Mistakes

It’s 10 pm and I am sitting on our couch in the lounge. It had been a long day and I was really tired. As I sat there thinking about the day and all that I had done: at work, with friends, the retail therapy dose I had taken, the things I had said to the people I had crossed paths with, willing or unwillingly. However there was one thing that had been pricking the back of my mind all day, where I had dumped it as the day’s work kept me busy. It was what a friend had asked me and caught me totally off guard. Now I usually have a reply ready for almost everything that may come my way. Really I do.

Here’s the stunner question: “Do you know where you want to be in 5 years time?” This question was asked in a conversation about shoes, a light happy blissful conversation during lunch. I told her I’d probably be busy bullying people and trying to get a bill passed against bad shoes, but to be honest I have no clue.

I don’t even know where I will be in 10 years or 15 years. Till that moment, till 1:15 pm that afternoon, the future was an abstract, far away reality that I had nothing to do with. No planning, no worrying about it. All of a sudden I didn’t feel sleepy anymore. Was I one of those who forget to take their train out of the station and are left stranded, simply because they don’t know where they are headed. What a jolt of high voltage reality, but was it really all that bad?

How many people know what they actually want? And out of all those who think they know what they want, how many are right? Not many.

Life is a long ride, full of detours and wrong turns. It is full of heartbreaks, defeats, the unknowns, haters, hated, growing up, so many things we just don’t think we would get over, leave alone survive and look back with a smile on our faces. Did all the people in their 80s know where they were headed? Did they know then what career path they should take, what would be the right way to save, who to marry if at all, where they will live, how will they raise their children? I doubt it. I am sure of one thing, though they aren’t all unhappy about it.

Life is more than just about making decisions and overcoming the unknown. It is a period of time, an allotted time period that is to end without us knowing about it in advance (no way can we change that, it is beyond our control, unless one is suicidal, which I strongly strongly discourage). There is no Ctrl+Z, no replay, no re-dos in life. What we have is all we get. ever. Every moment is a memory in the making.

I am not undermining the immensity of mistakes and the costs they can bear. Nor the importance of planning and thinking through decisions. The point I am trying to make (more to myself than to anyone else) is that not everything is in our control nor can we always know what the future will have in store for us. And more often then we would like, we mess things up. Things aren’t always bright and shiny. And at times situations can be suffocating and life may seem to be ending. It doesn’t end that easy. We get hurt, our hearts are broken, hopes crushed, dreams shattered, and every time it hurts like the first time, sometimes even worse. However, that doesn’t mean we lock all our hopes, aspirations and dreams away and put our hearts out of commission.

Human beings are resilient. So resilient. We are equipped to survive and endure. Better yet to evolve. It’s all up to us. When we look back we won’t remember our mistakes but how they made us feel. How we react and rise or fall.

Make memories to laugh at, smiling at it just won’t be enough. Cherish your friends, friendships are evergreen. Live your life and don’t compare it with others. Don’t settle. Don’t worry too much. And enjoy your time while it lasts. It’s ok if you aren’t sure where you are headed in the next ten years, some of the happiest people I know didn’t know it either.

How Britney Spears saved my gym workouts.

A few months back, my mom had been on my case to get into shape. I was too lazy to pay heed to her words of truth backed by my own lethargy, when finally spring sprouted and I got worried if my summer wardrobe would still fit. When I voiced my inhibitions, my mom said, ” you won’t have to worry, you can always have mine”. Snap! Time to hit the gym.

So here is my story; the gym story.

Day One

I went to check out the gym I had chosen. I met a few girls there. Regulars. Hi and hello exchanged. After the niceties one asked why I wanted to gym at all, I looked fit enough. I smiled and I said that I just wanted to get back into shape. Girl 2 enters.

“Hey. First day? But you look fine, you don’t need to exercise girl”. Please note that the don’t was prolonged and said with exasperation.

Anyways one too many questions and I decided that I don’t need these free advises, though I am sure they didn’t mean it in a bad way.

By the end of 20 mins I was already exhausted and shocked. Where was the girl who lived half her school life in the grounds and volleyball courts. I had worked out before but this lack of stamina was a shock.

Somethings had to change to motivate me to keep at it. And this is what I did.

Day Two

I took my own music with me.

Enters Girl 1 from the day before and says a very fruity hello. I smile back. She takes one look at me and instantly asks why I need to gym. I sigh and say I have a demanding boyfriend. I end it with a innocent smile and continue with the warm up.

She is stunned for a moment and then returns the smile and I can sense that the cogs in her brain working away. That was worth it.

Next thing I do is plug in my music. Britney’s Criminal comes on and I am on the treadmill. I start singing along… enthusiastically. At the part “tattooed on his arm” I smile slyly. All the while I keep looking at the girl and she has the look that says this girl is so wrong. LOL! Awesome. Here is a link for anyone interested to know what the song is like

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhJ7U07-20g

Day three

A new girl enters and I am sweating it out on the treadmill. She looks at me and the same question, “Honey you don’t need to do this to yourself”.  I start laughing and so want to tell her, “Aww honey, I won’t steal your man, don’t worry”, but of course I didn’t. Nicole Kidman’s Sally Owen from “Practical Magic” flashed in my mind when she said “ Hang onto your husbands, girls!” LOL.

