Life: Convenience or beating the Odds??

Hey Readers,

Firstly, apologies for being away.. You see, this Masters programme is getting a bit challenging. Without wasting time to outline my work here, let us move into a topic which I think has been on my mind for a long time but I never got the opportunity to write about it. 

Life: A matter of convenience or beating the Odds

So though I have always been thinking of do people take decisions in life or make choices in life simply because they are convenient? it is something that has bothered and made me ponder upon what really matters to people? I am writing about this today because of a very interesting conversation I had with a friend, due to some experiences and to help my readers reflect on some decisions they took in life. After all this blog is not only about me, it is also for my readers to reflect and hopefully take away something from it.. 

More often than not, I have come across people who fear taking a decision which requires one to be persistent, which is time consuming or which in short requires going against the convenient option. Why? I ask myself... I think the answer lies in the question itself.. CONVENIENCE..

This word may seem small and simple as it simply means something which is easy or simplifies matters.. however, it cannot be as simple as that after all. When we do something convenient, I think we do take a back seat from going that extra mile. Sometimes, we take a convenient decision or make a convenient choice which may be superb for us and our convenience but unfortunately it ignores the other person in the trade off and also the larger good. The convenience option I think is a result of modernization because in these times- 
we shop for convenience
products are marketed for convenience
we follow a certain society and culture because it is convenient
we decide travel options as per convenience
we meet people and decide places to meet as per convenience 
we also decide who we wish to be around based off convenience 
we also decide our political parties in a democratic set up based on convenience..
All of the above is done to save time and more important to not fight against the odds.

Therefore, though I don't completely disagree with the aspect of convenience and perhaps it makes sense to take decisions and make choices for convenience, let us step back a little and think more about these decisions or choices.. What do we lose when we take all our decisions based on solely the convenient option.  
 We may lose the support of some valuable people, we may also lose that sense of potential of a humankind to beat the odds and challenges and sometimes which is the worst to happen we may become selfish in our decision, thus ignoring the larger good. 
Let us think of this through an example which is appropriate at this point since we are in the month of Muharram (commemoration of the martyrdom of Imam Hussain) 

Imam Hussain is a known figure to Muslims and non Muslims alike he had two options- 
the first convenient option was to turn a deaf ear and blind eye to the problems of the people and the injustice they were facing. In this case, he had to just look after himself and his family and forget the world- it did not matter- there was no need to fight for the people.
The second was to fight for the larger good, for the people and against injustice the people were facing due to some decisions made by their ruler- Yazid.

Well, as we all know he chose the second and most inconvenient option which led to not only his family's brutal death but also his own life came to an end. He did not choose the most convenient option and that is exactly the reason various historical figures like Mahatma Gandhi have looked upon his ethos as an inspiration in their struggles for the larger good. 

The above example will hopefully illicit some reflections in your mind-
When did I take a decision which was not only about keeping me in the decision making process?
When did I go with an inconvenient option for the larger good?
Which decision of mine did affect someone negatively or positively?
Which decision did I fear to take as it required me to beat the odds/ was challenging and time consuming? what decision did I take seeing these challenges?
Did I completely step back or did I think of the bigger picture? 

These questions will hopefully make you think once more the next time you choose an option simply because it is the convenient one.
Life after all is not simply about convenience, it is about having the courage to beat the odds and seeing the larger good :)

Teacher and her happiness

It's been a while I have not written on this blog... I remember my purpose of writing this blog was to make a beginning to my writer instinct. This blog was to play the role of a writer inside me who can easily put into words her thoughts on a subject... Today, however I feel this instinct has been easier said than done.

At times, I have typed long posts, at times short, some published and some unpublished, while some posts or thoughts just remained in my thoughts as strands of ideas to build connections at later point, where or when this point will come is mysterious. There were topics that interested me for a while and I thought, " I have to blog about this." With time, I felt, "Nahhh", let it pass... Some other time...

