Eyes wide shut

Lighthearted laughter

Untainted, unaffected

Unseeing and not listening

Eyes wide shut

The pleasant sounds around

Unknown to the unpleasant

Unpleasant sounds abound, unknown to the pleasant

Ears wide shut

Happiness surrounds, pleasure abounds

Laughter unbounded

The world dumbfounded

Mind wide shut

Experience is usually considered a good thing. Experience exhumes respect, it is a symbol of wisdom and representative of reliability of opinion. But I wonder. While reading something today, the following thought was planted in my head – untainted by experience, the lighthearted hope and feeling, is one that is unique to only childhood. 

Childhood was when most lucky individuals are the happiest – that hope, that ability to dream and that belief that those dreams can and will come true –  all of it brings unique peace. It brings a sense of excitement about the future.  Those lighthearted steps, skipping to school, skipping home from school, swinging you bag, swaying in abandon – behavior that is rarely exhibited by adults.  Perhaps because experience makes us realize that things often can and do go wrong. Experiences shows us that there are pitfalls across each road we choose to tread on. And that no matter how hard you try, some amount of disappointment is inevitable.

Childlike abandon in adults is rare – but it is not absent. There are those few individuals you meet who have a unique energy about them - peace and a sense of happiness and belonging and the belief that their future will be fine. It makes me wonder – I know that these individuals are not naïve enough to have childlike abandon. Then what makes them tick in such a unique way? I believe it is the belief and the experience that no matter how many pitfalls and how much disappointment is coming their way, that feeling will all pass. And in the end, that individual knows that brushing off, getting up and moving on – none of that is really an option. Not trying – that is not an option either, because that is akin to choosing regret.

Perhaps, eyes wide shut means that your vision and senses are open only to what you know to be your own reality and within your own abilities. Beyond that, a blissful lack of awareness is the choice towards happiness and a good night’s sleep.

Hum of the day

I love children and I often crave for the feeling that childhood used to bring. I also hope that I will someday have the faith in myself to develop that ability to laugh freely, dream big and have the faith to know that those dreams are in my own hands. For now, I am working towards ensuring that I do not regret at least trying – if I brush off a couple of times, I’ll learn to jump the pitfalls and to climb out when I fall in. Practice may not make perfect but it will make the journey more pleasant.

Hoping to run - a step at a time

For the past two weeks now, the stress levels in my life have gone down. I sort of felt like I am alright again and in control of my life. It was a great feeling. But I wish the feeling lasted longer. This week, my mood again took a downturn – for no apparent emotional reason but for a physical one. I was just not feeling ok – lack of energy, lethargy, etc can be a real dampener on enthusiasm for life! So, on Thursday, I realized (yes for the millionth time probably) that I simply HAVE to do something about my weight – if for no other reason but just so I can lead a life that makes me moan and groan less!

I was reading another blog and this girl talks about her battle with weight in detail and calls herself the token fat girl who has perpetually been combating weight, eating, getting depressed, combating weight, caving into craving, having bad days, eating, gaining weight and the downward spiral continues. A lot of what she wrote really spoke to me. But not for the obvious reason – coz I saw empathy – but because I realized that I too spend so much time thinking about my weight, analyzing the “what” and “why” of it, planning, and then – allowing myself into a spiral and wasting my “good” days in the above process of thinking, analyzing and planning! That’s when I decided that for a change I needed to DO.

So I emailed GR (my partner in these wonderful endeavors) and as usual we both agreed—this time on something which seems like fun. It’s called the couch-to-5km running plan. Designed specifically for lazy couch potatoes like me who have wanted to do something but give up too soon – often because I do stuff in excitement and do not believe in a step by step approach – its all or nothing for me.  Reading the plan, forced me to realize a step by step approach is possible – and a guided step by step approach is probably what I need more than anything.

So on the weekend, while I did not start the plan, I did use the gym, I ran for all of 2 minutes – plus a while on the cross-trainer. Burned all of 150 calories – it’s a start. I have also given up on chocolate – I am allowing myself other sweets once in a while.

A few baby steps – who knows ill run some day!

Hum of the day

I have dreamed for too long, I have wondered how to do it, I have thought about how life will change when I do it. The only missing link has been actually DOING something about it. Its time to stop thinking and start doing – one step at a time!

