Be Kind To Yourself

From my childhood, my mother taught me how to talk to elders, how to not be rude to people, how to treat everyone with respect and so much more about how to treat others. I think except on the days I have woken up on the wrong side of the bed, I am generally pleasant, respectful and good to others (I think, at least in my head). But the recent days I have come to a realization. Parents, teachers, our mentors or whoever is giving us a lesson gives it from their perspective on how to behave in a society. All that is good. We live in a civilized society. We cannot function without each other and we cannot live our daily lives without other people supporting us through it. No matter how self sustaining you think you are, everyone needs at least one other person to help them out even in a small way. But you also need yourself – to work through the things in your life, to be a sane civilized human being in the society, to exist.

So everyone you meet in your every day life, they teach you something, anything, even if it is a very small thing, it is something. But, the thing that people don’t teach you is – how to be kind to yourself. They really don’t. And times when you really need to be respectful to yourself – you dive into self loathing, self criticism, hatred for oneself, injuring yourself, eating foods that don’t help you in any damn way, hurting yourself in ways you and only you know would hurt you the most. Nobody teaches you how to take care of yourself. All the self help articles, medical professionals and counselors everyone talks about taking your time, doing things that help you heal and talking about it to someone. So many, many, many things to try and heal. All that is great advice but it is not tailored advice. It never is. It is again, from their perspective things that “might” help you which have helped others. Others who have been kind enough to listen to others. Others who have taken their time to heal. Others who have learnt somewhere along the way to be kind to themselves.

You would think it would be common practice to be kind to oneself. I have realized it is not. As much as we like to blame others out loud or show our anger on others, our inner conscience knows who’s at fault really. Every scenario, every situation in life, there comes a point where everyone thinks, was there something I could have done. Why did I do something the way I did. What is wrong with me. I wish I could have done it differently. It is an easy question to ask yourself. Very easy because there is no one else to negate it or question it or say yes you are at fault. Retrospectively, you know you could have done better because you have had all the time in the world to think of alternate solutions and other ways a problem could have been solved or how things could have worked out differently, but given a time machine to send you back to that moment and given the information you had at the time you made your decision, you would still make the same choices and do what you did. That is how humans work. That is how time works.

I am not here to pour out some long drawn out advice because I have none. I am still struggling with how to be kind to myself. I still don’t know how to tell myself it is okay to make mistakes, how to not be so self critical that I lose my sanity, how to not blame myself for every little thing not going my way. This big rant right here, is my frustration that I never learnt how to be kind to myself. I never learnt how to not be angry with myself for everything. I never learnt how to let go and just be.

The funny part is, no matter how much you blame yourself, you continue to exist and live and move on and continue to face things you fear. So why not do it with some courage. Why not do it with some self love. Why not do it with the fact that you and only you can hold yourself and pull yourself up. Because time never stops and neither do you. Time will make people and memories fade away from your life but not how you feel about yourself. So why let that time move on with so much self hatred? You have an entire life to live with yourself. Be kind to yourself.

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Thought for the Day – Chocolate!

Oh are you my best friend? I have never really given it a thought until now! You are there when I am happy. You are there when I am sad. You are there when I am already perked up. You are there when I feel crappy. Doctors might say you are just causing biological reactions in my body. I say so what? You are the catalyst with who I have a lifelong friendship. Oh Chocolate what would I do without you ?

Mindhunter! (Spoiler Alert)

I am a very positive person. I try to be. Always see the brighter side of things, stay happy life is short. Yada yada yada. But everyone has a dark side or a side that they want to suppress or want to change or improve or avoid and that side does sneak out once in a while and it is natural. I was completely aware of mine and so as one of the fixes I never watched movies or series that were emotionally disturbing or the ones that made me cry. Because I have news and documentaries for dose of reality, I do not want my movies and series shoving it down my throat when I watch them for entertainment and thrill. (Heads up – not bashing Mindhunter but beware of spoilers)