The reason why I am mentioning the above is to make my readers understand that you may not always express something you feel in words or actions, but feelings and experiences are always there and add a lot to a person's identity and existence. Just the way, I feel and experience a lot but unfortunately cannot write all my feelings and experiences on this blog, I am sure there are many who feel and experience a lot but more often than not our busy lives never give us the time to reflect on these feelings and experiences as well as their causes and effects...

I can vouch the time issues we all face in this century. Whilst am doing my double masters programme in London, I know how difficult it is to get some time out for oneself. The question to be raised here, " Do I do what keeps me happy amidst my busy life?"

In this world, we may be out to please people and the society around us and in that race of pleasing all, sometimes we forget to please ourselves and look out for our own happiness... However, I know that as a person I always try to keep people around me happy though I may not be doing to the best of my ability at times, but the intention and efforts are always present. As far as, I am concerned, I feel there is a need also to keep oneself happy as your personal happiness becomes a route to keeping others happy :)

For me, being a teacher has helped me be happy and keep others happy...
Today, I can say that when I walk into a classroom, I know I am going there with a feeling of making sure that my students learn something which they not only learn for the classroom purpose but carry it outside and beyond that classroom environment...
I know that not all of them are perhaps interested in everything we discuss or learn in the class but my ability to instill curiosity in them and give them the ability to further explore our discussions is the key to our happiness as a class....
I also understand that I cannot expect them to be as enthusiastic about learning on all days but yes my happiness in teaching and positive energy levels should perhaps rub off them and make them feel motivated and positive of being in the classroom..
I unfortunately have to touch on a sensitive issue here... I also know that some of my students are not coming from a very friendly or positive home atmosphere but I should be able to treat all equally and make them feel that life will unfold many opportunities for them to find their happiness and give them the signs and ladders to their success and unending happiness...
As a teacher, I always strive for the above and I can say I have been more successful than I thought I would be...for which I thank the Almighty.

There have been days where I myself have not been feeling at my best but my main motive of making my students happy and making a difference to their lives has ensured that this remorse in my life never affects them adversely. At all times, their happiness has come before me :)

At the end of the day, I have come to realise a teacher is after all someone who spreads more than the curriculum learning, she brings happiness to students :)

Life is what we make it

Life is what we make it or rather make of it..

One year has passed as a student in London, I wonder sometimes What has come and What has gone? What has changed me for the better or the worst?
Life is what we make it after all and as you may have earlier read in one of my posts it is highly influenced by the choices we make in life... or the decisions we take in our life... not all these decisions are appropriate but at the end of the day they all teach you something about yourself, about others around you and that is how perhaps you discover and rediscover yourself...
In this one year, I learnt a lot about the city, my course (after all I better do that), more than anything I made new friends and I am sure I learnt a lot from them
Now it is going to be a new beginning and am sure the bonds with friends will get stronger, but I have realised one thing as a person, a friend, a sister and a daughter that the stronger you make bonds with people, the more attachments are created...
Now the question I ask myself is.. Why these attachments?? What is the need of being attached?? But somethings just happen and one cannot always have control over them.
It is obviously a given fact that we as intellectual humans who think for ourselves and our actions are a result of our thoughts should have more control over situations. This control over situations can perhaps happen when we take charge of our mind.. Why only mind? infact we must take charge of our mind, body and soul. We must organize our life around the way we wish to, just the way we make attempts to plan our career, our education, our daily chores and schedules, we must attempt to take charge, think and decide who we wish to build stronger bonds with..But, like I mentioned sometimes we do not have control over situations...
This control over situations is lost when we are thinking from our heart perhaps.. because it is the mind which should think and not the heart... heart is supposed to feel and internalise what the mind thinks... but the thinking responsibility is obviously of the mind..
Hence, the day we completely disconnect our heart from our mind we will be able to take control over situations and rightly say that our actions and attachments are a product of a mind and Life is after all what we make of it. 

The past connections...

