Without Doubt!

Do we ever start our day without any doubts? Its true, we all live in the confines of our minds. Just imagine if we didn't. Just imagine if we woke up every morning not doubting our potential, capacity and reach. If man could discover planets in the outer space, make machines like aeroplanes that can fly, invent the world wide web and such tech that would be unimaginable couple of thousands of years ago, why do we need to start our day doubting anything?

What is doubt anyway? Doubt is under confidence! By doubting our potential, we are in fact re-iterating the belief that we live in the confines of our minds alone and in a small world that only consists of witnessing the 'other' to be more competent than the 'I'

Try letting go off that doubt. It doesn't really come instantaneously. It needs faith re-iteration...could be in the form of a prayer, meditation, self dialogue..whatever works.

Try knowing for a change that no matter the difficulty I will get what I want. Because I have the capacity to get it. All the things we want, all the people we want, all the accomplishments we want to achieve in this lifetime are actually all here. Here...like literally here. Around me, next to me, playing hide and seek with me. The only reason failure comes along is this one iota of doubt that conditions the mind to think..'what if" ... what if it doesn't happen....what if i cannot?

In all actuality you CAN. If you let go off the confines of the mind. Go beyond. Know that miracles do happen! And when they don't happen..we can always make them happen! Look at the spaceship we made to quench curiosity of the outer space, look at the digital world we created so miraculously! Would it have ever happened if we thought its not possible by doubting the human mind? Your guess is as good as mine!

Hence, lets not start our days with doubts and fears for where they exist faith disappears! :)

It's called life or something like it!

Chaiti Narula

We are complicated people on earth. We are torn between idealism, and quintessential -selfism! People often appear to be something and are really something else. And we all do this all the time. Most people I come across end up 'people pleasing' their way through lives. Are we really here to make people happy and seek approvals? Its a simple question. Asked before way too many times and I'm not even sitting here asking something extra-ordinary. It has been asked all the time before. But we all forget the simplicity of this simplicity!
Why is it so difficult for us to let people be? We all have mastered the art of getting judgemental. In an attempt to not allow someone else to get judgemental about ourselves, we forget who we really are. We make people target audiences and sell ourselves are products for them to think we're the best buys!
You are what you are. In this maze of societal expectations, peer pressures, traditionally accepted behavioural predispositions, we lose ourselves.
And one day we wake up to realise we are unhappy. The reason for this unhappiness - the aforesaid reasons. We have really not spent enough time knowing ourselves since we are all so busy in a rut. We have not spent time to understand and receive and listen to the outward world in its true sense since we are so busy talking about ourselves. We have just not been able to dance our hearts content because we are so busy dancing to the tune of societal expectations and mollycoddling ourselves to what the world wants to see ourselves as.
We are who we are. We must live because life is here...right here in ourselves...we are life. We must do what we want to because we feel like it and it makes us happy. Not only happy...comfortably happy. We must earn enough money to sustain but let not be vending machines and forget to appreciate simple pleasures in life. Pleasures don't come out of hanging out in the most elite circles, or being an investment banker, or driving the latest Merc. Pleasure lies in coming home to someone who you can hug and find the world your seeking for those moments, it lies in taking care of humans and animals selflessly, it lies in watching a baby grow, it lies in having a snug meal with family at home and it lies in finding strangers who make a connection.

And that according to me is - Life or something like it! -) And I want to live it that way. Don't forget to dream in the process, don't forget to actualise our potentials and aspire to be someone. Just don't allow others to make you what they want you to be.

Its life or something like it- my best game, my biggest passion!

We are all temporary here. So why take life so seriously?