There is that difference between movies and series. A 2 hour movie takes you into a different world for a short span. Doesn’t matter if it is fantasy, reality, fiction or drama. A series grows on you. You live with the character you most connect to. You live with them, grow with them, fall with them and evolve into their world for that period of time. A series lingers in your mind more than you think it would. Personally, I avoid disturbing or very dark reality based stories and also try to avoid detailed reviews before I watch something so that the element of surprise exists when I watch anything. That is how I started watching Mindhunter (thinking it was a cop based reality story and also it had very good reviews). And it is good. Absolutely no complains about the series, the cast, the story line, the direction or anything else. It is the content that bothered me. Most of us want to be a good person, be the person who brings a change to the society, be that person who helps someone in need and always so much more. I have always wanted to be a special agent in my alternate reality, even a superhero sometimes (which superhero discussion alone should be a separate article on its own!). So that is how I connected to the story from the starting. Two FBI agents trying to help people and make a change. I evolved with Holden Ford and Bill Trench. I saw myself in their shoes. I interviewed criminals with them, I played back the interview to see how I could have done it differently, what do I infer from what they said. Maybe it was the narrative’s dominance to portray the world around Ford that made me connect to him more than Trench or maybe it was the something else I don’t know but I unconsciously evolved with Ford.

Trench was different. Different from Ford. He was able to vent the negativity and frustration out of his system to his wife. He understood what the job was doing to him and the creators put it beautifully how he broke down and rose again from that. I understood his side of the story but I continued watching the series and I could never break myself from the things happening and so the heaviness I was seeing kept wearing me down. At the end of few episodes I could feel it in me. I could literally experience the darkness of the crimes and the people committing them grow in Ford and me. It was disturbing. By the end of it, seeing Ford break down I could feel my world falling apart. I could not eat or sleep properly that night. I vented out to my brother and friends (thinking it would help) but no (trying to vent now not even sure if it is helping me). I grew more miserable. It was wrong. It was all wrong.

I did watch news every day, I am connected to the real world and know what is happening around me. I have read about worse things than the crimes shown in Mindhunter but have never been so disturbed. The reason this series disturbed me was the detailing and the actual emotional side of things. Why we do what we do. I have always known us as the most intelligent species. We have done unbelievable things through the period of time. We could be so much more and yet… we let power, greed, lust rule us. Control us. Turn us into monsters. We as humans are collectively destroying our own existence on this planet. Even animals treat their species in a better way. Way better than how we treat each other – so much hostility. All boils down to why we do what we do. I am not going to talk about philosophy of it, the psychology of it or why we do it. There are tons of books that do it. I just want to be that hopeful person again that felt the world could be a better place to live in. If I tried to be a better human being that would spread to the people with me and so on. We are so much more than animals and monsters. All we need is that one second pause to think is it worth it to have so much negativity? Is it worth hurting someone else for our pleasures? Is it really worth it to blame someone else for our doings?

Take everything as a learning, promise yourself to be better, brush it off, broaden your sight, have a new positive perspective and have a fresh start. That is all we need. And we have already made the world a better place to live in.

I can either go on whining or quit being a baby and do something about it.  Would I watch Mindhunter season 2? I might. Would I be so affected by it? I might be. Would I break down because of it? Probably not. Everyone brings out the dark side differently and I surely have found my way of coping with it 🙂 And who said writing doesn’t help 🙂

Unfair Life – Suicides and more suicides

Why do people commit suicide? The news gives you information like failed in an exam – took their life, failed love story – took their life, unable to pay back a loan – took their life. You begin to wonder – who gave them the permission to take their life? You can ask who am I to judge? I have seen people going through worse things in life and fighting through it. I have seen people in their last breaths struggling to stay alive and praying that some miracle would save them and give them back their life. I have gone through times when I have wanted to do the same and I am still here. And I am seeing people take their own life without thinking about anyone else around them. Why? You have it doesn’t mean you own it!

What point in your life’s miseries does it become okay to commit suicide? Who am I to say you must live with your problems and fight through it just to die some day? Am I talking about people who have real shitty problems they cannot get out of? If I am going to be raped by 20 people, would I rather kill myself or go through that hell? That is a hypothetical scenario (which actually happens in some parts of the world! that is a completely different topic of discussion…) but you see my point. I am just an onlooker you might think, an onlooker who has no idea what the person is actually going through to make them take that decision. Just an onlooker but I am also a human being who is scarred for life seeing another human being die. It might be the way of life but does it make it any less painful? It’s like saying, you KNOW the pan is very hot so it should not hurt you when you hold it. Maybe it is “to each their own”. And maybe I have to make peace with things that this is the way of the world. But I cannot stop thinking is there no way to reduce this? We are human beings who are flying into space right now – do we not have a solution for this?