The past connections…

Often we hear statements such as: “Live in the present.” or

“Forget the Past.” Or better still “There is nothing in the past only think of the present and plan your future.”

When I hear such statements, I ask myself: Should we only live in the present and forget our past?

I think as an individual it becomes very difficult for me to think only of what is happening around me and finding no connection of this present to my past. Today as a writer on this blog and hopefully as an author in the future, I think certainly my past is going to influence my present and future writing. The simplest example is this blog article itself. Nowadays in this fast paced world where people perhaps live just for the present, may be they never realise how their past connects to their present and influences their future as who has the time to dwell into the past and reminisce about it. But, I can always feel those connections….

I am not disagreeing here with people who think that if holding onto their past is restricting their progress in the present hence it is better to forget the past. This makes sense and I certainly feel that nothing should stop you from making progress in this world. But, to think of it, hasn’t your past experiences where you have not been able to progress due to any circumstances had a strong influence on the decisions you take in life today which help you climb that ladder of success. Does this mean, no matter if we realise it or not we are constantly learning from our past and thereby planning the steps we take in the present.

Today, in one way or another we all are learning from our past and though we may claim to forget it, it actually forms a strong part of our present existence and identity. Let us look at a few ways of how our past connections shape our present perceptions:

A ruler or leader will always look at the past leaders and what helped them to lead effectively or what restricted their leadership being effective and learn from it to make his decisions as a leader. This is the reason where histories of a nation, place and culture affect the life and leadership at present. We have various examples of leaders in history who have failed to become effective leaders if they could not gauge the past experiences and expectations of people which influence the present day society.

A businessman will see his peers past experiences or his personal past experiences to understand which venture will result in more returns and better business opportunities.

A young child whilst preparing for academics will learn from past mistakes and try to ensure that those mistakes are not repeated.

A child as young as 2 or 3 years old will stay away from the fire lit by matchstick if he has got slightly burnt from it in the past.

A mother who due to some circumstances has had a miscarriage will be extremely cautious when she is pregnant again.

A teacher will never repeat the same lesson plan in class as it is if it did not work effectively in the previous class.

The above are just a few instant examples that occur to me when I thought of writing this article on how the past connections are always influencing our present perceptions and decisions. I am certain an avid reader will during his personal reflections come up with more such examples. But that is something I would like my reader to explore himself/herself.

I think by now the readers of this blog understand that my purpose for writing these blog articles as I had mentioned in my first article is to rediscover myself and may be at times pose some questions and share some thoughts with my readers which will make them ponder upon some aspects of life which are often overlooked.

Today, the way I am as a person has not occurred by itself. I am sure as a person I have transformed and transformed through my past experiences which have made me the person that I am. There are some days when the pleasant past experiences make me more confident and strong as an individual. There are also some unpleasant past experiences which make me reflect upon instances where things could have been different but unfortunately were not. Whether, pleasant or unpleasant experiences, my past helps me shape my perceptions and present decisions.

I am sure that the readers of this blog article will at some point reflect on how their past creates connections…. For their present.

Choices in Life

Choices in Life....


      A statement I came up with randomly during a conversation with a close friend. A statement I always ponder upon and thus always get associated with even on days when I am not really thinking about the choices I make in life...." I choose what I want to be, but these choices are hard to make..." 


     Choices in Life.... 


   So let my readers understand me better today than they have ever in the past... 


I choose to be a person who always smiles and keeps people around her happy..


I choose to be a teacher after having acquired the best of Management education and experiencing a wonderful corporate career...


I choose to be a loving daughter, an affectionate sister, a caring friend and a trustworthy human...


   Though I choose to be a lot more than the above stated three statements but for the purpose of making this an interesting read I choose only the above three statements because they are closest to my existence and identity and have a lot to be said about me and my journey of making choices in life...


