Tag Archives: #Life

When being single hurts hard should you settle with just ‘anyone’? If you want to be with someone you yearn for, you can’t claim you’d love fiercely only to abandon it the next moment!

Are you Ok with someone ‘Just-good-enough’? This is what may happen when you marry sans love!

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“A half truth is always a whole lie’ but it’s also “the fastest way to prevent a mistake from turning into a failure.”

We believe we would find happiness in marriage and love would flourish of its own love, but it’s not quite as simple.  What at times seems soft spot could actually be turn out to be no more than an unpleasant familiarity. There is no such thing as “the right person”. The most important thing is to be in love with someone before letting it happen.

If you are one of those people who know who they are, what they want and won’t compromise with their beliefs or happiness, then you‘re in for a surprise!  People around you might find you wildly attractive. You’d stand tall, speak clearly and calmly refuse to do anything that will offend your sweet will. Everything buys you some crazy cutting edge every time you make a choice.

Yet… you may face a few straight ups too; “Nobody Should Marry That Person!!”

If liberal’s point of view is any good then wedlock must arise out of love alone. Still it’s a hardcore romanticism that never fails to rally and always comes with a pinch of idealism. Then there are disparagers who wouldn’t bite this. For them love perseveres and flourishes over time when two people decide to be together.

This double bind is perhaps crazy! But perhaps holds the key to getting what you might want in the first place-choices that earlier were never with you.

Shucks! What would you do now? Would you pretend your love so that you don’t appear disappointing? Would you confess that all love is lost between the two of you; you feel uninvolved yet would rather stay together? If you ask me I think each one of these would be more out of guilt and fear of backlash from people around you. On one hand your expectations of marriage are that it should be born out of love, on the other you can’t imagine being with someone you don’t love!

Too many questions but no straight answers! This of course is not an easy situation to work through. You’re trapped with no way out but to ride through.

Interestingly, it is still widely believed that men are more likely to marry someone they feel might not be quite right for them. If this is true then the myth that women would do anything for a ring and that men would do anything to shun commitment, is all sham and of course has few takers. By the way, which lady hasn’t sympathized with Bridget Jones or chuckled at 27 Dresses?

Then there is yet more cynical version which would urge you to just marry and settle down because it’s hard for good people to come by and this one might be exactly that. “Even if you don’t love that person,” some would say; “at least both of you are there to take care of each other. You can work on digging love after marriage over the time”; few would rather prefer a straight one; “Yes you should marry that person” or dismiss the whole thing with a “No you shouldn’t!”.

Image source: getty images.in

If you fancy spending the rest of your life with someone who’ll always by your side and take care of you when you’re old with white hair — then of course it’s easy to find someone who’d fit the bill. But this leaves something unanswered, “What marriage means to you?” assuming nothing changes after marriage. Wouldn’t you be just a keeper and she simply a reliable, caring and perceptive partner with none of you sharing the same closeness for each other!

Even so, the idea of being alone is overwhelming, sometimes soul crushing. You may get a fateful urge to try and make nice things permanent without mincing anything.

Getting married is a blissful recourse but not without hang-ups; anybody we marry might not always be the right choice for us. Besides, bliss doesn’t happen every day every time! You should also know that something else has walked in your life if dislike for each other is no longer short lived and hostility endures beyond the normal choleric fights and scratchiness.

If that’s happening- you have married the wrong person!

Image source: ‘What the Quaker tradition taught me about ‘Mr’ and ‘Ms’ in hellogiggles.com o May. 02, 2015.

Given that, it is about the single costliest mistake any of us can make, it’s all the more reason why we often tend to make the wrong choices consciously. Seriously, we ruin our lives on excuses that would sometimes sound crazy in particular ways. Maybe Just–enough couldn’t hold to be Good-enough. And we also quite miss the consequences of a harmless looking willful accommodation between two people!

Want to freeze happiness?

It’s not uncommon to wish for good things happening in life to last forever. Much like our car or our homes, don’t we all want to spend our lives with the people we’re having a terrific time with?

Still…

Dreaming of marriage as harbinger of an everlasting happiness would fall flat if we couldn’t bottle our love for each other. Unfortunately there is hardly any connection between marriage and emotions that usually grow by Venice, a time of day, a lack of work, an excitement at dinner or a short acquaintance with someone…outside love none of this  guarantees happiness.

