Sunday, November 30, 2014

Maturity- We Wish We Could Find It On Google Play



Yeah, I admit that this title sounds a little stupid. But on second thought, you'd concede that it is sort of applicable to all of us. These days we find everything on the virtual world. We have friends on Facebook, contacts on WhatsApp, buddies on Skype, and Followers on Twitter. We get what we want, or we wait for some App Developer to make something for us. We get a platform to catch up with our distant friends and acquaintances, we spend endless hours chatting with our present contacts, but even that isn't enough. With the Front-Camera-Revolution, our world as it is now seems incomplete without selfies and video-chats. Sure, we have advanced into a new age. What we haven't achieved yet, though, is the ability to be as half as smart as our phones and tablets have become.

Maturity (or the lack of it, as that is what is more commonplace) is the issue of the day. Our generation gets the tag of being immature grown-ups more often than not, and we get this tag so often that we start despising it. Our parents, our teachers, our peers, all get into our line of fire once we get frustrated from being labeled as immature and not being able to understand what the hell is wrong with us. Honestly, we don't deserve being blamed for this. Time plays a vital role in who we are and what we become, and the time we live in has it's own good and bad effects. Where correct and incorrect is decided by Google and Wikipedia, where all news we get comes from status updates from politically and logically biased people and media, where right and wrong depends on what gets more Facebook likes and YouTube hits instead of what agrees with what our parents taught us (I don't say that they are always right, but I can bet that they are right more often than we think), it is no surprise that mindsets and thought processes are shaped quite differently than they naturally should.

Technology isn't the only culprit here. Frankly, what brings us so many comforts and saves us so much time shouldn't be the one thing we blame everything on. Technology isn't the root of our maturity issues, it is merely a catalyst. The root cause of our failure to grow up in mind as we do in body, is our dependence on what this age offers us. We depend, and that is why we never learn how to face the real problems of life.

I read this post on Facebook quite a while ago. I said- "The reason why relationships don't last these days is because fights become WhatsApp messages, breakups happen over phone calls, and heartbreaks and getting over people become Facebook statuses." That's what we have become. Dependent on things that were originally meant to be nothing more than mere tools for us. Nobody, not me, not you, not your best friend, not that cute guy/girl you like, nobody, is over this basic reality of the day.

So that was the problem. What is the solution? Well, it's as simple as setting up a Gmail account (you need one to comment on my blog and +1 it on Google Plus). All you need to do is follow these simple steps ahead:

  1. Learn to Avoid Fights: I am not talking about the Bang-Bang (bones cracking and jaws breaking) type of fight, although you should strictly avoid those as well. I am talking about the more urban version of fights where you get involved in a verbal brawl or get into an argument in comments over somebody's Facebook post and then that fight migrates to your message box. Seriously, it's childish, and people who see it get a very negative impression about both parties who fight that way. Somehow, it is a custom nowadays that if somebody made fun of you and a few crackheads laughed, it becomes a tarnishing blot of ink on your reputation which will only get cleaned when you make fun of him so bad that your friends say- "Abey, tune to uski maar li" (Man, you really made him/her suffer, figuratively speaking. The literal meaning is not for public viewing)
  2. Take Criticism As A Compliment: If you're not being criticized at your school, among your peers, in your line of work, then it means that either nobody gives a shit about you or you are simply not taking a stand where you are supposed to take one. The earlier means that you need to change your company or improve your personality, the latter means that you are either a very horrible person who behaves well only to use people or that you are a coward. Do you hate me for saying this? Trust me, this is what people think of you and speak about you when your back is turned to them. So, always take a stand where you have the chance, and never back down just because people criticize you. Being persistent is a great way to make things work.
  3. Listen More, Speak Less: Our age has a very popular belief that smart people speak a lot. While it is true in some cases, most people don't understand that smartness isn't just about speaking the right things. It is about speaking at the right time and to the right people. There is no use wasting a great speech on somebody who wouldn't appreciate it, just like there is no use writing a great story and sharing it with people who hate reading. Its a waste of time and effort. If there is one thing you must learn, it is the fact that this world believes in end results and many a times forget the developments that led to them. So if you have great ideas, it is your responsibility to do justice to them. The only way to do that is to stay quiet, listen, learn, analyse, and wait for the right time and opportunity to go forward with your plans.
  4. Think Positive, No Matter What: It's a hard thing to do, I give you my word about that. But it is a very viable option for those who are the happy-go-lucky types. Sometimes your positiveness may be misunderstood for a weakness. The 'Practicality' factor, somehow, seems to go in the opposite direction of optimism to our generation. If you don't get a bad feeling about getting too close to a new person you just met, or if you don't subconsciously start questioning the motives of a person who has been very kind to you lately, your friends and peers start thinking that you lack maturity. But tell you what, maturity isn't synonymous to paranoia. Maturity is about balance. Think positive, even if you get a bad feeling about things. If you believe that a certain project or person might cause you unexpected trouble in the future, prepare for the worst-case scenario and take several contingencies into account. But when it comes to your perception about things, always think for the best. You can't achieve anything if you just doubt everything and everyone who comes your way.
  5. Stow The Ego: If you are the smartest person in your group, you really need to find new people. It's a simple ideology, mature people stick around with mature people, immature people hang out with immature people. Choose your preference. It's really simple, you know. You can never get ahead in life if you despise the people who are better than you. If you happen to meet someone more intelligent or calm or balanced than yourself, it is a great opportunity to grow as person. Don't waste it in conflict. Your ego can wait for the next time. 

I don't think you need to know any more about maturity. If you are my age, you have probably understood by now (or you won't unless you grow 30). Maturity isn't what people think about you, it is how you react to what they think about you. It isn't how you behave when people run across you, it is how you behave when people try to run you over.

It is an easy concept. Smile when most people would fight in fury, laugh when most people would get offended, stay silent when most people would rush into argument. That's what Maturity is!

Friday, November 28, 2014

The Survival Guide For Young Lovers- Trust Issues

"We are a generation full of broken hearts."
In case you are wondering who said this, don't bother. It was just me a few posts ago. I thought that it was a seriously deep idea, but I have lately realised that it isn't the million dollar problem we have at hand.