  Today, I don't know why is this occurring to me again and again and hence I thought I should pen it down on a blog the Choices we make in Life... Not all those choices may be appropriate but they appropriately help us discover, rediscover and come closer to ourselves... 
I am certain some of the choices I made in life were perhaps not appropriate but they made me understand the difference between this world and the Other (however let us keep that for another post) 


  To avoid deviation let us come back to the three statements I stated above:
1. I choose to be a person who always smiles and keeps people around her happy..
Is this choice hard to make?? well, more often than not it is easy to make this choice... When I smile or go an extra mile to keep others happy around me, I feel good and happy myself. It is as if when you give some happiness, you get a hundred back and that is what I experience on most days of my life. However, there are those days when I forget the purpose of humankind and think what is the point of keeping others happy if that is making me sad? and these are the days when I ask myself is my happiness alone while I make someone else sad really worth that happiness... Is it ever worth it to build your castle on someone's broken hut?? and obviously the answer is never worth to do that.. so again as I said this is not an easy choice it seems to be the best one...to smile and keeps others happy..


2. I choose to be a teacher after having acquired the best of Management education and experiencing a wonderful corporate career...
This is the one choice in my life which required courage and determination and obviously may seem to be a hard one. At the age of 23 out from a flourishing management education and wonderful corporate career, the choice to take a career shift and choose to be a teacher did not come easy to me, but came naturally. I can still reminisce the day I decided to shift from a Unit Manager to a Teacher and to pursue further education. It asked for determination and dedication but I am sure it has been worth it.. Today I feel like this is what was meant to be and some choices which seem the hardest are the ones we really appreciate as they truly bring us closer to ourselves. Today, I feel I could have been nothing else but a Teacher. Don't ask me how as I said it came naturally to me.
Somethings we choose in Life and somethings Life chooses for us perhaps. 


3. I choose to be a loving daughter, an affectionate sister, a caring friend and a trustworthy human..
These choices seem a blessing in disguise and I have never struggled with them as they are the blessings of God. It has been easier to be the above, there have just been those days when I have expected a lot from myself and may be due to the high expectations I have had for myself, I have been hurt of not keeping up with them. But then, am only human..


When I think of the above, I tell myself life is all about making choices after all, choice between right and wrong, between sane and insane, between yours and other happiness, between truth and lie and at the end, all we mankind is left with is the repercussions of choices we make in life. 


However in these days I remember the famous quote... 
"even man struggles to be human."

Love...


A word which tickles the mind of everyone. In most cases, when we hear the word LOVE, we think of two people who can do anything for each other (though in today's practical realities this is difficult to find) and in those two people we mostly think of a girl and a boy. 


But, LOVE can also mean the affection between a mother and a child, care between friends, committment between a married couple, understanding of learning relationship between a teacher and a student, and the most divine the mercy and compassion of God upon humankind. 


People associate this word with different meanings and definitions and each individual has a different dimension of it. Some people easily say "Oh, I LOVE watching movies." " I LOVE red dresses." Thus, people associate this word with hobbies, passion, materialistic things etc. 


It is a question each person can ask themselves... What do I mean when I say I LOVE......
If you ask me this question, my answer will differ depending under what external and internal circumstances I am in at that point of time and this is something I can say for many of us if not all. Your surrounding environment, your circumstances and struggles of life will influence your answer on what is LOVE for you and hence this word can not have a straight and strict definition and will differ each time you are asked about it at regular intervals.


However, over the period of time, one thing I have come to realize is that LOVE as a word independent cannot speak much. It needs other words to define it. However, these other words can simply be defined individually by themselves. But, LOVE needs support of other words. 
Example. Love needs the support of Understanding, Trust, Faith and more importantly according to me Committment. When I hear the word love and bring two people into it no matter what relationship they share these additional words automatically add to the word LOVE for me. I am only looking at people when I discuss love here and not materialistic things though as a reader you can explore that side to. 