Not freezing anything marriage nonetheless is more of a peaceful, uneventful, sometimes nicely boring, comfortable, reliable and a decisive breather in life. It has the power to keep a relationship at a beautiful stage all through! A suburban house, long commute, small family; marriage has every ingredient of a lasting happiness. However, it’s a very different experience if you attempt to quick-freeze wrong ingredients. There will be as much doubt, hope, fear, rejection and betrayal in your marriage as there’s in your single life.

Don’t break free! Your future is yet to happen

It’s great if you’re here; nothing has happened yet and you’re free. There is still a chance and time to think over everything carefully and make a conscious decision. Of course, you will get chased by the feelings that you may well never meet someone that would come close. “What would I do then?” you may wonder.

What the heck!…

Truly nobody can tell if and when you’ll get to meet your perfect match one day, but when you do at least you’d be able to tell yourself; “When I agree to marry someone, I’m doing it because I genuinely want to marry this person and because this is the one I want to spend the rest of my life with”. You shouldn’t be looking for a partner merely because you’re fearful of the alternative– being left alone, not being able to find your perfect ‘One’ and not having someone to take care of you for the rest of your life.

Image source: istockphoto.com

Marriage indeed is a serious business and it deeply impacts lives. It’s never a wise move to look for hopes or expectations, that something else will happen of its own and that worries would leave you when love eventually happens out of a lifelong commitment.

So…stop, breathe and look around for your beau monde. Sure, trying to meet new people and finding the right match could be draining at times but in the end nothing would be more comforting than to know that you’ve eventually evaded being run down by that terrifying, heart numbing and draining unhappiness of being stuck in a marriage with someone you don’t love!

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Gun proliferation has turned America into a horrifying killing field. No place on this planet is free of this scourge. There is death all around us. Abortions! Politics has cheapened life everywhere!

The ruthless tyranny of Guns and Abortions: Every time a life gets slaughtered!

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In an ideal World, Roe vs Wade would endure, people would unite and stand up to fight Covid and Law makers everywhere would have acted long ago to prevent gun tragedies!

But rather than wishing, shouldn’t we be prepared for a change first?

Image source: ‘From Parkland to Sunrise: A Year of Extraordinary Youth Activism’ by Emily Witt in newyorker.com on Feb.13, 2019.

Guns get all the blame for mass killing every time it happens. An intense life–and-death debate rages for a while and then dies down. Memories and moods remain surreal and short lived. And it’s not long before everybody finds recluse in more earthy issues and moves on. Scores of 4th graders, grocery shoppers and church goers killed in mindless homicides, continue to get reduced to framed memories.

Meanwhile, the Apex court everywhere conveniently locks horns with law makers over contentious gun reforms and abortion bills and none of the arguments coming out of them makes any sense.  Political, constitutional or safety of public interests, everything just pales into some super sad pointless ghost story that has no takers.

See…the buzz is so deafening that nobody took notice when the new strain of corona virus crept in quietly!

I use common sense when deciding who should lead and govern and be responsible for my safety and well being. I am also reminded and not forgotten the Boston bombings, mass killings of 9/11, 26/11 and 15/9 (London’s Parson Green metro bombings). And yet I don’t see any reason for anyone owning an assault rifle or a rapid fire weapon. Background checks or pesky formalities for owning a weapon, make life seem so cheap by selling cheap. The only argument in defense…every non-felon ought to be armed against the menace!

If you buy this, owning a fire arm for you, is not only logical but prudent. But to me, it’s more like living in flood plains and buying flood insurance.

So, should you be doing it? Only if you uphold that every one of us has descended from slime and there is no eternal consequence for anything atrocious that is done. But once you buy the idea- ‘that your personal arsenal is your best bet against an unknown threat’ no amount of tragedy can persuade you to ditch it. It’s intoxicating, it’s horrendous…it’s ghastly! Not even the slaughter of innocent children and teachers or unsuspecting shoppers or tired workers returning home could persuade you to forget this abhorrent solution.

Then there’s something more to this…

Even if you find gun massacres like the one at Robb elementary school, Uvalde Texas that left 19 children and 2 adults dead, atrociously horrifying, I bet you’d still prefer to see everything distantly; dispassionate and unconnected from the entire tragedy. You have kept your guns safe and secure, possibly under lock and key and consider yourself a responsible gun owner. So, some lunatic did the killings. Right…? It’s a shame that the pain and loss never reaches you.

