If I'm good....!

I am a Hindu?

If I am good, I’m a good Hindu...!

If I am bad, I’m not a Hindu...?!

To make it secular...,

I am a Muslim?

If I am good, I’m a good Muslim...!

If I am bad, I’m not a Muslim...?!

To make it more secular...,

I am a Christian?

If I am good, I’m a good Christian...!

If I am bad, I’m not a Christian...?!

To make it further more secular...,

I am a -----?

If I am good, I’m a good -----!

If I am bad, I’m not a -----?!

To sum up logically,

Being a Hindu, a Muslim, a Christian, or a ----

Can never make me good!

Instead, if I am good

I can be .....any!

Is self love only physical?

You know those times when you're feel you're just not good enough? That you're just another 'average' girl?
Leave alone turning heads, you're too afraid to even look at yourself in the mirror.
You try too hard to look 'appealing'- from all that makeup, to those failed crash diets, but eventually, you give up.
You tell and scream at the top of your voice,
You cry and roll around your bed at night, looking at the photos of all those "pretty" girls, if only, you could look like that,
If only you could pull off that red lipstick and that skinny dress,
If only you could, may be, turn a few heads...
The world would be a perfect place to live in, wouldn't it?

But darling, what is stopping you?
You like that lipstick shade? Put it on.
You like that dress? C'mon, try it. I'm sure you'll look amazing.
You don't like your body? Go on hit the gym.
And don't stop till you fall in love with yourself.
Don't give up till your can't stop admiring yourself in front of the mirror.

Physical beauty is surely overrated, but if that's what gives you bouts of confidence, if that is what starts your journey of "self love", go and get it.

How to be Happy:101

Most of us don't remember much of our childhood, neither do I.
But sometimes, when I see children spinning the top, ("lattu" as we used to call it) competing who's will fall the last, or when I see their fathers pushing their swings, helping them to reach the highest, and the child stretching her hand to touch the sky, 
When I see mothers dressing up my younger cousins for school, tucking their school uniform in place,
when I see kids sharing their lunch, and the one with the maggi in his tiffin, is the one with who doesn't get to eat any..
When I see all this, you know, I live my childhood moments again. 
Looking at kids, observing them, I'm always like, "oh yes, we used to do this too", or like "oh wow, I remember playing musical chairs. It's still my favourite game." 
This is one of the very few reasons I love kids. This is the reason I am reminded of happiness’s true nature.

Happiness comes from all the small things which build up on each other.

The moments and memories which define our happiness are played on an endless loop in our heads. We share them with our close ones, but we seldom bring them up. They stay in our heart, pure and untouched.

Don’t wait for others to make you happy. Happiness comes from within you. Only then will it last longer and not be a passing phase. Happiness is achieved when you stop waiting for it and make the most of the moment you are in now.

Churchill and The Timid Souls

            Born in the leisure class in the English society, Winston Churchill wasn’t really expected to do anything extraordinary. Boy, did he prove them wrong… Many of us know Winston Churchill as the revolutionary and awe-inspiring Prime Minister who led the United Kingdom to victory during World War 2.  But just like any other hero, Churchill too has his origin story. One that paints the picture of a pitiable little boy and his years growing into a determined young man who swore his life and fealty to Her Majesty, the Queen.

            As a child, Churchill was neglected, ridiculed and misused by friends and family alike. He didn’t have the physical strength or the towering stature the typical hero. He was in charge of the British navy in the First World War and, after a major defeat, was removed from office and had to endure almost 20 years of rejection of his political views. He also suffered some very low times but never doubted his beliefs.

            However, when Germany swept through Europe in the Second World War, his political views were proven right and people turned to him as the most eligible candidate to Britain’s Prime Minister during the time of war. In his time as Prime Minister, he showed staggering moral and physical bravery by putting himself in harm’s way over and over again in the battlefield.