Broken hearts are easy to handle, you just need some care and loads of good time to get over it. What we fail to get over with time and goodwill isn't our broken heart, it's our broken trust. And trust my friends, is the most basic ingredient for any healthy relationship, friendship, acquaintance, fellowship, in short anything that involves human partnership in any way whatsoever. We live in a world where people look for monsters wherever they go. And the most constant quality about us humans is that when we look for something, we most certainly find it.

We have lost the element of trust from our relationships, and that's why we are fragile and vulnerable. Now this post has been waiting for a long time now, so I'll go ahead with my ideas on how to get over a case of breach-of-trust and how to learn to trust people again.


  1. Don't Get Stereotypical: I'll take my case here. I had a very nasty situation where I was betrayed by a certain girl. Since I am a person who has a deep interest in Sunsigns and Zodiacs, I became paranoid towards a certain set of people. The girl I had my troubles with is a Saggitarian, I decided to never trust an Archer in my life. No offense to December born people, Saggitarians are very nice people, but Pisces-Saggitarius romances generally end in a disaster. Now here's the catch. This isn't what you should do. I admit that I based my paranoia and my fears towards a rather large section of people over something as pointless as their date of birth. But believe me, most people who have their hearts broken become even more stupid than they were in the beginning. All because they lost a part of who they were to the betrayal that they faced. Don't do that. Don't make the right person suffer for what the wrong person did. And when I say right person, I don't mean the next cute guy/girl you secretly like. I mean you
  2. Be Who You Are And Always Have Been: My advice, be who you were before you got betrayed. If somebody says that you should change something about you and start over, ignore them. Only the second part of what they say is right. Change is not a conscious decision that we make. It is just an unavoidable move that you make without even knowing. Take an example. When you are driving, can you maintain the same speed all the way? Even if you do, you will encounter some turns, and even a tenth-grader knows that scientifically, a change in direction counts as acceleration. So as you drive along in your life, you are bound to change in many ways as a person. But that must be a natural process, not some case of unnecessarily slow driving because of the fear that set root when you had an accident in the past.
  3. The Betrayer Seems Happy: Why not you, then? We humans, the glorious beasts who claim to be the most intelligent species on the planet, yet we fail to follow basic logic in real life? Tell me, wouldn't every lawyer and every judge in the world commit suicide if they encountered a world where the criminal goes at parties while the victim gets punished? Nobody told you this, but that world is none but our own. Think about it. You had a romance. You got betrayed, your counterpart did the crime (romantically speaking). Who was left alone? Who became paranoid? Who distanced all his/her friends and became a grouchy asshole for everybody? Don't look so surprised. The answer is you, undoubtedly. The person who did made all the mess is partying hard and, even though he/she did something terrible, is winning people over by their happy-go-lucky attitude. I say it's time to step up your game and show the world who is the boss.
  4. Spend Time With People You Still Believe In: Fine, you got cheated on. Get in line, because almost everybody else is in your league. Just because you have big problems in your life, you can't turn your back to the people who still deserve your faith or at least haven't done anything to not deserve it. We are all broken dolls who stitched themselves up just because there are people out there who want to see us smile, people whose happiness depends on our own. No matter how rejected or unwanted you think you are, such people exist in you life. I won't say that you should get over your problems for their sake. If there has ever supposed to be some motivation in your life, it has to be you. What I'd suggest, however, is that you should let people in your mind. People who can guide you out of your bad times. They are always around. It all depends on whether you choose to reach out to them.


I guess it is easy to get over people. What is difficult to get over is our own fear of getting hurt in the same way as we once were. When people leave, they don't leave behind a void that can't be filled. We make such a void on our own, and don't let anybody else fill it until we get over our fears. Take your time, it is never easy to conquer your own fear. But while you're at it, at least let people in your life. You'll be surprised how good company changes things!

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Teamwork- The One Thing We All Fail At

Long time no see, dear readers! It's been a while...
Blame it on my internet (or the lack of it). Besides, writers too get busy at times. Especially when they are students, like I am.
So, here comes today's post. And the topic of discussion is the one chink our sturdiest armors have, the Achilles' Heel that the best of us suffer from.
Teamwork, or the lack of it! (Yeah, I repeat my own jokes. Hang me!)

Things are fairly easy when we go one on one against the world. We prefer working that way too. Nobody to handle, nobody to boss us around, just us and what we love. That is the reason why I choose to be a writer. Because in my line of work, solitude is a necessity and having no partners is a term of agreement. Sure, I do have sparring partners on a mental level, friends who are my greatest admirers and my worst critics. But in the end, I work alone. And I like it!

Unfortunately, however, not all of us get to work alone. And it is not a healthy habit to always work alone. Come to think of it, the creepiest and the most lonely people in the world also team up somewhere down the line. Batman joined the Justice League, Tony Stark teamed up with the Avengers. Even the mindless Hulk had to work together with people at some point of time. Bottom-line, all of us MUST learn to work in a team, because our lives depend on it. And I don't mean that people don't know how to work together, they do. But this article is about enjoying it. We are social animals after all, aren't we?

So, here it goes. Teamwork explained, writer style:

  1. Give Space, but know where to Draw The Line: This is one thing every person needs and demands the most these days. SPACE. Frigging astronauts we all are, aren't we? Now when you work in a team, not just as a leader, but as a member, we all want the freedom to work on our own terms and at our own pace. Problem is, everybody has these issues. So things get bad when you force your will at people or when people just refuse to cooperate with you. The best way to deal with it is pretty simple. Be professional. I don't care how you do it, I just want it done. If you can find a politically correct version of this sentence and send the message to your teammates, things will get easy. Give them something solid to work with, clearly demarcated tasks, not to be breached deadlines, proper rules of engagement, go army style on them. But the how of the job is their job. They'll take care of it on their own. Trust them that much. If they fail, they'll accept it too.
  2. Don't Work to Please People: There are people who simply want power, or money, or respect in the society. Being an idealist I loathe these tendencies, but being a realist I know that these are some incorrigible character flaws that almost everyone has. I've said this before, the only thing you should worry about is the job being done. You may not like the person but he/she may be an asset to the team. Apart from that, don't ever try to please everybody. That's not going to happen. No matter how brilliant or mediocre you are as a person, you'll work with people both your superiors and your inferiors in both ability and performance. They'll all have their own demands and aspirations. What matters in the end, however, is what is in the best interests of the team. The dynamics of teamwork do include people's interests, but everybody prefers an impartial person in the end. Don't try to please people by blindly giving them what they want. And don't try to find a diplomatic solution to things. Sometimes it's better to lose an asset than to corrupt people's belief in the system.
  3. Know your Trump: In a game of cards, if you have a hand of Hearts, it would be a fatal mistake to set Spades as your trump, logically speaking. Every team has many assets. But when you are in a team, you realize that some assets are more important than the others. Be wise and keep them in your favor. Every influence can change the dynamics of a team in a matter of seconds. That is why it is advisable to have people who'll back your opinions. After all, being right isn't enough to be powerful in this world. But being powerful is enough to make you right at times.
  4. Keep Contingencies: Always have a backup, whether it is for a plan or a person. Relying on one trump may get you in trouble. So it is much better if you have plans for the worst case scenario. Get creative and imagine one for yourself. You may very well get some great ideas for possible threats that might be lingering in the shadows, waiting for a ripe moment to spring up and put in serious trouble.
  5. Be Ambiguous: Believe it or not, people who speak too much may appear charming but they do a lot of harm to themselves. On the other hand, people who know when and what to speak are a lot more successful. It is easy, just don't declare your intentions very easily. Let people speak, and you'll get the chance to get things done, your way. People who have power don't say too much, they just make sure that they have the last word. If you learn to have the last word, you'll get respect and reverence from your team. And you'll have your way all the time!
  6. Think about The Larger Picture: "Whatever Dumbledore does, he does for the greater good!" A random dialogue, but one with great impact. When you think about things more than people's wishes and aspirations, you'll see that the way ahead of you requires a lot from you and your team. Then you'll learn that the only way to make things work for the team is when you have a vision of what you want from the team and how well your team responds to that vision. Always look ahead, thing about the work you have to do. In light of these things, the problems and struggles within the team are inconsequential. Keep moving forward, people will run along to catch up. In the meantime, the little matters will die out on their own.
  7. Be Kind: If you want to work with people, you need to have their respect. Sounds simple enough, but it is a hard thing to achieve. All I can tell you is that the one thing you can do is to always put your best foot forward. Be nice to people. Go easy on them as a person but give them a challenging time working. Some people can't influence others no matter how much they shout while others can influence people with a single look. Choose your Avatar!

Teamwork is a headache, if you ask me. But so is life, so is love, and so is friendship. Call it a necessary evil if you will. But it's a great thing to experience. Try to enjoy it and you'll have memories you'd want to keep!

Friday, September 5, 2014

The Survival Guide For Young Lovers- How To Handle Your Typical Relationship

Hey readers! Since my last post was all about whatever is wrong with our modern-day relationships, it is time that we discussed how to fix these problems. Yes, I know what you are about to say. If one solution could end all this fuss about love issues, scientists would've discovered the gene responsible for these problems and made a medicine, or psychologists would've figured out some sort of therapy or counselling that would sort out all heartbreaks and love issues. Unfortunately, life isn't that easy, right?

Wrong! Life is challenging, it is something we can't change. But we are more responsible for our problems than life is. It is easy to blame everything and everyone except yourself and cry about your troubles. But when you're done crying and running away, you'll realise that the solutions were always right in front of you. So, when somebody starts preaching about life and love and solutions to these issues, better listen and make note of what they say. Sooner or later you'll find their advice more than helpful.


Since today's issue is how to deal with relationships, I'll not waste much time and get to the points that really matter. The first thing is what you see in the first picture. Take the 'M' out of 'me' and turn it upside down. That's the magic word fellas. The 'open sesame' to all the happiness and satisfaction love can ever provide. When you are in a relationship, you have more important things to cater to than your own whims. Of course, if you happen to meet someone who is happy to be your slave, I'll bless you two, but that is rarely possible, and everybody has their limits. Anyways, I am targeting the usual relationships. And the most common mistake that we make when we get into the blissful bond of ‘commitment’ is that we stop making the same efforts to keep the person that we made to win them.

The picture you saw above is very simple, but it could hold the key to most of the problems in your life. You see, we land into the gutter only when we don’t know where we are going. Many of us suffer at the hands of people we care about only because we aren’t sure what we want from them. My advice, when it gets too complicated, sit down and make this picture (you don’t need to be an engineer to understand a Venn diagram, it’s just a damn combo of circles). Now think of every person in your life who belongs to the opposite sex and give them a code, something that only you can understand. Now place those codes in the picture as per your feelings towards them. I know, every committed person thinks that he/she has a perfect match with their other half. But that’s what we say all the time to all the people. And this exercise is not for people. It is for you. It is to make you sure about where each of your relationships stands. You will be surprised how clear you feel after you do this exercise. And once you are clear about yourself, you’ll know what to do next. You won’t need advice on your relationships anymore.


Here are a few suggestions for committed people. You may say ‘Duh!’ when you see this, but there is nothing outside of these points that could make or ruin your relationship-

1.     It Has To Be Mutual- This is a lesson I learned the hard way, so I’ll lay it in front of you straight and blunt. What’s one-sided is not love. If you’re obsessing about somebody who doesn’t care about you or just doesn’t have the same intensity of feelings for you as you have for them, you are a gone case and you need a separate article from my side. I’ll suggest you simply stop reading this post and wait for a while. Even if you are committed, if the level of seriousness your partner has for you is even slightly different from the seriousness you have for them, END IT NOW. The sooner you do it the better, because such relationships always end up with one side getting hurt and the other side feeling guilty. Not good for anyone.
2.     It Needs Time- No matter what you might believe, love at first sight is a myth. The seed of love takes time to even get planted, let alone grow tall and lush. If you like a guy/girl you met a few days/weeks/months ago and they simply drive you crazy, first ask yourself what you want from them. I have said this time and again, my blog is for grown-ups who have the ability to decide for their lives. So, if you want a casual relationship, please go ahead and take it to the next level. But if you want something serious, sit back and wait. Make them the most important thing in your life, make yourself the important thing in theirs. Doesn’t matter if it is a college romance which will have no foreseeable future once you get your degrees. Wait. Set a deadline for two years and live your life normally. If at the end of those two years, you still want to be with that person and he/she still wants to be with you, you’re good to go. But conditions apply, in the said two years you must be actually in close contact with each other. And yes, it has to be mutual.
3.     Patience Is Must- Like it or not, the truth about love is very simple. It takes more than what most people are willing to go through. Most people who want someone in their lives, if they read this post, won’t bother to go beyond the first two points. Most of us will say- ‘If all that fuss is love, which by the way is just a stupid concept, I’m content with a casual relationship’. In the movie The Vow (which according to me is the best movie about love), a part of the wedding vows of the lead couple reads- ‘To have the patience that love demands’. Enough said. If you actually fall in love, you’ll grow a lot of patience for your flame. If you see the same patience on their side too, your relationship has a future!