Image source: ‘Florida school shooting: 19-year-old accused of killing 17 is a ‘broken child,’ lawyer says’ by Karma Allen & Emily Shapiro in abcnews.go.com on Feb.16, 2018.

If you carry this logic, all you’d do is offer moments of silence and prayers but resist reforms. The same asinine perception makes you a different person; one who counters bad guys with guns and believes that more good guys are needed with more guns!

If you ask me it’s more like reliving an old-school Western fantasy again- ‘gunmen square off and the ranger always kills the desperado’.

Of course yes! Gun laws everywhere do need changes, but would that mean arming even the teachers and school going kids? I’m sure you wouldn’t want them to. Besides it’s not what a teacher signs up for! Personally, I can’t imagine of an elementary school teacher hopping around with a gun in the classroom, all trigger happy to ward off a threat.

Every life is as dear as it could ever be. And we need to do something to show that. Ricocheting from one tragedy to another is not normal. What are needed are stringent gun reforms with proven track of reduced violence and fire arm homicides. There were armed guards at both the Buffalo and Uvalde massacres, yet the slaying didn’t fell short. Protests and incensed emotions won’t do much except rip apart the existing gun laws.

Till necessary amendments begin to rebuild trust, everything shall remain where it is. It’s a sad inconvenience but loss of lives will be around us for some more time to come.

Whatever…the solution is not more guns! Critics inevitably may have some more to argue over mental health, but till the arbitrage strikes balance….

Innocents will continue being slaughtered!

Image source: ‘Let gun safety be your target!’: protest signs from the US school walkouts’ by Dale Berning Sawa & Mee-Lai Stone in guardian.com on Mar.15, 2018.

Every life is valuable

Every thought that weighs abortions with gun homicides is narrow at best. The decision whether or not to go ahead with abortion is deeply personal and sometimes a difficult choice to make. Carnage on the other hand is barbaric, inhumane and shameless violation of ‘right to live’. Any argument that it’s the people that kill people and not the guns is a pathetic replay of one of the worst dissenting woes; that restriction on lawful possession of a firearm will endanger lives of those who don’t possess one. Excuses like this are frustrating only and wouldn’t do anything to deter the absurdly easy availability of a weapon.

Meanwhile, empaths are rattled by another tormenting downslide in abortion rights. Unable to stall the insane gun culture, the pro-gun activists-especially in America, want guns to proliferate and wouldn’t wish for anything else to change till feticide laws are considered and done with!... ridiculously evil, inappropriate and more like side stepping the issue.

This insanity however has few takers. Fair enough!  If the law makers are truly concerned about saving lives, why a gun shopper couldn’t be held to same standards as meant for those contemplating abortion? If everything about MTP is put right, would that mean declining trends in gun violence? Is that the only answer to deterring another kill like 16 Dec 2014 Peshawar attack that left 132 kids dead or 58 Las Vegas concert-goers from dying at the hands of a gunman? Why nobody demands to protect the lives we all seek to save?

And as we wait;

#More than 500 people continue to die every day. This adds up to 1.4 million firearm related deaths globally every year!

#About 2000 people get wounded by gunshots everyday and about 2 million are living with fire arm injuries around the globe.

#8 million small arms and 15 billion rounds of ammo find shelves with arms dealers each year.

#An estimated 40-50 million abortions happen around the world every year; roughly 125000 each day.

#Around 73 million induced abortions take place worldwide each year.

Yet everybody just loves to hang around… the political werewolves quietly mull over electoral incentives that would affect policy choices on issues of national interest. And people continue to get killed for nothing every day.

Guns and abortions? Hang on a sec until…!

Ever wondered why so many people who have peaked their lives doing well, are still unhappy? You think the brain they’re born with is the brain they’re stuck with? Think again!

That nasty little voice in your head! …If only you could rewire your brain for happiness.

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It’s a strange messy world out there and the happiest people aren’t the ones who have faced fewer difficulties in life, but those who have learned to enjoy the moment they live in.

Image source: Ira in pexels.com.

Life sucks whenever it gets stuck with adversity. Spiteful, smarting… just everything about it makes you feel hapless and jinxed.