            In another continent, there was a peculiar society that blossom amidst the chaos and carnage dealt by the world due to the Second World War; it was called the Society of the Timid Souls. Back in January 1942, a notice appeared in the New York Times, invited timid musicians to a Manhattan apartment to play, criticize and be criticized. The Society of Timid Soul, created by concert pianist Bernard Gabriel would meet every first and third Sunday of the month with the sole purpose of helping its stage-shy members become brave. The interesting part of this event was that the society was created less than a month after Pearl Harbour was attacked and the USA officially joined the War.

            Gabriel’s sole interest was to overcome stage fright and so they practised and practised and practised… even though the world outside the Manhattan apartment was at War.

            Both these instances show a rare and fascinating display of courage in the times of violence. Regarding this, the question remains; is courage can be truly learned or is it inherent? Can it brought out by other attributes like grit or passion, or is it something that only certain people possess, akin to blonde hair or blue eyes?

     

           

            

The Demons of My Past

Everyone has one of these, don’t they? Demons of their past… Sounds so dark and poignant. Something only the male protagonist of a Mills and Boon novel can have. But let’s not knock it about, shall we? Because that was what they were like when my teeny tiny adolescent self was battling them. They were dark (not the racist kind), shape changing, with talons and fangs and, with glowering eyes. Compared to them, the “monsters” in my closet and under my bed were like the baby loony toons.

It was anti-climactic, the way I had one of the most crucial revelations in this short life of mine, and that was; Humans are the scariest species ever to walk to face of the Earth. Not the giant felines or canines. Nor the creatures of the night. Nor angels or demons. Why? Because animals only ever one side to themselves. There is a predictability to their behaviour. An angels is only meant to be the messenger of God and the symbol of goodness. And demons are only ever meant to be evil.

But humans are like onions; they have too many layers to them and they always make you cry. My demons were these onion-y humans. Only humans have the ability to change character and personality at will, putting on and discarding masks without a moment’s hesitation. It is only now that I find it fascinating, but back then I thought I was thrown in Hell.

Helping hands turned into taloned claws, smiles turned into mouths baring fangs, acknowledging eyes turned into cutting, judgemental glares that I couldn’t escape from. It was all too confusing to me as to why people were behaving the way they were when I had done nothing to them. I could never understand why the world was so intent on snuffing out innocence and goodness.

Ultimately, I was able to push through the maelstrom of malice and walk into the light scarred, bruised but freshly enlightened. However, though, I managed to get away from the part of my life, I began to hate my scars and the ones that inflicted them upon me. This hate later extrapolated to the human population in general.

I was okay with that, though. Not getting close to anyone, learning to loving to be alone with myself, and not depending upon anyone for anything- until I started college. When I came to Christ, I walked into a classroom of 100 young, bustling minds. 100 more people to hate. Yay! But as time progressed, I realized some people didn’t deserve the hate I was so blindly putting on them. Some claimed that I was important to them despite my prickly personality which got me thinking; was I really doing the right thing?

It didn’t take long for me to find an answer. I knew I had to leave the unpleasant memories of my past behind if I truly wanted to enjoy my present and my present. I gad give the people close to me a chance to get to know the real me and give myself the chance to get to know them. I had to be exempted from asking myself why I couldn’t handle the past with more sense, with more grace. Why wasn’t I grown up enough to face and fight the battle instead of running away and crying my eyes in a counselling room? Why was I so hung up on victim blaming?

Forgiveness is a difficult thing to achieve. To accept the fact that I was a victim and I had nothing to answer for, whilst at the time try to understand the motives of my demons and empathize with them was an idea not only foreign to me but it was also unthinkable.

To me forgiveness was weakness and absolutely unnecessary. The rage and mistrust that was birthed within as a result of my experiences in school, worked as a convenient wall and weapon that I could lash out with whenever boundaries were pushed. Sadly enough, I was aware of this, but sitting inside that wall, sizzling in my self-loathing and hatred, I found that I’d rather wallow in this unbearable yet familiar heat rather than explore the unfamiliar and the potentially/ hurtful world.