By Chaiti Narula

You wake up every morning, go about your routine and follow it all throughout your life. You may have screwed up so many inter-personal relationships as they didn’t ‘fit in your scheme of things.’ Being with a person is almost a strict no-no due to the strings that get attached. You worry, you hurry, have lots of unwanted curry! You stress at work if your goals aren’t achieved a for the day, your constantly meeting deadlines, and finding ways to lead the race….I SAY STOP!!! Don’t take life this seriously. Aren’t we all temporary here? People come on earth…people go. Who remembers if you earned 5 bucks extra or sacrificed the one you love for a great career. Really… in the long run no one wakes up in the morning thinking of your life. Each is to his own. We may last another 60 days, weeks or years…who knows? What really matters is balance. Are we living life and fully experience the joy of existentialism? And this joy really lies in finer things and not huge achievements. While its great to be ambitious its greater to achieve that ‘balance.’ And by balance I mean having a career, a family and good health to allow you to live. It’s no fun driving the latest Jaguar with a chronic arthritis. It’s no fun living in the dream house off Park Avenue or Malabar Hill if you can’t live in it with the one you love or your family. There’s no fun having a huge family if you don’t have a career or a job that pays for their well-being and its no fun dying single and looking back on your death bed and saying ‘if only.’ I would kill to go back to being a baby when I had my first sibling. Life was all about playing with that little brother that came into my life. I tucked away all my dolls and other superfluous toys and really enjoyed watching that new living doll grow! The first time he spoke, he walked, had his first morsel. Joy did lie in little things like that and we couldn’t care less if we missed the derby or the champagne vernissage till we got to go ride on our favorite horse …or in my little brothers case..look at me ride and clap hands after I got done! The joy lies in doing. Doing what we enjoy the most. The joy lies in loving. Hence loving what we do! We are all going to strive and work hard and achieve and make pots and pots of money. And then there will be people who live a much more modest life than the ambitious ones. Do they both know they have the same destiny? That one void of death? Hence it’s always about the journey that leads into the common destiny off all mankind…of demise. And its the way you travel this journey that matters at the end of the day. And shit happens! It happens to all of us. And it’s really for the best when it happens only if you embrace it positively. And you will only do that if you don’t take life that seriously! The best lessons in life come the hard way! I wouldn’t have respected life this much if I wasn’t lying unconscious in a hospital at the age of 21. I wouldn’t have achieved any wisdom in interpersonal relationships if my only serious relationship would have not gone for a royal toss! Instead of crying and whining and regretting … lets be opportunistic and learn. We are a sum of all our experiences afterall. I say the key word is ENJOY. Enjoy the hard work in the profession of your choice, enjoy studying as its great to earn knowledge, enjoy the arts, enjoy subjects that make up the world, enjoy a sport, enjoy your family life, fall in love, enjoy the fights you have with people you love – cause you only fight when you care! It’s great to build intelligence and greater to develop an intellect. Goof up a few dates, job interviews, maybe a marriage too! But look at it smile and say life goes on and we are here to live and we will live well! And let it not go on for the sake of going on! Let it go on because it’s worth living. Let living be your journey. Love to live and love to exist…love the fine things in life but stop sweating the small stuff…cause we are all temporary here. So why take life this seriously?!

I'd like to raise a toast to single-hood while I'm standing on high heels and ouucchh they hurt! (...the heels or the single-hood?) We'll figure!

Suddenly all the Facebook status updates have changed to being ‘in a relationship’ or worse ‘engaged’ or even worse ‘married’!!! Suddenly all your school friends start bringing their better half’s to annual parties and alumni meets, new year and Xmas eve parties (they don't even leave the birthdays out!). Just suddenly you realize it’s been 2 years you broke up with a man you were almost married to! And suddenly you realize you haven’t been able to love again and turned commitment phobic! You treat love as a business deal. Liking or being with someone comes with agreements and clauses and amending the clauses requires draft working papers like in a MUN! The deal gets called off due to non agreement of parties concerned on various clauses! If it were a stock, it would have strong fundamentals with much technical volatility! Phew! Freud would call it the theory of transference! The past does scar you. Someone’s said – Love like you’ve never been hurt before! But is that really possible ever? It is ...if you allow yourself to let go! But that letting go also has an after taste to it although its been well received by your system and taken in! (Read taken out!) We all find ourselves building a wall around us which makes it hard for someone to break open and harder for us to break and get out of. Why do we do this to ourselves when life’s all about the choices we make? We have a choice to forget the past, heal all scars and love like we’ve never been hurt before! We have a choice to walk right into a relationship with that someone who loves us deeply! But such people begin to scare you! And these are exactly the people you have no sexual chemistry with! You sit staring blank into the open window and wonder why you were so secure with cat whiskers yesterday and suddenly get bouts of insecurity with specific external stimuli! (blast from the past I say!) Its the same stimuli that was responsible for your relationship not working out! Think about it! And while your still sitting and staring you wonder what went wrong with the world around you? What is this mad obsession with being uber successful and perfect? What am I trying to prove and to whom? Your life to an objective outsider is picture perfect – A nice home, a lovely loving family, proper education, a career in place, a great social circle…the works! But there is something that’s missing, isn’t it? Do I really want what I’m talking about? Yes I do. But what after that? That too comes with its share of setbacks! With that comes responsibility and expectations. And the saga of human conflict continues. And you know what... you realise your not the only one! (getting sadistic pleasure out of knowing that?) Human predisposition! We don’t live in a Utopian world. So what do I really want? The answer is companionship. It’s lovely to have a special person. Just the feeling of knowing the persons existence amidst your routine (packed with changes of course!). Just the feeling of knowing he loves you when you can’t give yourself enough of it...even if its attraction mistaken for liking or loving! Just kidding! Someone who lets you be. Someone who doesn’t judge you by the degree you hold, the house you live in or the work you do. Someone who you can watch a movie with, party with, laugh with, cry with and at the same time contain yourself in long hours of silence with...the kind of containment that feels right. The answer is - a lover in disguise of a best friend (or the other way round). Depends. Not a knight in shining armour. Exactly the reason why unlabelled relationships don’t get bitter but labelled ones do if they don’t work out! -) Cheers single-hood! No really! :) Cheers!!!