When you‘re anxious about something or your mind is busy browsing past events, it’s easy to relive your fears, worries and every negative thought you had, over and over  in your mind. Next, it’s not long before they start shaping your reality.

That’s awful! But you could still stop your brain from looking back; from horror stories to toxic relationships to those grumpy days, it rehashes every bad sore that still make you resentful, angry and disappointed even though it may have happened long time back!

Bad experiences and worries never let go easy.

There are plenty of DIY columns and scores of self-help books claiming to have found the key to an everlasting happiness. I’ve been through a few of them and yet couldn’t convince myself. Even Mo Gadwat’s Solve for Happy: Engineer Your Path to Joy and   Adjust the Code That Runs Your Brain seem like just two more to add to the stack. Not much of a relief here. Stories of burn outs and the great resignation paranoia still continue to rage prime time screen. Not far behind are a cheeky few that sizzle as screamers in unprincipled journals. The din as usual is raucous and always in vain.

Happiness, I think lies somewhere in between the events of life and our expectations of how it should respond. This is fairly obvious. If we expect much more from life than the reality, heartaches and regrets happen and nothing thereafter would let us be happy.

Look…unlike our everyday coffee spills and parking tickets, we constantly see the rose tinted version of everybody’s ‘best life’. We prefer to ignore the half eaten bitter part of it. And it’s when our brain begins to bump off. More receptive to negative emotions, it begins to discard anything and everything ‘good’.  

Does this mean we should pare down our expectations? Isn’t this opposite of what we normally get to hear for self-empowerment?

Much like AI, sometimes our brain also gets afflicted with spams and bugs and trojans. And when that happens, everything sucks! From dismay to chagrin, every life changing decision leads to a narrow downward spiral. Nothing seems to reflect reality. Every dreadful thought would only worsen your fears over what future may bring.

Fortunately, this is not without a caveat. We aren’t meant to doom despite our brain’s natural disposition to upsetting events. The wretched part though is that in the middle of this you couldn’t hit the snooze.

So, is there a way to combat this bias? What if we could somehow reprogram our brain to scan only for good things in life, parse the possibilities before moving ahead and at the end of it- eventually be happier?

If lately your brain’s been busy accumulating suspicions and worries, flagging them a big red “This Is Important!!” it’s time for a cool 30 sec. ‘beard stroking’.

Maybe you too could patch up your brain and go breezy!

Image source:’ 6 Simple Ways to Train Your Brain for Happiness’ by Minda Zetlin in http://www.inc.com

Slow things down

When you’re feeling frazzled, stressed or distracted, taking a conscious approach to your thinking helps. Tip!… spend a moment to calm your mind, take few deep breaths to fill your lungs with fresh air and let go of every thought that troubles you. Let life happen of its own. Don’t drag yourself into it.

Give yourself 10 secs and you’ll be ready for a positive reboot in no time!

Good things matter

One simple way to retailor your brain to respond to positive patterns only, is to look towards worthwhile things happening around you. Rake up a list of most appealing ones and muse ‘what caused them to happen’? You would carry the day every time you discover something positive.  And every small win each day will reward you with a choice to empower and motivate yourself.

Small favors create circle of joy

When we are nice to others or somehow make others feel good, we get goosebump moments of happiness. Every small act that makes people smile, brings joy to us too. All it needs is a moment of favor; buy someone a cup of coffee, help a stranger, walk an old person across the street or even feed a stray animal; every act of generosity will get you a little rush at happiness. Your usual pattern of worrying and fretting will be lost in flashes of mirth and joy.

Your present shapes your tomorrow

No tomorrow, no next week …It’s right this moment! It’s not hard to exercise. It’s only about practicing mindfulness. Not a big deal if you’d recognize your emotions. Put in a dry run, if you’re not convinced enough. Switch your thoughts to positive ones for a change and let everything around you happen without judging them. Once this gets under your skin, good things begin to happen.

Image source: ‘How to rewire your brain for peak performance and happiness’ by Amy Crawford in theholisticingredient.com

Now that you have tamed your subconscious you won’t let it drive your decisions. You have taught your brain to sense, when it’s slipping and when it should defrag for a more balanced and positive outlook.

The skeptic in me though, never fails to line up sweet accusations as alibi to screen my often offensive behavior. “If it worked even for one of them why wouldn’t it for me? Why not give it a try?”