No matter how complicated life becomes, when things actually get solved, you’ll find out that the most appalling questions of life have very simple answers. I recall a dialogue from a movie ‘The Prestige’- Behind the greatest of magic you’ll find a simple, and disappointing, trick. That’s how life is, it is weird and baffling at times, but its complexity is in its simplicity. Be simple and stick to your principles, and you’ll find life quite interesting.


Sunday, August 31, 2014

The Survival Guide For Young Lovers- Why Relationships Fail


Hey fellas! I've been writing about love for a while now. I've written about being friendzoned, being rejected, being alone, and getting over the problems that people falling in love face. But the issues of love don't just end with a happy ever after tag. Believe it or not, no matter how hurt or traumatised your unreciprocated love might have left you, it is the committed ones who actually get the raw end of the side-effects of love.

Relationships is the word of the day. And this post is being written to tell you why modern-day relationships fail over and over and over and over again. I'll let you in on a little secret. I am very obsessed with grammar and that really irritates people sometimes. So, the fact that I ignored my compulsiveness about grammar when I wrote "over and over" so many times should be enough to emphasise how fragile present-day relationships have become. It is a funny thing really. People who have always been single in their lives die to get into a relationship, but the people who do fall out of them faster than they actually get in.

I won't waste any time. Here are A Few Reasons Why Relationships Fail these days-

  1. Technology- Boys and girls, don't even think that I am declaring you innocent. Modern day relationships are a failure 11 times out of 10, and my maths is perfectly fine. The reason is nobody but us. But yeah, technology plays it's part too. It sabotages our relationships 24/7, and it does it very slowly. How, you ask. Think about it. You spend almost the entire day with your girlfriend/boyfriend or nearly none at all. Pick one, because the intermediate option is either not available or not chosen. Now, when you get committed, you talk for endless hours on the phone, text like 100 times a day, chat like every second on WhatsApp and Facebook. In many cases, your "hubby" has your Facebook ID and password too. All this digital closeness sounds really romantic but seriously frightening. That's how we become these days in a relationship, totally glued into the person we're with. And trust me, even married couples don't spend that much time talking to each other. That amount of closeness with somebody may seem good for a short while, but it is really frustrating in the long run. And it ends relationships. Very effectively.                                                                    
  2. Haste- It takes time to fall in love with someone. It takes even more time to trust someone. My best friend shared her first secret with me 3 years after we'd become friends. That's the advisable pace for developing a healthy friendship, so do your math and you'll realise how much time you need to actually know someone enough to take the big step with them. That is exactly opposite to what we actually do. We fall in love first, leave the trust part for later. Or we just jump at the opportunity and start trusting someone we just met. The results are disastrous, and that's no surprise.                                     
  3. Immaturity- Yes, we are adults. We are capable of deciding our own paths and making our own decisions. But that doesn't mean that we aren't immature and impulsive anymore. We make mistakes and we don't learn from them. That's how we are. And the sooner we realise that we aren't ready to make tall claims about love yet, the less hurt we give and get. Of course, we don't talk about love anymore. We just use the more "mature" word- like. And then we prove our immaturity yet again when we get so worked up about people we just like.                                                                          
  4. I Don't Even Have A Word For This One- Now you'll realise how complicated commitment is. There is a factor that destroys so many relationships, but I don't even know how to put it in words. That reason is our tendency to try and be something that we are not. We try to be a husband or a wife to a person we just met when we get into a relationship. Agree with me or not, this is the truth. We don't care about the responsibilities or the duties or the sheer amount of patience that love demands but we get all possessive and protective and caring about the person we "love". See, I am a believer of love, but the version of love I have seen with almost all of the committed people I ran into in my life, is empty. It is a fake, and no matter how good a fake looks, it can't replace the original.


Life can become a hard place at times, and all of us need companionship. Sometimes in very special ways. But getting into a relationship and actually holding on to it are two different things. I discussed the problem today. In my next post, I'll mention the solutions. In the meantime, stop and think a moment. If you're a committed person, you'll see that your answers are hidden in the very questions this post puts up. If you're single and available, you'll understand why every committed person calls you lucky. That's life buddies. The grass is always greener on the other side.

Friday, August 29, 2014

10 Things About Men You Must Know

Dear girls of my generation. Before I begin, there is one thing that I will clarify. I love most (if not all) of you. You are charming and lovely and simply great to have in life. I say it on behalf of all guys of planet Earth, you simply make our lives beautiful and unpredictable.

Great, so now I've said the good stuff. Now comes the stuff you may not immediately agree with or like. To put it bluntly, you are all very unfair to us. Yes, that's not even a fraction of what the guys put you through, but you must be reminded that you are not always wronged by men. Sometimes it is us who get wronged by you as well. We wrong you by treating you as inferiors, some objects of entertainment, and by humiliating and torturing you. You wrong us by thinking of us all as monsters, whilst most of us are not. And that's something that must be changed.