But in an anti-climactic turn of events, I find myself pondering over the articles I have to write for my assignments and all I can think of are my family and friends. Though I cannot say that I trust them with my heart, I can say that I give more than the benefit of doubt.

As for my demons, all I had to do was RIDDIKULUS!

The black shapes, talon and fangs morphed into fat, pink-cheeked naked cherubs that I blew kisses to from time to time. 

Searching for Adventure

I wanted to do one thing after completing my school.

Leave, and never look back.

I was tired of Bangalore, tired of my friends and tired of my home.

I wanted adventure and for me the only possibility of finding that adventure lay outside this city, this country if possible.

~

Well... things did not go as I had planned. I found myself going to the one place I had promised myself I would never step into. That first year of college was the hardest. I felt stuck, trapped and resigned myself to spending the next three years in the same old city, with none of that adventure in my agenda. I mean, it’s Bangalore and the same college I had passed by a hundred times during my years living here. What new could possibly be here?

And, with those thoughts, well, I pushed myself into this place filled with negativity, self-pity and darkness. Thing is, I was so convinced that I could not find “adventure” here that I stopped looking for it. I was not even trying. For me, this college was the end of the road. A symbol of my failure to fight for things that I wanted.

It took me a long time to stop blaming my parents, who I saw as only holding me back because of their selfish desire for me to stay with them. It took even longer for me to stop blaming myself. Maybe if I had studied harder before my exams instead of secretly reading books I would have done better and gotten into other universities.

~

And I slowly realized that I had forgotten one important thing in this entire ordeal – that everything depended on me and was, at the end of the day, my choice. I could decide what I wanted to do next, be it sit around and mope or actually get up and do something, and I slowly started choosing the latter.

I had just assumed that there would be nothing for me here and I hadn’t even tried to find that adventure that I had longed for, that I had forgotten, stuck in a gloomy bubble of despondency.

~

I could find that adventure and happiness in Bangalore, inside my house even, if I wanted to and searched for it.

~

In resigning myself to my future, I forgot that cheerful and positive girl that I was and become so very jaded and cynical, someone who I’d never been. And it was up to me to change that.

~~

Being a Positive Child

We always read articles, excerpts and tips on effective parenting and different styles of parenting. These articles are usually directed towards the attitudes of parents criticizing, complaining, comparing and are sarcasm and often catastrophizing when the children do something that they don’t approve of. Such acts are said to seed anger, despair, hatred, fear and violence in them. The articles provide parents with advice and suggestions about dealing with children such that the qualities of inferiority and temper are not inculcated in them.

However, little have I seen being written about how a child should be. And I am not talking about the moral science articles that instruct the child to be good and obedient. I am talking about the attitude of a child especially from the age of young adulthood, helping and nurturing the parents as they go through their middle age crisis adjusting with the ever changing new world, trying to make a mark. 
My mother had taken a long break from her work to help me with my school work for about ten years. When she finally decided to get back out there to work, she had conflicting feelings about her ability and competency. This hiked especially when she was offered a better job at another place, which was a great opportunity for her growth but she had to leave the comfort and familiarity of the place where she was working at that time. And what she required was a dose of reassurance and support to boost her confidence to go forward and do something that she knew she could do. And that reassurance coming from a trusted, familiar source, her child, who in her eyes, has more energy, capability and knowledge of the current technological and work driven world, played a huge part in her decision.

We always look at parents as the ones who need to take care of children and help them grow to be a strong and confident individual and when they grow old, the children are expected to take care of their parents. However, the role of the child in the growth of the parent as an individual is never keenly looked upon. Age usually tends to affect the confidence of a person about being relevant, purposeful and productive. As the children grow, parents tend to rely on the support, physical or moral, to keep them going, working in the evolving world and facing the challenges it poses as they strive to accomplish more and reach a place where they feel productive, strong and happy about themselves. Even a word of appreciation, consideration and suggestion from the child provides them with a new confidence to explore about themselves and the world, which I think they deserve. And we owe it to them. 