Secrets of happiness

It’s strange how so often, the exact words you need to hear, the thoughts you need to listen to and the belief you need restored, are in laid out in a near pile before you eyes. And thankfully, along with all of that, the judgment to absorb all of that is also a part of that pile!

For me, that came as a slow epiphany of sorts in the form of a book called “The Seven Secrets of Happiness” by Sharan Owens (http://booksmyworld.blogspot.com/2010/07/seven-secrets-of-happiness-sharon-owens.html).

I do not even want to look back at what I had become thanks to a lot of changes that I was somehow unable to cope with. I knew I needed to somehow do something about the weird inertia I fell into, but I just did not know how. And there I end up reading the book. And then, I got some really really good news – a hope that had somewhere died. After marriage, I had ignored my old self, and just like that, PM was back in the PMT. 

Anyways, the book details some secrets that the protagonist learns over time. I have now made my own list as well as what I plan to do about things. So here goes:

1. Emotional independence and freedom are vital no matter how many support systems exist in your life. You were, are and will always be “YOU” before you be can be anything to anyone else
2. Being able to look yourself in the eye is the most rudimentary requirement of a peaceful existence within oneself. So be honest. To yourself. That means do things you do not cringe about. Be honest to your commitments; be honest to your work, to your life. To yourself.
3. Acceptance is probably the most powerful tool for temporary peace. It may not be ideal because it may not allow you to move ahead and plan for the future. But sometimes life can be in a deadlock. Acceptance just makes you temporarily steady - which can give strength to move on at a later stage.
4. It’s easy to lay the blame – on yourself and on people around you. But in the end it gets no one anywhere. You make decisions in a given moment based on the circumstances at that time. Blaming anyone – including you, is akin to banging on walls which can’t be broken down.
5. Segregate things which make you unhappy into those which can and cannot be controlled. Focus on those which can be controlled and just go ahead and do what you can to minimize them.
6. Idealism does make the world go round. It is perhaps the single human quality that creates change, which pushes the world to become a better place –one person at a time. But seeing the good in here and now, and realizing that what is happening is the best that can happen in the present situation – perhaps that is what allows for idealism to eventually be implemented.
7. Finding yourself is an overrated concept. There is nothing to find. You are who you are – at any given point. You can’t lose yourself. The self in you as you used to understand it, just changes with time. Re-searching is like looking for something which has already been remolded.
8. The mind and body are both like putty in your own hands. The mind is the ruler. So if you feeling low in any way, just try yelling at that part of yourself and telling it to stop being a baby and whining. It’s possible your mood and energy will both be lifted. It really is mostly all a state of mind.
9. Forgiving yourself is not easy. But no one but you gets hurt each day if you don’t
10. Just because you cannot do that one big thing, is no reason not to take small steps. Small steps or even just moving in the same spot is better than standing still. Because at least you are doing something!
11. Anger and resentment makes you do things you regret, to say things you should not and act in ways you know you should not. It also imprisons you like ‘devils snare” (infamous in Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone). Sometimes, to be free, you just need to relax and let go.
12. Apologize – it’s very powerful.

Hum of the day

I wish I could apologize to the people I have interacted with in this country – for being judgmental, for pointing fingers at other peoples way of life. I am forgiving myself for not being able to live or let live. I am no longer promising anything. I am just going to live. I am going to forgive, and I’m learning to do things which make me happy and allow me to be at peace with myself. I am surrounding myself with happier thoughts, more color, more smiles and more laughter. The bright happy pink of this blog is perhaps step one ;)

Judge, think, yawn!

We judge the strangest things. Really we do. The other day my husband received an email address for someone. It was a hotmail id. And my instant response was “who uses hotmail these days”. Apparently a lot of people! But it just goes to show how effective gmail has been in capturing the mind space of email users. I remember hotmail was my first email id, then yahoo and other email ids which had more mailbox space. Until I moved to gmail! Thereafter I never moved to anything else.

It’s all about branding. And the brands you use often speak volumes – about how influenced we are by what marketers tell us as well as of how accurately they actually understand our mindset.

Anyways I started thinking. I get really annoyed when people judge others by the place they live in, the locality, the car they drive, who they know etc. And here I was, forming an image of a person because of the email id that they use. Has technology just broadened the scope for stereotypes? Is it now a very effective tool to put people into slots? Or do I just have too much time on my hands?!!!

Hum of the day
I am in office, got a random thought. Decided to pen it down - don’t judge me!