So, here's 10 Things About Men You Must Know-
  1. Sex Isn't Everything- While it is a fact that men mostly crave for your bodies more than you, it isn't a mathematical rule that applies on everybody. It is more of a statistic that turns out to be correct more often than not. Let me put this straight for you. We want sex, numerous times and from various sources, but sex isn't the only thing on our mind all the time. So try to get over the paranoia and try to see things clearly. You'll find more angels than devils if you look properly.
  2. Our Aggression Isn't Our Reality- Okay, being a girl is a difficult job. The reason is us men. But being a man has it's own downsides too. You can't be too sensitive or people will laugh at you and think of you as a wimp. You can be too insensitive but not everyone's self-conscience allows it. In fact, our seeming insensitivity and aggression is our mask which conceals our true self. A little patience can bring out a very caring, soft core that you would've never imagined by yourselves.
  3. We Can Be Faithful- While you blame us for being unreliable and materialistic lovers, we can actually be quite honest and faithful if we really care. Believe it or not, men turn out to be more reliable friends than women to both the sexes. And in my life, I've seen an equal number of cheating girls as I've seen cheating guys in relationships. Same holds true for the loyal ones.
  4. We Are Misjudged Too- Every time you say "All men are dogs" or "Men will be men", you seal our society's fate of being doomed. It's a psychological fact- if you criticize someone too much, they simply stop caring. In our society, every guy grows up hearing how hopelessly bad and insensitive men are. And thus we become as we are accused, because it doesn't matter anymore. Even if you are good, you'll still be looked upon as bad.
  5. Respect Must Be Mutual- Girls, it is right to stand up for yourselves and your honour. But sometimes you take it too far. Yes, we aren't your superiors, but we aren't your inferiors either. If you fight for your equality, we are there with you. But if you want special treatment and perks, you simply go against the very concept of equality. Don't jump the line, share the run of life with us.
  6. Being Men Isn't Our Fault- Okay, we don't understand your problems. Yes, we don't know what you go through everyday. But how can we, unless you tell us? It isn't our fault that we were born with the X-Y chromosome. If a guy has earned your trust, he deserves to know your problems and your troubles, instead of being whiffed off with a "You won't understand, you're a guy".
  7. We Are Better Than The Worst Of Us- Men who rape and victimize you aren't real men. They might be everywhere, they might exist in every aspect of our society, but they still aren't all of us. Please don't think of all of us as monsters because of the few of us who actually are.
  8. You Need Us Too- No matter how much argument goes on between men and women, they'll always end up together. That's how we were created, that's how we are meant to be. Together. If you just stop despising all of us, our coexistence could get just a little more pleasant.
  9. We're Not The Enemy- The only way to win a war is to know who the enemy is. And we aren't your enemy. Your enemy is a particular and very recognisable mindset that our society lives with. Believe it or not, an independent girl won't come out of a household where the mother treats the boy and the girl separately. You may not know it, but you hold a lot of power in your hands. Learn to use it when time permits.
  10. Boys Do Cry- Well, we aren't as insensitive as we are perceived to be. You, must understand that between our emotions and adrenaline, we get aggressive when we get hurt. Now I don't know how to tackle this, but try to understand us. You'll get less angry at us, and you'll hate us less.
Dear girls, I'll say it again. We love you, and want you to love us too, even though we don't exactly earn it in day-to-day life. The world will be a better place if we only understand each other better. Now there are uncountably many blogs and posts and essays and articles out there that present your perspective. I supplied one that presents ours!

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

The Survival Guide For Young Lovers- 10 Reasons To Never Give Up On Love

Dear readers, if this picture isn't the best possible image that can be used to represent your heart, then you are either from another time or another generation. Establishing a theory as universal is always a dangerous thing. But I dare. And I say this with utmost surety. Each and every person who belongs to our generation has had a heartbreak at least once in life (or is about to have one). And as they say, once bitten twice shy. A broken heart can't be mended. So we just put it back together and lock it away, so that nobody may hurt us again.   
That's how the cycle of love goes. The picture on the right says something that none of us can deny. Whoever wrote these lines did an awesome job. I can't think of any better way to express the message this pic conveys. I can only say that such is the nature of love. Not love, in fact. Love is a very feral and pristine feeling. It's uncontrollable. What varies with our experiences is trust. We put our trust in people time and again. We get betrayal. The next time somebody makes our heart skip a beat, we muster all the strength we can and turn our back at them. We are too afraid to trust again.

And that's how we live these days. Every time some friend of ours gets hurt, we don't hug them and say- "It's okay, dear. You'll find someone better." We say- "I had already told you that he/she was not worth it, but you were too stupid to understand. This world is selfish. You should be too. Be practical and face the truth."

Now the irony of the situation is that this "practical" friend described here will eventually commit the same mistakes that the "stupid" one did. Tried and tested fact. We are all "stupid". But our very nature is to vent out our pent-up frustration is to brag about how bad the world is. Trust me, the world is only as bad as we are.

My point is simple. You'll make many friends in life. Most of them will advise you to not get too involved with anyone and live life "practically" (which translates to selfishly). Don't follow them, because the moment they start falling for someone they'll dump their own principles and become "stupid" like you. We have become a negative race of people because the only thing we spread is negativity. Get out of it, there is a lot better world out there.