Being a Positive Child

We always read articles, excerpts and tips on effective parenting and different styles of parenting. These articles are usually directed towards the attitudes of parents criticizing, complaining, comparing and are sarcasm and often catastrophizing when the children do something that they don’t approve of. Such acts are said to seed anger, despair, hatred, fear and violence in them. The articles provide parents with advice and suggestions about dealing with children such that the qualities of inferiority and temper are not inculcated in them.

However, little have I seen being written about how a child should be. And I am not talking about the moral science articles that instruct the child to be good and obedient. I am talking about the attitude of a child especially from the age of young adulthood helping and nurturing the parents as they go through their middle age crisis adjusting with the ever changing new world, trying to make a mark. My mother had taken a long break from her work to help me with my school work for about ten years. When she finally decided to get back out there to work, she had conflicting feelings about her ability and competency. This hiked especially when she was offered a better job at another place, which was a great opportunity for her growth but she had to leave the comfort and familiarity of the place where she was working at that time. And what she required was a dose of reassurance and support to boost her confidence to go forward and do something that she knew she could do. And that reassurance coming from a trusted, familiar source, her child, who in her eyes, has more energy, capability and knowledge of the current technological world played a huge part in her decision.

We always look at parents as the ones who need to take care of children and help them grow to be a strong and confident individual and when they grow old, the children are expected to take care of their parents. However, the role of the child in the growth of the parent as an individual is never keenly looked upon. Age usually tends to affect the confidence of a person about being relevant, purposeful and productive. As the children grow, parents tend to rely on the support, physical or moral, to keep them going, working in the evolving world and facing the challenges it poses as they strive to accomplish more and reach a place where they feel productive, strong and feel happy about themselves. Even a word of appreciation and suggestion from the child provides them with new confidence to explore themselves and the world, which I think they deserve. And we owe it to them. 

Tiptoeing on the line

Sitting in my chair, here writing this when sleep, friends and work call out to me, I think to myself – is all of this worth it? My friends don’t like me anymore, work keeps getting brutal, academics go on as if nothing has changed and all my other commitments almost always make me choose a side. And I finally realise the power and influence that something like sleep can have on you. Cause for any person in such a situation, this is an answer that can satisfy the only possible selfish desire you have at this point – physiological ones in nature. Now do not get me wrong – I know a lot of this has to do with communication, assertiveness, confidence etc. But doing it in front of those you care about, those you value and appreciate for their opinions and to the responsibilities you have can truly cripple a person. The simple reason rests on the fact that you care about each of them independently, in different contexts and different situations. But they all believe that your care is shown over one more than the other. And the other reason is because your arrogance and stubbornness tells you that you can handle it. That there is no obstacle such as time and space. That you can be everywhere and so you promise this to everyone. Forward to two weeks, and you’ve never felt this afraid, this tired, this sad. The only person you can blame is yourself. Their comments on you seem so right.

I have a lot of things left to do for a lot of reasons and for a lot of people. Simply put, sleep seems the only reasonable thing that I can do without any adverse consequences and even this is getting cut short by the demands that emerge every day. They believe I can be there for them and take care of these things. That I am some sort of saviour who can change things because of my presence and concern. I never liked to admit it when my parents told me that people find it easy to use me cause I like to take responsibility for a person’s life once they ask me for help. All these were once boasts I could make, but now they are hoarse words, that have landed me in a pool filled with different deadly animals that can pounce for any number of people. The biggest difficulty here I learnt is the need of practical application of work-life balance in the context of each person, when they realise that all these concepts they learnt in the books do not matter for zilch. I can remember all the points and the importance and the techniques that have always been there to help the blossoming adolescent make the best of his/her life and help groom him/her to become a successful young adult in a very intense world. But did anyone ever tell them how difficult it is to say no, or to allocate the care that comes from your heart to people?