I ended up just saying that she was very sweet for saying that.

The next day I had no more inquisitive women on my case

Why they don’t understand that I am not looking for free advice or that it is not ok to pry, is beyond me.

Anyways, here are some other dos if you want to work out at the gym.

1. Take your own music. Something up beat. No sad songs. No heart break songs. Don’t be afraid to lose yourself to the beat. Have fun when you work out. It is better that way. “No pain, no gain” is old now.

I am playing Stereo Hearts, Beat it by MJ, Glee covers, Rihanna and Maroon 5, Time of my life by Three Doors Down among st others.

2. Get motivators. A favorite dress you want to look gorgeous in. Just be self aware. The motivation should be very very strong. A dress may not be enough, come to think of it, a whole wardrobe perhaps Like the Patronus Charm to work the happy thought has to be very very strong to make it work. For those who don’t know what a Patronus is, please see the Harry Potter book series

3. Find a gym partner. This really helps. Mine has similar choice of music as me. She is a happy person and she just accepted my decision to workout without questioning. Your gym partner can keep tabs on you and will be your gym police, making sure you work out. Someone who you can be comfortable with.

5. Find a new gym. Or you could change the time. I work out at a new one now, (but that’s because I moved) and its great.

4. Love yourself. After all, in the end it is all about you Like Sandra Bullock said in  Miss Congeniality: Nobody cares about you if you don’t care about yourself (sorry if I got the words wrong).

Happy gymming people

Having a bad day? It’s OK, it isn’t illegal.

How many of us can say that we didn’t have a single bad day in our entire week? A lucky few perhaps. Or fewer still who always manage to find the silver lining around the grey clouds that cover our horizon.

So all of us have days when we feel, to put it simply, unhappy. We may feel like getting away from everything, we may want to break something, maybe feel like throwing in the towel and  giving up. When enough is enough. When we want to throw a punch at someone who is giving us a tough time. It could be because of something as small as a bad case of flu or a cold on a busy work day, burnt breakfast, a messed up favorite dress or the broken heel of a new pair of shoes, to something significantly more serious, like an accident, a heated argument with a loved one, loss of money, a pet or a loved one falling sick. Sometimes our patience meter hits red, that invisible line that keeps moving is crossed and we snap.  Ever felt any of that or all of that?

I have and I am going to tell this more to myself than anyone else: it’s OK! It’s OK to have a bad day. It is not against the law and it is not the end of the world. And it could have been worse ( I don’t know about you but that sometimes makes me feel somewhat better).

For now I am not going to go all optimistic and will let the realist in me take over and take the bad day for what it is: a bad day. So lets face the bad day stoically. Happy scowling everyone! You are not alone in having one.

A prayer

Dear God,

You are the One and Only, the Majestic and the Merciful. So merciful. I tremble at the thought of Your wrath if You punished me for all that I have done this year. Even I can’t forgive myself for all that I have done and got away with. I have been my own antagonist.

Still, I thank you for all that has happened, all the joy and the sorrow that I felt as a consequence. No experience is truly bad or good, it is what we make out of it to suit our own devices. All that has come to pass has changed me as a person. Who I “was” will shape who I will “be”.

Thank you Al Mighty, for teaching me courage. I have learnee that courage is to face adversity with our heads held high. It is like going into an arena with the certainty of a gruesome death etched in our hearts, yet doing so on our own feet rather than being dragged in. It is facing disappointment and taking the blows stoically. Courage is not crashing when all goes against our will, when we can only watch helplessly from the sidelines.

I am grateful to you my Lord, for teaching me how weak I am. How easily I can succumb to temptation and get waylaid by lust and sparkles. Knowing my own weakness enables me to avoid it and eventually cure myself of it.

You, my loving God, also taught me rejection. The feeling of disbelief and utter hopelessness that cloaks us in that very moment, creating a vacuum that takes the air out of our lungs. However I intend to not allow it to stop me from taking the leap again. I hope to follow my dreams, those which will win Your approval, and not the ones that will incur Your wrath upon me. Only next time when I take that leap I will know what is at stake.

I thank you my Rubb for letting me witness poverty and death so as to cherish what I have.

I also thank you for showing me the coldness and steely hardness of hearts so that I may never forget to show compassion. Even for those who lack it. No one is perfect. There is no black and white when it comes to people. Compassion is not a weakness, it is a strength and only the gifted can experience it.

I ask You for the the strength to do the right thing and shun what is not. Please bless me with the good sense to see right from wrong. Enable me with the power to become worthy of Your love. Please help us become the humans You want us to be. Guide us to encourage peace on earth and goodwill and brotherhood. Help us master our fears and overcome our differences. We invoke Your mercy and seek Your blessings to undo the damage done before us and by us to make this world a better place for the generations to come.

May 2012 restore our faith in humanity and ourselves. Ameen.

So how tall are you today?

This is not a question about your height, or how high the heels, that you may be wearing, are. It has nothing to do with either. Not that I don’t love heels. Almost every girl does. And every second girl fantasizes about them. At times all it takes is a pair of beautiful heels to turn your day around.