So, here are my 10 Reasons To Never Give Up On Love-
  1. You'll Never Be Young Again- While it is true that there is no age for love, but for most of us there is a best age for love. And it is now, at this very moment that is escaping your grasp. It's better to take a risk and regret it than to not take a risk and regret it. And love, my fellows, is the most beautiful risk you could ever take.
  2. We all Need a Companion- Again,a very petty argument is that a girlfriend/boyfriend is companion enough. "We don't need to fall in love for that"- you say. Well, I am sorry to say, but this blog is not for school-going fellas, but for real grown-ups. And while the concept of a fun girlfriend/boyfriend relationship does seem lucrative, that's not the company you'll want when the time comes.
  3. Love Is In The Air- While you are busy being strong and showing your cool nonchalant attitude, hot singles out there are dwindling by the second. If you like someone, now's the time to say it. Before they get booked!
  4. There's Always A Next Time- If you want to know the relevance of this point, I'll suggest you watch the movie 500 Days of Summer. No matter how hard you get hurt in love, you'll always find someone who makes you fall again. And as I humbly pointed out in Reason number one, better today than tomorrow.
  5. Every Wrong Option Is One Step Closer To The Right One- I didn't say this. A scientist named Edison did. When famous people say something, it generally turns out to be true. So don't worry if you got betrayed by someone you loved. You'll make a better decision next time.
  6. Losers Give Up, You Pile Of Shit- Where's your ego, my friend? How could that person get away with what they did to you? They deserve to know that they had a gem that they traded for a lump of coal. Find someone better and teach them a lesson. Besides, you are worth a great person. So if an asshole dumped you, all for the better.
  7. Don't Do To Others What Someone Did To You- Evil is not a tendency, it is a cycle. When somebody does something bad to us, we take revenge. But then we also do bad to others. We try to justify our mistakes by saying that the entire world does it, so why not us. My point, the world will always be evil until an exception springs up. Try to be that exception. You always believed in the idea of kindness, hope and love. So take up the task of actually making others believe in these. Influence people instead of getting influenced by people. You are a person after all, not sheep.
  8. Opportunities Don't Last Forever- There is a fair chance that there is someone out there who is slowly making their way into your heart but is blocked by your over-caution. I don't say that you should rush and give them a chance, but at least give them a fair chance to prove themselves. They won't wait for you forever. As SRK politely told the entire world- "uss haath ko tum thaam lo, wo meherbaan kal ho na ho".
  9. It Feels Good To Be Able To Rely On Someone- If you have someone you can trust, your life becomes infinitely better. I won't say any more, it's a tried and tested formula.
  10. You Believe In Love After All- No matter how much you deny it, you believe in love, and you believe that you will find it. So, drop your mask and live free. Be honest with yourself. The reason why we always end up blaming the world's deceit and lies is that we are not honest ourselves. Let go of the lies, embrace your truth, and see what becomes of life.
To wrap it up, I'll add another miscellaneous reason to keep falling in love. I believe that a broken heart can love much better than a perfect one. It has seen pain, so it knows care. Life is all about choices. Don't try to make perfect choices, try to make good ones.

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

The Survival Guide For Young Lovers- Friendzone Revisited


"Why should we continue to be friends with a person we love but who doesn't reciprocate our feelings? After all, you end up getting frustrated every time you see that person with someone else. A friction is bound to develop once you confess. So, I can't agree that friendship should remain. That when you have millions of options available. Just go out and explore, or you'll neglect the potential love of your life trying to exhaust your brain-cells trying to please that one person."

This, dear readers, was a friend of mine commenting about my previous post. My reply- "The easier way isn't the right one, not outside the domain of mathematics."

Guys and girls, I never said that it will be easy to cope up with a situation where you get Friendzoned. The feelings are always pretty messed up, frustration keeps on mounting, everything becomes increasingly difficult. It seems a lot easier to simply run away. There was a time when I was in that situation too. I fell in love with a friend. The feeling wasn't mutual. Trust me, I too decided to give up that friendship and take my own separate path. For days and weeks on end, I kept saying to myself- "She rejected my love, now I'll reject her friendship."

Luckily, I clung on. Today, I am grateful to have that girl in my life as my best friend. American Pie is not the ideal movie series to quote things from, but I will quote a dialogue that fits very well in this situation.

"I'd rather have you in my life as a friend than not have you at all."

Love is a strong feeling. So is the pain of rejection. But parting from a great friend is always more harm than good. Besides, didn't you fall in love in the first place because your friend did his/her job too well? You may not like this analogy very much, but leaving a friend just because you fell in love with them is like firing an employee because they excelled at work.

Anyways, my friend (who has recently renounced lots of her older self to switch towards practicality) put forth quite some arguments that need to be countered.

First of all, why you must continue to be friends with a person you fell in love with. The reason is quite simple- that is the only right thing to do. Your friend was there with you when you needed somebody. They made life happening for you. That is why you fell in love with them. So it would not only be unfair if you left them, it will be stupid as well. Unfair, because it is your duty as a friend to be on their side when they need somebody too. Stupid, because you are pushing off a strong support of your life with your own hands.

Still not convinced? I knew it! So let's move on to argument number two. We end up getting frustrated every time we see our flame with someone else. Dear readers, all arguments aside, this is the primary and most important reason why friendzoned lovers drift apart from their flames. Correction, this is the only reason. This is the one key thing that spoils many kinds of relationships all around the world. Frustration. And this frustration comes out of one very human quality. Possessiveness.

Now, I did mention in my previous post that don't ever get over-possessive about the friend you love. But obviously, it's easy to write out but very difficult to actually pull-off (again, something that I did mention last time). You can't get rid of your possessiveness in a day. It is very hard to do. It takes time, and a few outbursts from the victim of your possessiveness. But given proper time and effort, it does happen.

Again, this is not a very convincing solution. But this is life, friends. One thing leads to another. That's where argument number three comes into the picture. Just go out and explore, or you'll neglect the potential love of your life trying to exhaust your brain-cells trying to please that one person. Now this is an argument that I totally agree with. You must go on with your life and explore the possibilities. That's why I pointed out the need to continue flirting and enjoying after you get friendzoned. I know it isn't easy, but it actually helps. And yes, you must give time to all of your friends and not just the one who swept you off your feet. If you even honestly try to do so, you'll find that your friendzone issue becomes exponentially less frustrating. As I previously said, a good bunch of friends can pull you out of your worst nightmares without even breaking a sweat. To put it in a fancy single line- You can't get possessive about someone unless you subconsciously believe that they possess you. Set yourself free first, and you'll see that it becomes very easy to give proper space and freedom to the one you love. This particular advice will not only help you to cope up with a friendzone issue, but also when you successfully get into a relationship with someone. Yes, possessiveness is an issue for the blissfully committed too.

And yes, a friction is bound to develop once you confess. That's very true. Once you confess for a lost cause in love, a great deal of awkwardness settles in. That awkwardness is a time-based issue, no advice or remedy can clear it out for you. The only chance you have is your understanding with the friend you confessed to, and the passage of time. Rest assured, awkwardness is like fog. No matter how thick it is, summer comes and it vanishes like it never existed.

My friend said that with her experiences and based on what she had seen in other people's lives, being friends after getting friendzoned is not a good idea. Not in her opinion anyway. I don't have any counter-argument or cheeky retort to challenge that opinion. I can just say that, in my opinion, the first sign of maturity is originality. So, I'd suggest that you must not make an opinion about anything based on what you saw in other people's lives. You should learn from their mistakes, yes, but you should always keep room for the crazier alternative. Most people in this world give up too soon. That doesn't mean that giving up is the only way, or the only practical decision. If you think that you can be a little stubborn with life and take the road not taken, you should learn to always give your friendship another chance. After all, in theory at least, love is meant to open the doors instead of closing them.

