time. His point was that when we blame others, we are basically trying to hide some characteristic or some fear of ours which we are unable to deal with. Absolutely right it is. Sometimes we blame others, sometimes we blame god, sometimes time, sometimes situations, sometimes the past and just everything possible. Truly what we are running away from is just our own conscience. While rarely some of us are bold enough to accept our mistakes and take the blame on us for mistakes. But most people I have seen all through my life are the ones who would try to blame you for everything. It is as simple as this, we all are messed up, and we have our issues. What is the point in blaming others or anything for that matter for something that has already taken place, if you can take control take it or just let things happen. But there are also some people who are completely the other way around. They tend to blame themselves for everything happening around them and happening to them, these are people who are in some way depressed. Either way, blame game is either going to depress you or someone closely connected to you. So I have just begun to realize rather than blame anything, instead I could face it, face the reality, face the situation and take ownership for it, if it is something under my control, otherwise, just let things pass me like a passing cloud. Life is too precious to play the blame game.
“Don’t be a prisoner of your past, be an architect of your future. “
Robin Sharma
Sometimes life leaves us with limited choices and it is difficult to choose between those limited choices. But the goal is ultimately to get going. If you can’t really have what you like then probably the best thing to do would be to like what you have. Some years back I was in an HR training session, and heard about this whole concept of how to distinguish between success and happiness. Success was defined as getting what you like and Happiness was defined as liking what you get. What I am trying to learn and eventually accomplish is to make peace with my past, be happy with my present and aim to succeed in my future.
All these things are easier said than done. Some past events or relationships leave deep wounds on our minds and hearts. With time, they do have to slowly vanish, which is nature’s rule. But then the scars are left behind. While some people find it really easy to move on, some take a few days, some take weeks, some take months or years, and there are also people who take literally lifelong to get over their past and move on. Although it is not easy to get over an unpleasant or traumatic past, however, it is not far from possible.
Most of the times, past events tend to make our mind form certain paradigms, which may or may not be actually true. Sometimes these paradigms could be absolute illusions and nothing else. A kid who has been abused sexually during childhood, with time forms a paradigm in his/her mind that all people of the opposite gender are abusive in nature and feels insecure. Similarly, sometimes even parents do this, a child who has not been a good student during childhood is not many a times encouraged and criticized all the time , this is because of their paradigm. People who have had bad relationships have their own paradigms with time. Even I am myself one example of that. A lot of my friends stopped talking to me without even telling me why. I gradually formed a paradigm that friends are people who will not stay with you but will vanish suddenly when you need them. Similarly, I have seen people who have paradigms that if I have they been dumped once or twice, every next person in their life will also dump them.
A child who is scolded for not scoring high in exams initially feels sad, but he is hurt more when he is compared with another fellow classmate. Over a period of time, child eventually starts thinking in relative terms than absolute terms. Every time if other kids are appreciated for something, the kid starts thinking that he is not worthy of appreciation and he is not capable of it. Meaning, the kid starts to take things more personally and develops an inferiority complex.
It is true wounds that the past leaves on us psychologically can make us wary, but one thing I have seen is, all these paradigms are not true most of the time and eventually we are the losers. Past events are more to be used as steps to success. Experience makes a man better. There is really no better teacher than experience. The biggest risk in life is not taking any risk at all. That being the case, once we understand that it is nature’s rule that for every good there is a bad, for every right, there is a wrong. Even Newton’s law says this, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Brooding over something that has already occurred is going to take you nowhere.
Many a times, our hanging on to the past affects, not just us, but also the people around us. By not moving ahead, we sometimes hold others too from moving on. It is sad but very true. Truly hanging on to the past is like hanging on to a disease. A wound whether physical or emotional has to be healed. It is not always the best option to leave it to time to heal it. We can take steps to heal our emotional wounds.
A mistake that most of us make is that we generalize events of the past. If a girl dumps a guy, the guy generalizes that all girls are the same; they would dump men and go. If one girl does that, not all girls have to do that. It is extremely unfair to generalize the character of all girls based on the character or rather an act of a single girl. If there is a bad girl, there would definitely be a good girl too. But by the generalization, the girls are not losing anything; the guy is missing some girl who might actually make a perfect match for him. Similarly, a person who failed in something a few times eventually decides, these grapes are sour.
Unpleasant past also can sometimes make a person judgmental. But just stop and think, is it fair enough? Typically when we tend to blame others for something,most often, we are trying to hide or run away from some mistake or some negative characteristic of ours. The habit of blaming others or time is something very common for a person affected by the past. Blame game is going to get you nowhere. Making peace with the past is not easy. But as I said, it is definitely possible. Some people say, accept your past. Accept it, let past thoughts just pass through your mind like clouds. But I know when you are depressed, you tend to have what is called a monkey mind.
मनकीगतिवायुसेभीअधिकहै
Mind wanders, jumps from one thought to another. Sometimes, one thought leads to another and so on, a chain of thoughts is formed. It could be overwhelming. But with time, one can definitely do it, provided, he has the will to overcome the past. I always tell people, I laugh at my past. Though deep somewhere in my heart, there are wounds which have left me deeply hurt. But I have really seen this work for me. The more I talk about making fun of it, the better I feel. It is a paradoxical thing. When you are over your past, you can laugh about it, and when you can laugh about your past, you can overcome it easily.
Different people will tell you different things, some people will say, just go into the deep roots of the past, and find out what exactly is the problem. Most of the talk therapies will involve this. Meanwhile, some people will tell you, stop thinking about past, just move, replace thoughts of the past with thoughts of present or future. Choice is completely ours. However, once you accept your past, laugh at it. It is all yours. One need not have to forget the past. You just need to change the way you look at it. Think of it as a valuable experience. If the past is such an irritating specimen, what is the point in letting the past rule you. After all it is a free world, free will. Don’t let your past rule you, gain control over your past. This minute is going to become past for the next minute, so try to make the best of each present moment rather than brooding over the past. Past is long gone, and every current moment is a gift, that is why it is called Present.