Humans are compassionate people. Most of us want to help others to the best of our ability. Could the person committing suicide not find one human being to talk to and find a solution to their problem? Not one person? Our world’s population is ever increasing by the day. We have helplines and therapists sitting in offices to listen to people and their problems. Tons of inspirational amazing books that can get you through some really tough times. We have million ways of entertainment that provide distraction. We have million places where you can go and get some peace of mind. I don’t know do they try everything in their power to be happy before making the ultimate decision? How does losing one battle push them to think they have lost the war? Maybe I am the one who is not able to understand and being naive.

My grudge is with people who commit suicide for reasons that are fixable (maybe not immediately but at some point) and scar everyone else around them for the rest of their living lives. Suicide in public places. Watching a person jump out of a building. Watching a person jump in front of a train. Why? Would you want to be the person standing and watching a person fall from a building and stand there helplessly? Would you want to be the person driving a train/bus when another human being jumps in front of it and have to live with it for the rest of your life? Think about it. Do you want to be in that spot? I bet you wouldn’t want it. Then why would you put others through it by doing the exact same damn thing. You want to end the life you have do it in a room where no one can reach you and have the courtesy of calling a hospital before you die so that it makes it easy for the people around you.

Again, who am I to judge! All I can do is vent and get it out of my system and spread a tiny bit of awareness that suicide is not the answer to every problem and there are people in this world who can help. I am not trying to be insensitive here about the people who have taken their life. I just want to call out to those who want to – to try everything in your power to fight it out before you completely give up. Reach out for help, talk to your family and friends, talk to whoever you trust – someone will definitely help. If possible have some courtesy towards other fellow human beings by not committing suicide in public places where children and people weak of heart end up seeing it. It is not a pretty sight.

Life is always unfair isn’t it? If life is unfair to everyone, does it make it fair?

Thought for the Day!

The world always has something to say about you or so you think.

Clingy if you are trying to get some attention or prove yourself and aloof and selfish if you stop giving a damn. So just stop giving a damn. Nobody cares after two minutes except you. So live for yourself and do what you dream. And baby, dream Big!

 

Image result for word for not giving a damn

Stress… anxiety and Life

End of a long busy weekend you would think it would relieve the stress off of your mind. But surprise! The day after the long weekend it does feel fresh but definitely the stress guest is still residing in the space of your head. The morning bright day does not bother you. You will always wish you had one extra day to relax and start work fresh but let me tell you no matter how many days of leave you get it will never be enough unless your work is your one true love of your life. But for most of the people working in IT weekends are never enough.

Anxiety is like a worm. You have no clue from where it creeps in and what triggers it. No amount of holidays, vacations, time off, therapy can get it out of your head. Only you can. We have a lot of choices in life but all of it boils down to two things at the end. You can either whine about what is stressing you out or you can stop worrying and start acting out on an action plan. Every problem has a solution if not today definitely later. One step at a time is the mantra to any problem. You will at least feel better you accomplished something that day even if the problem exists. However small the step towards solution and however difficult that might be it is critical to getting rid of the problems in your life. There is no better motivation than yourself. Believe!

Remember Rome was not built in a day so is the solution to your problem!

Are Bluetooth earphones really your new best friend?

No matter how many times in a week I clean my room, there is that one chair that always gets full the very next day of my cleanliness resolution. This chair over flowing with clothes is my villain, the Joker of my room. Chaos and Chaos everywhere! Not because I can’t live with a messy chair of clothes but because I have a new friend on my side, actually in my ears 🙂 a wireless, Bluetooth earphones and that’s where the actual problem lies.