Monday, August 25, 2014

The Survival Guide For Young Lovers- When You Get Friendzoned

This, dear readers, is the most accurate representation of love as it occurs today. Gone are the days when stupid old Cupid would make a grand (and obvious) entry into our lives. The bow and arrow are old technology, relics of a bygone era. The modern day Cupid is sneaky and tricky. So is love.

Most of us are so fed up with the concept of love that we have long trashed the term and replaced it with "more mature" terminologies like INFATUATION and ADORATION. We are human beings, we have certain needs. If we meet somebody who understands and fulfills them, we might return the favour. 

Okay, maybe that was too extreme. But a living, breathing person said all this to me. More importantly, this is a very popular opinion. I won't justify it or oppose it. All of us have been in and out of love at least once, whether we'd openly say it or not. And that's why we deny its very existence.

But that's not my topic today. I am here to talk about the worldly manifestation of living hell for a person who is in love (I mean, who is greatly infatuated) with someone. I am here to discuss the state of limbo that most of us poor souls are lost in. The horrifying, terror-striking, FRIENDZONE!

Those who haven't been there, consider yourselves lucky (or admit the truth that you're denying). Those like myself, I can only give you my deepest sympathies. 

Most of us have that friend who just sweeps us off our feet without even knowing it. When that person speaks, the rest of the world stops for a moment. When that person laughs, it is your heart that stops. Every thing that you do, everything that you speak or think, includes that one person. But while you think of that person as your only soulmate, he/she isn't even aware of what is actually going on. So, when the calamity strikes, it strikes both of you. That's how the trap works.

It wasn't your fault that you fell in love with your closest friend. But it wasn't their fault either. When your friend did those little special things that he/she never does for anybody in the world, your heart saw all its dreams come true. But your friend had no intention of giving you the wrong signal. As helpless as you were to see hope where none existed, he/she was equally so.

That's all well and good, but the question is- what next? You can't just be friends with someone you love and live with it. Sooner or later you'll get frustrated with such a compromise and an outburst will follow. Or you'll just slowly withdraw yourself from your friend until the whatever remains of your friendship is just a formality. In my opinion, both of these actions are unfair, not only to your friend, but to you too.

What I am going to say now is easy to write but excruciatingly difficult to do. The best way to cope up with the Friendzone is to live with it. You can't fall in love with a person in one day. It takes time, lots of it. And if you've spent a lot of time with somebody, it's natural that you struck a nice friendship with them. Just because you fell in love with them and they didn't have the same feelings for you shouldn't be a reason to end such a strong bond.

As I said, it is easy to say so but very hard to actually pull off. So, here's the do's and don'ts for you if you've been Friendzoned-

Do
  1. Confess: If a Friendzone issue is plaguing your life, you must spit it out to your friend. He/she is above all your friend, and being your friend, they deserve to know your problem, even if it concerns them. Hiding things will only make them worse.                                                                                   
  2. Clarify: You fell in love. Not a sin. Your friend didn't. Not a crime either. As long as both of you understand this, there is nothing to worry about. If you understand each other enough to not be affected by the fact that there is one-sided love creeping into your precinct, your friendship will go on smoothly (and who knows, a no today can be a yes tomorrow). If the understanding isn't strong enough to cope up with this issue, I'd say that it's good that your relationship was limited to just friends. Either way, if you tackle the situation with maturity, the problem will vanish automatically.                                                                                                                                                                   
  3. Be Normal: I know, I know. It's very tough to be normal around someone who makes you choke and gasp at sight. But hey, you managed to pull it off so far! All these days that you were just a careless jovial friend and you did good. You can continue the good work!                                           
  4.  Maintain a Group: For you, the one friend you love must be the top-priority as of now, but don't forget that you have other friends as well, and so does your flame. Spend time with your group. If your group is the same as your flame's, you must ensure that you give time to all of your friends and encourage your beloved to do the same. You may not believe this, but a nice group of friends can pull you out of almost any trouble.                                                                                                             
  5.  Flirt: You love somebody who doesn't love you. Bad news! But there's an upside here. You're still single! And so is the friend you fell in love with. So, in my humble opinion, it isn't wrong at all if you flirt with him/her. Go on, it'll cheer you up if you do it only for fun and not expect any hopeful response out of it. Flirting is a practically, if not scientifically, proven formula to relieve you from stress.                                                                                                                                                                         
  6. Develop a Hobby: You would've realized by now that handling a Friendzone situation is very much like handling a breakup (and still staying friends). Positivity rules. Let it guide you through the dark times.

Don't
  1. Get Possessive: If you are a hot-headed control-freak, please ignore this point. But if you are not, this point can make or ruin your life. Nobody can cope up with extreme possessiveness, especially if it springs up suddenly. If your friend doesn't know about your feelings, he/she will be confused. In the other alternative, if they know, they'll be frustrated. Remember, it isn't your friend's fault that you fell in love with them. Your possessiveness and control over their life should be within the limits of a friend. Trust me, I say this for your own good. If you go down the road of possessiveness, you'll end up getting hurt by the very person you love.                                                                                              
  2. Neglect Lesser Mortals: Yes, don't neglect other elements in your life. You have family, you have friends, you have work (and studies, yeah I know it's a lame point). Your love shouldn't get in the way of these things.                                                                                                                                    
  3. Sink into Gloom: The last thing your friend wants is to see you unhappy. So, if you do love him/her, live with a smile for their sake. No, don't even think about faking it. Both friendship and love demand honesty, and you're in a double-whammy. There, you're stuck again.
To wrap it up, I'll just say that life is too short to live with regrets. And trust me, losing a worthy friend because of failed love can be the biggest regret of life. The best way around a problem is through it. There, your Friendzone awaits you!

Friday, August 22, 2014

Ego- The Fallen Angel!

 Today's post is about ego. We know how it spoils our relationships, we know how much it damages us, we also know how it keeps us from following our heart at times. So this is how we see it!