Love is all about understanding the needs of each other, it is about trusting each others words, it is about having endless faith in each other and more than anything it is about committing each other to a sense of being one and not two in LOVE. These things seems simple and obvious to read but to practice, they may be difficult. I also think perhaps the problem arises when people look at LOVE without attaching these words as then they simply do not know what they mean or understand of this word. They use it to their advantage, they sabotage it and walk over it and they do not realise to treat LOVE independent of other words requires a deep understanding of it which initiates by understanding and associating trust, committment and faith to it. 


Simply put just as the way to understand the CREATOR, you need to first understand his CREATION, to Love someone or to understand Love you need to understand the trust, faith and committment the word brings with itself. 

Marriage a memory or life...

Before I start blogging on any topic, I will try and make an effort to rationalise why am I choosing to write on it. 


Marriage- am neither married, nor close to getting married at this stage, then why am i writing this... Well interestingly, a programme which is stirring the Indian minds these days is Satyamev Jayate by the well know actor, producer and director- Amir Khan. Aamir Khan is the one celebrity in India who does not need much introduction. His movies like Taare Zameen Par will make you think and understand the true meaning of the word empathy. He and his movies have always been an inspiration for me in few if not many ways. His programme looks into the issues that affect Indian people and Indian society. Though the programme has already spoken about female foeticide, child abuse etc, the one episode on marriage and dowry has made me write this blog.. 


Again why the episode on marriage has intrigued me you may ask... perhaps because the issues related to dowry are seen in our society, whether explicitly or implicitly, they are always there... According to me, explicit dowry is when you give a list to the girl's parents and demand from them and implicit is when you tell the parents whatever you'll can give and which means a lot of things :P whether you can afford them or not....


I ask myself will this programme make any difference?? do people who are the root causes of these issues will even watch a programme which is a slap on their face?? well, and even if they do, will they watch it as any other programme they perhaps watch on their televisions or will they even consider reflecting and acting upon it??. Of course the answers to these questions cannot be predicted or judged by me... 


Interesting stories of many women aired on Satyamev Jayate made me think no matter how much we progress, some social stigmas always follow us. Rich or poor, beautiful or ugly, educated or uneducated, girls are treated like trade boxes most of the times by the boys and their families alike. Though the programme very nicely highlighted positive stories too.. I ask myself can few stories create a different society.. may be they can ... if most other people take something back from these few stories then why not?? 


All I understand is that the day a lady is treated as nothing but a trade box, her integrity, respect and dignity are hurt.. whether due to dowry or just in any other situation whether in a relationship or as an unborn daughter.. we need to ask ourselves... Can I say I love my mother and care for her (after all she is a lady who has gone through the same situation). 

Beginning Lines...

Hey...

Sometimes, few things in life take too long to initiate. Perhaps, something you have really wanted to do in your life takes time to happen.... Why?? either you are still not prepared for it to happen or may be you are just too lazy :P 

I can say both for this blog of mine.. Many a times, my friends and family encouraged me to create a blog, 

 "you should start writing man.. you'll be good at it :)" OR formally put someone at a family function asked me..

"Have you ever considered writing for magazines?" strange that all along I knew I may not be a great writer but yes there is some inclination for writing in me for sure. 

When I came to London for further studies, I had to start writing for grades, that is sometimes unpleasant. Imagine you want to just go and sit with your fishing rod near the sea hoping to fish and experience the fun without any worries and one day you get to know now you have to fish for food or you get nothing to eat. Can you think about it... Must be a strange feeling ehh.. Well, so I had to now start writing for a grade but again what I do for my school work is absolutely academic writing. This blog might be different. One positive side to writing for grade is, it actually now pushed me to do something I enjoy in my free time... blogging and writing for myself... Wonder why it took so long.

Suddenly, I felt I should do what I have always been thinking to do.. start writing for MYSELF. I think it took long as I mentioned earlier I was not prepared and also I was lazy :P

I am not going to keep any promises for the readers of this blog.. Some days, you'll may enjoy what you'll read and somedays you'll may wonder is she alright ??? What nonsense is she writing... HAHAHA... 

But, at the end of it all am writing for exploring myself as a writer and to keep some memories from fading.