Before I go ahead and tell you my struggles with this supposedly new friend and new villain, I shall give you a bit of background about my unbelievable talent with managing Electronics. Its like I am a magnet, not for owning, on the contrary, for breaking them. Electronics maintenance and my love for Electronics are inversely proportional to each other. The more I pour my heart out in keeping them safe, the more they tend to fall off my hand and break. I have broken laptops, hard disks (sorry brother, he lost all of his files, I will not go into the details of what happened to me after that calamity), innumerable phones and their screens, watches, portable playstation (sorry again brother, coming to think of it, he has had the maximum loss because of my flair!), Ipod, the list is long I am not going to bore you with that. In case of earphones, I don’t even need to have them in my hands. They just rip themselves apart in my vicinity. God gifted talent! I am sure everyone has invested a lot in earphones, trying out different types, cheap ones, really good and expensive ones, moderately cheap ones, moderately expensive ones, ones that you buy because of others, and ones that you buy because of boredom. First few days you love them so much they never leave your ears, and when they do come off our ears, the next day it’s gone – earbuds missing, wire gets cut, phones port stops working (yeah that happened!), something becomes loose (I have lost so many earphones to this but never figured out what went loose), torn into two (that happened too!), more lost and missing. With so many challenges already, wired earphones have one more challenge. The daily struggles of untangling. The “improve your brain power” exercises can add one more to their puzzles, untangling your earphones. Its like a puzzle that needs to be solved in 5 seconds, because after those 5 seconds we turn into Hulk and rip it apart anyways, its not like the song is going to run away.  I am not even going to touch on what happens to wired earphones when you go for a run (all Hell breaks loose). Sigh! If I had saved up the money that I have invested on earphones over the years, I could go on a cruise! Oh, Well!

Drums rolling and the screen lifting – (tada) “Wireless Earphones”. I am not talking about over the ears big headphones. I am talking about the small little wire with two plugs (in ear). Seems like your solution to all the hassle, doesn’t matter if you are running, jumping, rolling, sleeping, keeping it in the bag, outside the bag, in your hand, not in your hand. Its like a one stop shop solution to all your problems, except for the missing earbuds which I think that there is a ghost in my room which is responsible for. Keep dreaming.

The one advantage of the wired earphones I forgot to add was how it was repellent to my chair of overflowing clothes. It acts like a drowning man with a life jacket. I always see the head, the tail or the microphone part of it peeping out of that humongous heap of clothes. Not once have I lost it there. And that is exactly where my new best friend gets a huge hit on the head. Its like Leonardo DiCaprio went into a Limbo and I can’t get him out. I search and search and search and search but I cannot find him and by the time my patience runs out and I am done searching, the whole room is Chaos! The chair = the Joker. Now not only do I have to search for my lost wireless earphone but now, I also have to clean my room all over again. By the time I finish cleaning it is after midnight with that one last jean that needs folding and guess what falls out of that jean? The lost little wireless earphone.

Now tell me, are these wireless, Bluetooth earphones really my new best friend? 😥

Nayagan BGM in the background and all that my mind can think: “Neenga nallavara kettavara????”

Rio Olympics!

Rio Olympics! The pride of every country participating in it. We all know how much pressure such an International platform can have on an individual. They are trained and trained and trained over months and years for this event. Their coach, family, friends, associations supporting them gives them the strength to just participate. Kudos! To every one of them, medal or no medal. For all the strength, dedication and passion.

Year 2016 – where people have started living a lot over the Internet more than physical existence, where a Twitter account gives instant access to world news than waiting for the next day newspaper and where its much easier to shop than supermarkets. But is there something bad about it too? Every coin has two sides to it. Instant access to the most disturbing news.

I recently read a very disturbing article –

Rio Olympics 2016 – India Misery not limited to Fields

Anger and frustration. My instant reaction – I should share it on my Twitter page. Then I stopped to think, but I have colleagues from various other countries in my friend list (who’s countries have done some amazing job in the Olympics). What would they think if they see my tweet? All the shares I did about the famous Modi speeches will be over shadowed by this disturbing news of how we are treating our heroes on an international platform. Do I voluntarily bring down the name of my country? But if everyone started thinking like the way I did and don’t share it, what then? We will never be aware of these things and the next time we vote we will not be aware of what we should be.

When we are in a world which talks about equality and fair play, does Olympics not contradict equality? Where there is no challenge and competition, there there is no growth. It is because of the same competitiveness that we as a world have seen so much development and technological advancement in the last 100-200 years. The fact that our athletes have done a brilliant job even to get this far is commendable, but what is life without competitiveness and winning? What is life without a personal satisfaction of achievement after so much hard work? What is life without the success you want to have? And isn’t it our duty to support these athletes in any way possible?  These athletes deserve what is rightfully theirs which is simple – resources to help them win. Anyone in power, who cannot provide that is a very, very, very selfish and cruel living being (I wouldn’t insult the human race by calling them a person).