Not that, it’s impossible to get success when you have resigned yourself to wickedness in you. But tagging mistrust and uncertainty to your life is always a bad idea. Simply put, it influences your life and would worsen your decision making.

IMHO!… get into the habit of continually checking with yourself and consciously steer your thoughts clear of negativity; it’s not long before it will become your second skin.

And it’s important to remember that it can happen. Better still, you can do it.

Maybe…someday you’ll live a moment when it won’t feel like every day is a Monday!

Isn’t that something happiness is all about?

Life is never short of choices. Wouldn’t you want to wake up each morning to a fresh start? It doesn’t take nerves of steel to live your tomorrow the way you ever wanted to!

Looking for second chance at happiness? Living a better tomorrow is only a step away!

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Pursuing an old dream or chasing a new passion and yet disappointed in you for feeling left out? If you believe in tweaks that could change your life, go after every second chance that comes your way. Someday it will reward you with a pearl beyond price !!

And a reason to smile!

Image source: pexels.com.

Life yields a second chance to every one of us. It’s called tomorrow. And it doesn’t happen by chance. We begin to live our second life the moment we realize that we’ve got only one and fancy a new morning with a fresh chance to make of it whatever we want!

I think that’s great!! Life is just too short to leave things at odds.

The only creepy thing about it though is that these breaks rarely happen by chance and for the most part are scary. What if everything ends with the same outcome? How’d I know that I ain’t cloning the same mistakes and nothing is actually going to change?

That’s funny! While we anxiously hope and look forward for some kind of rescue, fear of unlikely payoffs is hurting!

Angst aside, I believe everyone deserves a new start even when we cannot control how it is going to end. Making bad choices is normal but regretting them is what makes us free to choose again.

Like Qusay Hussein, a wounded Iraqi teen who met a new life in the US, when I think of my childhood, I think of colors; the dull brick red walls and the deep rich greens of the lush front gardens on either side of our beautiful home. More like him, I gave myself a second chance to learn and grow along others after an early exit of my dad left behind shattered dreams and hard times. I didn’t do anything real until I was 25. Not only after a few impromptu accomplishments in post grad and doctor’s, that I could gather enough courage to test the unknown! And all the time I was sharply aware that it was really a shot at becoming who I wanted. It all had stretched out like one long dazzling promise to break out and shine! Sure I wasn’t hungry for a huge career but something that I’d enjoy.

I held on to all the chances that came my way…

I’m not sure when the wakeup call tipped off but it did saw me a lot wiser … I’d come to realize that it’s never too late to do what you love most!

Just a few years ago, I thought everything was over, and now …I’ve discovered my happy self!

Image source: pexels.com.

Everybody has a story to tell

I don’t think that happiness is big or infinite or that you’d meet it only when you get your second break. People make mistakes all the time. No one’s perfect but you cannot rewind the movie of your life to the point you thought was Ok and play it again. I gave myself chances upon chances until I realized that I can only change the movie from this point forward.

Giving yourself a second chance doesn’t make you stupid; it means that you believe that you can change for the better. It’s an opportunity for you to learn and grow and be a finer person.

Look… I’m not the first or the only person who’s made bad choices in life. And neither are you. So why stay pissed off over something that can be won back!

People often make bad ones only to regret later. Everybody does, but that doesn’t mean that they have to pay for them for the rest of their lives. Sometimes even good people make bad choices; it doesn’t make them any more severe! Like everybody else they too get hurt but they learn and they move on.

Life is short lived to hold on to the past. Can you imagine yourself not giving someone a second chance? I can’t. Things never go the way we all want most of the time, but that doesn’t mean you’d  hang on to hard feelings  and not allow yourself a free happy life! If you don’t forgive someone and give him or her another shot, you too will be drawn into a dirty ‘negative edge pool’. Worse, you’ll drain yourself emotionally completely.

Not only that if it weren’t for the second chances, we all would have lost good friends, warm relations and perhaps missed a snug hug back home. Trust me, it’s human to make choices we think were right but so often turn up wrong and end hurting others.

We’re not perfect and we would never be. So forgive, forget and buzz off.

Giving somebody another try is your one more chance to thrive and be happy.

May be on that day, you could finally let go and move on.

Feature credits: ‘Piper- A story of true happiness.’ by Movie Mania 3000 on Mar.15, 2019.