Yet, heels are not always what help us walk tall.

Walking tall is a state of mind. It has nothing to do with what you wear, or how you look, but how you perceive yourself. It is all in the head.

I know some guys who are not even 5’7″ but they have swagger. They have confidence. If nature dealt them a mean hand, they didn’t let it stop them. They made up for it with being chivalrous and charming, showing kindness, being larger than life and leading from the front where others faltered. I find them to be more impressive then most taller men.

Usually when I go to work I listen to a playlist to get me into the mind frame to face another day at work. To get my groove on. So that when I walk out of the elevator I walk tall. It doesn’t always work but it does help.

There is something that does work everytime: prayer. I don’t set a time for it. I just do it in the car in the morning. Sometimes I raise my hands up to pray, sometimes I simply do it in my heart, in the hope that He will make the huge day in front of me, somewhat more attainable, less daunting. Sometimes its a mere thought that God loves me and provides for me even though I am not deserving of His bounties. At times its a silent hope that on that day, He will be on my side. That hope and thought of Him helps me feel stronger, makes me feel taller.

In the end, its not what we’ve got but what we make of what we’ve got.  We won’t get everything we want or desire. Maybe that is for the better. Maybe not. Maybe the pain of it will never go away. In any case it shouldn’t stop us from living. From rising above.

What makes us tall is not our height or what we wear, but how we feel and think about ourselves. We may be brought crashing down on our faces by someone who we entrust with our emotions, or made to feel ten feet tall by the approval of a superior or a simple unexpected compliment.

We aren’t always in control of our mental height. We fall again and again. And it can’t be helped. However we can choose to stay down or dust ourselves and get back on our feet.

The strange thing is that making someone else feel better makes us feel better too. We comfort someone, try to reduce their misery, simply listen to them and it makes you feel like you have done something good. We do a hard day’s work, without being a sloth and at the end the exhaustion is satisfying. We go the extra mile for our loved ones. We sacrifice, we smile at strangers, help the destitute, rescue a kitten or an injured bird, toss change into a collection tin. All these acts of selflessness can provide varying levels of the feeling of achievement. In the end we feel good and its not entirely selfless after all.

How good you can make someone feel today, how you can help, how you can live for others even for a moment and put your own agenda on the back seat, how you rise to a challenge, how far beyond the call of duty you go, how your loved ones look up to you and you do not let them down, that’s how tall you are today.

The Garbage Picker

I saw this young garbage picker while waiting for a signal to go green this morning. He unlocked his bike and meticulously checked it with care, reading for the day.

What affected me was how content he looked. He didnt have a blank or defeated look on his face. A faint smile lingered on his face, no sign of defeat or surrender to his circumstances. He was at peace with the world and his life. Makes one wonder if ignorance is bliss after all. And is our struggle for what we call ‘progress’ really worth it all in the end? Or are we in a fruitless race towards no gain, only to dissolve into the sands of time.

If Only Fairy Tales Were True

Fairy tales are a part of almost all fortunate children’s childhood memories. We grow up learning morality, the difference between good and bad through sublime messages to hone young eager minds. Fairy tales also taught us that princesses (good behavior and cleanliness) are for loving and witches are for fearing. Frogs can turn into princes and wells and lamps grant wishes.

Somehow it was never the princess or the genie that appealed to me. The ones that I read and reread with relish and vivid imagination were the ones written by Enid Blyton about mushrooms and pixies and small villages of brownies and far-away lands where all was well and they baked cakes with honey dew and had cupcakes, strawberries and cream for supper. Where the naughty were punished with sprouting tails and spanking frying pans. Good behavior was rewarded with trips to fairy lands and new toys.

The underlying message was of community and embedding moral values without discriminating between boys and girls. Teaching that community and family are important.

Though I loved reading about fairies and mushroom homes, what really awed me were the kings and queens of fairy tales. The kings and queens, who are just and fair, who rule their people with laws and decisions that are based on truth and justice, not on their personal gain.

The kings were dignified and honest. They were patient and could do no wrong. If they did, they would feel no hesitation in realizing their mistake, ask for forgiveness and make amends. They didn’t have people mysteriously removed from their homes and taken away from their families. They did not lie and try to pull wool over their gullible citizens’ eyes.

In those fairy tales the kings and queens would take time to hold court and listen to the troubles of their people and try to help them. They did not try to swindle them of their money in the form of new taxes and cuts in subsidy. They were self reliant and believed in fair trade and hard work. They did not rely on foreign loans and grants to run their kingdoms.

They had knights and advisers who fought dragons and monsters and traveled great distances for honor and good. They did not have greedy ministers ignorant of their duty to crown and country.  They did not lie to save face and pass the blame. They wouldn’t allow a spy from a rich country evade punishment if he broke the law. They would certainly not tolerate a foreign invasion, and let them get away with it, without putting up resistance.

Most importantly, the people loved them too. They stood by their kings, and showed faith in their decisions. Their happiness was in their kings and queens’ happiness.

The moral of the story is that people need to have courage; but more importantly they need to have honor.

If only fairy tales were true.