These things mostly come with age, my mother tells me. Nowadays, whenever I do get the time, my parents fill up the void with gyaan and advice. I can’t say no so I listen. And I hear more conceptual knowledge that can really get nods from people who have never gone through it or not so at least at that point of head-nodding. I realised that even though my mom has gone through these moments before (and I faced the brunt of it when it did happen), her advice was limited to concepts not because she was ignorant or forgetful, but because we are never fully taught how to articulate our feelings and thoughts during those moments into words, ideas and principles. It is like a disease that comes, we seek treatment and it goes, not realising the role the medicine played, the relaxation helped and what our body did. Such knowledge is crucial because it forms the basis for our advice that we give to others.

If I needed conventional advice like the ones all of them give me to do away with my justifications, reasons and defences (cause what else do I have at this point left?) I could just resort to reading random quotes by great authors on these topics that mean as much as roadside excretion does to the average walker (only noticeable when it’s around; never a permanent thought). None of them have provided advice on the exact hell you can go through or the actual, real-life actions that can be done to help you get through this. And at this point I realised that all the advice I have learnt and have also given is the same – useless gyaan that works best only in the plane of words and ideas and never through action or construction. It was an enlightening experience. A good work-life balance is obviously a must. It has benefits and boons that most moral science textbooks let only positive psychology texts can tell you. But how to get there is often a topic that remains shady because most books either focus on vague abstract concepts and ideas, or they focus on research – both an attempt to secure n audience and not to seem so extreme.

This fear has always been the problem with most advice givers. Including myself into this category, it is safe to say that they are scared of alienating or frustrating people with answers that may not work by giving answers that do not work but tell you that doing something will definitely work. What help is that going to do when I have to sit here reflecting all the learnings I have and ensure that those around me never have to go through this same hell that I went through. That I have to come up with actual actions that may or may not work at least giving clarity and concreteness to those around me. And with this realisation, I say adieu to this blog and to the bond we have established over this semester. It has been a cathartic and transformative experience to write about applying positive psychology in your life and how its concepts are so relevant to us. I thank the reader for sticking with me through this and hope any learning experience that can be gleaned from this is helpful and if nothing as such can or did not happen, then at least some enjoyment was there. I must now go back to the real world and seek answers to more questions, answers that can truly change lives by pointing people towards actions rather than more thoughts. 

Learning to Forgive

I have never been a forgiving person and as a child I was completely ignorant to the power of forgiveness. It is not that I actively disliked the transgressor, but I did hold grudges and pretended like the other person didn’t exist. I never had the desire to seek revenge, nor did I wish to harm my transgressors in any manner. According to me they didn’t owe me anything and hence they did not have to be nice to me.

Fast forward a couple of years I realised that this form of coping, did not work so well when one wanted to create strong and long-lasting bonds. During my second year in college I started living with my sister. It had been a couple of years since we had lived together and as children we did routinely fight, but it never transpired into anything major. As young adults a lot had changed. It wasn’t just that our ideas of running a house were different, but that we had a different world view. As a result, we hit a lot of road blocks and faced many differences. In these conflicts, I really couldn’t ‘run away’ from forgiveness as I was never going to be physically relocated from her presence. She was a constant and I wanted her to be one. This was an individual transgressor who I could not forget or hold a grudge against. By learning to let go of small things and forgiving her for the big ones (she had to do the same with me), our relationship became a lot more open and comfortable. This process really helped me in other situations where I had previously not been so forgiving. So I tried to make a change in the way I handle sour relations. For a period of time I attempted to seek out individuals who I had completely shut out of my life and gave them a prompt invitation back in. It was tough and many just ignored my attempts at reconciliation, nevertheless I did grow as a person.

Today I am happy to say that I practice forgiving whenever the situation asks for it, hoping others will do the same, cause we all transgress at one point or another.