For Colin Thackery, the Chelsea pensioner who won BGT at the age of 89 or for Jan Jacob, who at the age 50 realized she was a gay- it wasn’t the first time that future had looked uncertain or the life felt painfully strung to a distant North Pole. But both were certain about one thing, giving themselves as many chances as came their way; second, third, fourth; they seized each one never knowing when they’ll get one again. They knew that someday they would find a way through to smile again.

Today their phones are all filled up with texts and calls and I’m sure they have umpteen exciting stories to tell.

Whatever…I’m glad their lives could help show others how to live their best lives too.

Curiously, their tales remind me of a somewhat sweet and noble virtue…

“It’s never too late to become everything you want to become. It’s never too late to try again”.

That’s how life is!

Let the chase for happiness distract you from deeply ordinary things and grieve relationships that make life meaningful and yours could well be the story of a never ending quest for happiness.

Five reasons why your pursuit of happiness may be flawed and elusive!!

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Find out what bedevils your quest and learn how to get that twinkle-toed happiness back in your life.

We humans are complex life forms in a beautiful way. Put us in an intimate, passionate relationship and that seductive crush gets all hyped-up. We reckon awareness and acceptance as thumb prints and adore the quest for happiness, better still; most desirable. Perhaps spending more time with our kinds, getting a more fulfilling and secure job, or even improving our health is the reason we consider happiness a worthy pursuit. After all, being happy feels good. But do we build our lives on that reasoning alone?

Feature credits:’ Happiness with nature’ by Vigorswitch in youtube.com on Aug. 26, 2020.

Deep inside, we all treasure a fascinating tale of lifestyle and feelings, raring to be heard and appreciated. In fact, looking for an opportunity to engage and be recognized for that distinct wharf of ours, nourishes and strengthens us or at times weakens breaks or crushes us. Perhaps maximizing happiness is the only reason, we chase it. Still perceptions bump and make it so easy for us to get sad or depressed.

You think of yourself as a frightful and appalling person

We all have our insecurities. Nobody is perfect. You may wish for a better life; maybe much better of it. But it is not always perfect for you. Sufferings turn ugly once you mentally label them as a bad situation. The emotional trauma that follows cuts you off from the vigour of life. So, once you get mired neck deep in a miserly spot that sucks, your downhill spiral begins, howsoever much you shout to the World that you are perfect and the best.

This however, doesn’t mean that you throw your hands in the air and let that moment pass by when you could reach out and grab happiness. You can still be contented and happy. Just let go of that dreary thought of “If only I was richer… if only I was thinner” and so on. Accept yourself with utmost honesty the way you are and you will give others 10 reasons to envy you. Once the clouds of denial are gone, the magic of acceptance and contentment will unfold in your life. Just be the true rendition of self improvement and learn to love yourself.

You have sucked your soul out for long

I have a friend who never tires of talking and in most conversations he is the only one who seems to be interested in things he has to say. So, people tend to avoid his company and maybe he knows how uncomfortable sometimes it becomes. But I find him one happy person who has shaken himself awake and enthused his perspective from negative to positive outlook. Next day he could be found talking nineteen to the dozen in another gathering! I think he see the things in his life as a glass that is half full  rather than half empty, and never miss out on moments that tend to make him happy.

Happy or otherwise, we all have choice as to how we spend our live. It’s our perspective that does the picking. Nothing changes for us unless we decide to take pleasure from life and live every moment as a blessing. We all know that our moods are fleeting and their causes uncertain but we also appreciate that a life spent experiencing happiness, is in some ways a good life. The concern though, is not what happiness means to you, but instead why it eluded you and how to get it.

We tend to see happiness as inconsistent to sadness or depression, suggesting that being happy means few woes and fewer regrets. If we remain contented to see the things in our life as a glass that is half empty, rather than half full, we tend to miss out on the opportunities that may be present around us. Not accepting challenges and considering them as bad consequences would never let you grow out of your miseries.

 “Unhappy is he who depends on success to be happy,” Alex Dias Ribeiro.

As successful as you are or hope to be in your life and work, be sure that you will find happiness only in things that are deeply ordinary; enjoying a walk or a conversation with a loved one or plucking turnips and tomatoes from kitchen garden. For few who worship hard work or strive to outperform, this may sound like an admission of defeat. But accepting things as they happen and facing challenges head on makes you find meaning in them and move forward. So, get interested; it’s time you started living with gusto and made the most of today.