I just have one question for our Honorable Prime Minister – when you gave those brilliant speeches in different nations and kept the name of our country high, did you not think sending our heroes to Olympics with such people for support bring down its name way more than it deserves? I don’t say all other countries are perfect, but does that justify our behavior?

Let’s stand up and stand together for what is right. Let’s spread the word that it is not right to misuse power. Let’s use platforms to tell the story of success and not distress.

Never Regret…

I don’t remember what made me do it, but back in college I had promised myself I would never regret about anything in life. A good promise, hard to keep.

Regrets in life are like a bag of chips. You know its bad, but when you eat one you cannot stop with one. You start regretting one tiny little thing and then realize your list growing long, long, long, longer every passing minute.  And if you by any chance become sad because of those regrets (which eventually you will), there is no coming out of that abyss. At one point, you would start regretting your existence. What is the point then? What is the point of those times you had laughed so hard you cried? What is the point of those times when you had fought with your family or friends and made all attempts to convince them because you loved them more than the silly fights? What is the point of those times when you had worked your ass off at your work place? One regret and the value of everything that mattered to you goes down the drain.

Why do we regret? It is a natural reaction to something we wish had not happened the way it did. It is a very strong emotion that can completely change the way you look at things. Well, we don’t have a time machine to go back in time and change what happened. Do we?

Never Regret. You cannot change what has happened. What will happen is always in your control, so you can still fix things in the future. You can learn from your mistake, instead of wasting time regretting it. If it is not in your control, then you have even more reasons not to worry about it, though that does not mean you don’t do anything about it. I strongly believe everything happens for a reason. Every little thing, good or bad, has its own consequence, maybe not now but later. Every moment teaches you something. See it as a learning, try not to do the same mistake next time, pat yourself, put a big smile on your face and try harder next time, there is nothing that you cannot do.

You fall, you rise, you learn and that is how you fly. But never Regret.

Silence of the Mountains..

Kudremukh – you can find the history in the Wiki pages. I am not going to talk about that.

Nobody enjoys hardship, but everyone knows that the fruit of hardship is always sweet. That was the case with the Kudremukh trip. The ride to the top of the mountains in an open jeep was bumpy, challenging, thrilling, crazy, and not smooth at all but at the end of it we were stunned and speechless with the view that presented itself in front of our eyes.  Mountains all around us, a nice blanket of mist, setting sun, cold breeze, cloudy day, what more can you ask for. It was like the most perfect day. Heavenly!

Time had frozen. We had  frozen. Slowly sinking in the feel of the place. Enjoying the moment as it was. A perfect vacation!  Your mind instantly starts to browse through endless list of songs in your head. One song gets stuck and starts playing in your head. The place suddenly starts to seem even more beautiful. Walking along with the mountains,with nothing but silence around you, your brain starts to wander thinking how peaceful all this seems. But then, its human brain and does not stop with one thought. Does it?

Another side of your brain starts having random thoughts about life, your happy moments, people you miss, people you hate, things you wish you had done, things you wish you hadn’t, your worries, your fears, hopes and regrets and suddenly you are lost in your thoughts so much that you are no longer in the present moment. The same silence that brought you peace, now floods your head with so many emotions that you cannot even shut it up.

Isn’t this what all our life is about? We hunt for peace of mind all the time and when we finally have silence around us, we fill ourselves with so much noise that we lose what we have in the present. Our eyes are always fogged, illusion of happy and content life, always in search of something, we wander. We wander in search of something, but never realize it even if we find it, searching further for more. But is this not what makes us human? Is this not what helps us grow as a race? If we were all to find inner peace and value of life in the serenity and silence of the mountains, we would have all become saints and never would have had to go back to normal life and society.

We are human and that is why we have problems, we have worries, and yet we continue to live through pain. But, if there is one place where we can find answers to all our questions and problems it is in – the Silence of the Mountains. The day we stop searching, the day we stop thinking, the day the skies become clear, is the day we stop growing and living.