“Today is life– the only life you are sure of”.-Dale Carnegie.

You are yet to open up your mind and heart to life

Lately you have been torn up in your mind and heart. You have been questioning yourself quite uncomfortably. “Am I ill-mannered?”, “Do I always sound argumentative?”, “Do I talk too loud?”, “Does my breath smell?”, “Do I ever bore others when in company?”

Lending ears to comments and criticisms and not treating them with rejoinders like, “Don’t exaggerate! That’s just the way I am!” opens up our minds and hearts for good. It’s not how much we have in us but how much we appreciate for having it with us, rules our general state of happiness. After all life is made up of some great experiences and is a gift in our hands to nimble-toe through. Trust me; it makes the best out of inevitable for us. Each day shapes us and helps us to grow and change. So, get along, chose to be happy and live through every moment of life with grace and gratitude.

You are evasive to your ‘present’

The desire to be happy is instinctive to human nature, though it flirts and fleets. Naturally evasive, happiness is not a bad thing any more than a wine is. Both bring fun and sweetness to life when positive events like winning a lottery, promotions or even something as little as a gift from someone close to your heart, ring sweet bells in your heart or goose bumps all over.

Like it or not, being “present” for every moment shapes happiness for you. Your present is the moment where all reality is. The past is gone, the future is yet to arrive and the present is passing by. So, focus on living in and celebrating the present to the full. Live every moment of life as a blessing and you will have the greatest opportunity to experience happiness.

“When we are present and still and our minds are open, we will find that happiness is our natural state.”-Dr. Robert Puff.

The world doesn’t fall apart, every time you get hit!!

While many for us would be relieved and happy to have survived the pandemic in 2021, for others the global scourge may have caused stress meltdown and severe sufferings. The world for them would have felt like it’s upside down—literally.

We all know that anguish is an inevitable consequence of being alive. But if minimizing distress can bring happiness, it gets important to get hold of your emotional health. At least, if you can’t control it, you will always have the control over how to guard it!

Everyone experiences situations gone wrong one time or the other, but not everyone treats it in the same way. Of course, feeling stressed out sucks. It leaves you with two choices—let it suffocate you or bring the change and rewrite a new story. Remember life is a rollercoaster ride and stress will happen. So, master your sanity and good sense to ride through it. Feeling overwhelmed already? It’s time you did some soul searching and refashioned your perspective. Here are five ways to know if you do overreact to all that happens around you and wouldn’t allow yourself to manage a happy disposition.

Happiness has many faces

Our past uncannily keeps us tied down in turmoil and sadness; we are wired like that. Negativity rules over us and at times it hurts, even when you get moments of happiness in between. No denying; if you experience it, you are hanging on to the grudges and resentment of the past and could not get rid of them. Or maybe you have come up against different kinds of happiness, which do not always go together. Having too much of happiness of one sort could spoil your ability to have enough space for other. For instance, you could be butting heads how to balance career and family all together and in turn could be equally unhappy in both lives. This could be significantly damaging to yourself and those around you.

Empathy is one buzzword though, that could help. As Sadhguru puts it, “walk away from your past wiser, not wounded”. A dire need for approval in the past has left you vulnerable and your fragile self esteem is weighed down.  Your chances of experiencing happiness have vanished.  So, declutter your past conflicts. Stay motivated and enjoy the life to the fullest; no matter what happens-good or bad. Help yourself to grow and change and chose to be happy. Of course, you cannot forget or wipe out your gloomy past but those very crises best increase your chances of success in pursuit to happiness.

‘Happiness addict’ prefer being special over being successful

In short, keep moving with life and see it as a blessing than be damned. Enjoy it and have a whale of a time while you can. Unfortunate things happen sometimes, but so do some great things. Try not to react much to whatever is happening around you. Don’t grind yourself and be serious about how others sleep on it. You are just not being authentic or legit. Even to put on a show could ruin your chances to be happy. Live life like an adventure, Explore and plan it the way you want to. Sometimes you may even need to laugh at yourself.

Feature credits: ‘Relax with the beauty of nature’ by the Whole Happy Life in youtube.com on Mar.21,2020.

So smile as much as you can, laugh often, hang out with mates and above all just try not to be fussy or play ducks and drakes. Make the best of what you have and keep growing.

“Don’t take life too seriously. You’ll never get out of it alive”-Elbert Hubbard

Why pandemic is no longer a living insult to mankind

Two reasons why every takeaway of pandemic is not as disastrous

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“Hope is a renewable option: If you run out of it at the end of the day, you get to start over in the morning.” – Barbara Kingsolver

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” -Madam Curie

The analogy of things

I happened to sneak peek a diary penned by a close friend of mine, a tech graduate who had worked as a computer professional with a MNC for two straight years and then one fine morning found himself up rooted with nowhere to go. His story smarted of nothing short of torment and humiliation.

Rightly so, for mayhem is different this time and impact will continue to ravage the world for some more time to come. Millions like him have raced against the time to self preserve.

the verdict has finally sunk in…. The biggest takeaway of this crisis is going to be not sports or glamour, but health and family; not politics or social order but predictable actions and social justice? For once we have been shown that what happens to one of our kind in Wuhan, can humble stock exchanges around the globe and even kill leaders and Army commanders in Iran.

The virus has shut down markets, museums, theaters, clubs forcing fashion shows to draw curtains and talk shows to play to empty halls. On March 12th this year, an Olympic gold medalist had lit the torch for a small, private audience and then had run through trees …alone.

Today, as lockdown continues, every morning I could only greet the danger that lurks outside. Absence of annoying ruckus in streets, people in shopping malls and even small grocery shops is strangely menacing. The virus has cornered our lives and …it is terrifyingly real! More than a million families have already lost someone and we couldn’t tell them that this had to happen.

Most of us would agree that the virus has left us with little choice but to keep reminding ourselves that  tomorrow could be a wonderful day; that no matter how bad things are they will end somehow at some point of time.

ot just everything is lost. The flip side of this crisis has also borne some interesting green shoots for us which will help shape the mosaic of our future lives in an interesting way.

Here’s how.

Climate for once smells healthy

Many environmentalists had predicted the year 2020 to be the year when global carbon emissions could begin to decline. And now it’s happening at a scale none of us could have imagined, though it feels like nothing to cheer

The Chinese carbon footprints- the world’s largest emitter- have mercifully shrunk by a quarter as the country sharply scaled back its heavy industries in a bid to combat the virus. Electricity demand and air pollution have plummeted in EU nations while global air traffic has hit a dead-end.

Of course there is nothing good about reducing emissions like this. It can always shoot back once the crisis is over and life begins to turn to normal. If this happens, climate goals could go for a toss once the nations scramble to put their economies back on rails. What if the Oil prices remained low? Wouldn’t that mean spike in consumption and an enormous strain on environment?

But I think that it need not be that dismaying either

The Governments can always put climate at the center of their recovery plans. Bailout packages and stimulus could offer tax credits for renewable energy and electric vehicles and include investments in green infrastructure projects like energy storage facilities, E-vehicle charging stations, solar and wind farms  etc.

To make a bounce back like that of 2009,  bailouts and stimulus need to  roll out some harsh guidelines to cut emissions. This in turn could stave off what current science calls ‘climate catastrophe’.

Whatever rational the people who govern, rake up to exemplify their Covid efforts, it’s only the Will over Wisdom that will demonstrate the fate of what we breathe and how we breathe.

Renewed concern for public health and social security is now in focus

For now, public health concerns are overshadowing and that’s a good thing. But as we start rebuilding our lives- whenever the virus backs off- we need to do it in a way so that far more deaths and sufferings are prevented to happen in future. It would be so foolish of us not to take advantage of this opportunity and roll out capable and sustained governance.

Now is the time more than ever to build a better world for workers. Protections like paid sick leave and healthcare assurance could go well with the most vulnerable among us. It’s time to set aside  the brutal and punishing changes  brought about by the capitalism of the past and work together to rebuild a life in which everybody learns to be human.

For the sake of hundreds of desperate Venezuelan refugees  living in desert shacks in a Colombian border city, migrants of tent city on Mexican border, hapless  children trapped on  Mellila the tiny piece of Europe on the coast of North Africa and half a billion strong migrant workers across the Indian subcontinent, to name a few ;It’s time we paid reparations to those who suffered, it’s time we made amend to what we had left unattended.

For these deprived millions, this world is the only place to live, call and remember as their Home.