That, my friends, is your biggest mistake. Ego is not your enemy. It's just a thing that exists. Good or bad depends on how we handle it. It's like fire- use it carefully and it becomes the very reason why we advanced from the stone age. Be careless with it, and it burns everything you ever loved. Ego is like friction- it is a necessary evil. It protects us time and again, but we only notice it when it starts hurting us. Whose fault is it, then? The answer, my friends, is that the fault is ours.

Ego is a part of our mental and interpersonal environment. It is a device that ensures the overall success of our entire social existence. It's like an organ of the machinery. That's why we never notice it, not until something goes wrong.

There are many who consider ego to be a swollen pride mixed with overconfidence and arrogance. But ego is just a harder term for self-respect. Ego is the amount of respect you have for yourself as compared to others. There is nothing evil or wrong about the existence of ego. We make it wrong when we confuse it with pride and arrogance and mix these chemicals which were meant to remain in separate flasks. Result, kaboom! Our world goes up in flames and we blame poor old ego (generally it's others who do the blaming while we are caught up in our vanity).

Mostly, we never mention the word ego until we want to attribute a negative point on someone. Self-confidence is the term that we assume fit for all humble beings. When it swells up to monstrous magnitudes, it becomes ego. That's why I referred to ego as a fallen angel in the title. Angels were supposed to be wise and brave and benevolent. They were meant to fight evil and spread peace in the world. So, when one of them switched sides and turned evil himself, the very idea of angels became hazy. Why would people believe in them as heroes and follow them? That's why the turned angel was stripped of his title and rechristened Satan, the devil.

That's how we dealt with pride and self-confidence. We couldn't justify these qualities as good if they existed in bad people as well, so we fashioned a new term for their darker counterpart. Ego.

And that's the mistake we make. By assuming that ego is any different from the good qualities that we possess, by naming humility and arrogance as opposite tendencies, we block our own route of improvement. Satan couldn't flip his switch again, but we can. Only if we know that ego is not an enemy. Our way of interpreting it is.

We are a society of people who give up on people before they can get in a position to hurt us. Giving up is our prime talent. And I can't say that it's a very steep measure to give up on a person with a swollen pride. 'Arrogant' and 'asshole' are synonyms in our society.

The problem is, we didn't bring the present scenario. We just landed right in the middle of it. And although we claim of being modern and smart and different, we do the same mistakes and pay the same price. Love, friendship, affection, people, we give up on all of them one by one because we get hurt and humiliated trying to preserve them in our lives. And a person's arrogance is an outstanding excuse to abandon him/her.

I wouldn't say that you should try and give people a chance. Social-work is not our agenda. I'd just ask you a simple question. What if the arrogant person under observation turns out to be you? It's not impossible, you know. You could be the most humble person on the planet and yet there will be times when your pride becomes overconfidence and overconfidence becomes ego.

What would you do? Would you just say- "I don't give a shit to the world"? Probably you would. But that's a mask that everyone wears these days. We are humans. We try to show ourselves as strong and independent, but we all need people at our side in the end. So, if your entire neighborhood boycotts you one fine day, would you not expect your best friend or your mother to understand your problems? We can't see the truth of a situation until it happens to us.

And that abandonment is the first stage of a person's downfall, in the moral sense. Going back to the analogy, there was an angel who once turned evil and was cast away. No doubt he deserved it. But what next? Satan was abandoned, by God, by the very entity who is at everybody's side no matter how good or evil they become. He had no friends or allies. So he moved on. He found company in similar people, abandoned souls, and became their leader.

That's what we do to an egoist when we leave him/her alone. We abandon them, so they find people of their own kind and mix until they reach a point of no return. I don't have any ideas about how God should have dealt with Satan, I don't even know his story properly. But I do know that our society makes a mistake when it tries to keep criminals in the company of criminals and cripples in the company of cripples. We, the so called normal people are normal only because we get to meet and know people not like us. Don't they show in the movies that an evil man is forced into the company of a wonderful woman and changes for the better?

My point is, Satan deserved punishment, still does. But if he had gotten a chance to stay with the other angels, he wouldn't have fallen so far. Only, I can't extend that theory to cover every murderer and sociopath in our society. I don't because I have no idea how to practically implement this theory. But when we talk about a person who we leave alone for his/her ego, we can give them a better option. We can give them a better chance. As a person, we must learn to live with the ego within us and in others as well.

Don't fight ego, embrace it. No matter how hard you try, you can't get rid of it. So it's better to turn it into an ally, understand it, and guide it properly. If you want to be good, you'll have to turn your ego to your side. You'll have to realize that you can't live properly if you let your ego grow either too weak or too strong. Be like a diamond- everybody may wonder and gasp at your vibrancy and your dazzling charm. But if somebody tries to defeat you and to gobble you up, you're the hardest substance known to man. Everybody knows that the beautiful diamond will rip them inside out if swallowed.

That's how I see ego. A fallen angel who can be turned again. Whether you succeed or not is up to you, but ego will stay either way. But your perspective about ego might be different, maybe better too. I will be waiting for different ideas. Until next time!

Thursday, August 21, 2014

Love Love, Go Away...Come Again Another Day!


"I was born a romantic and I will die a romantic."
If you feel like puking at this outrageously cheesy line, you're the ones who must read this blog.
The romantics, you'll read it anyway. And for the balanced and matured types who are just too nonchalant to care about shit like this, I'll suggest that you read it once and continue with your browsing.

I'll begin with a confirmation. There are people who say that love is God. Trust me when I say this- by all practical logic and realism I can summon, I declare that they are right. Love is God, or at least analogous to God!

'There we go! Here's another star-struck daydreamer who is about to brag about the silly idea of love.' But don't hit the exit button yet. I said I am being realistic, not romantic.

I'll say it one more time. Love is like God. Why? Well, there are numerous reasons. No matter what category of people you belong to, you will agree with me when I say that even though nobody has actually seen or heard love, a lot of people still worship it. Pretty much what we do with God.

There are many ways in which people perceive love. Some believe it to be the exact mushy mushy stuff they show in the movies, while some say that there is nothing like love. It's just care, affection, infatuation, whatever you call it. Similarly, when we talk about God, some of us talk about the idols we worship while some don't believe in the orthodox idea of God and replace it with some unknown entity who made the world. Love unites us and divides us at the same time, pretty similar to what God does.

That's the greatest similarity between God and love. They are both concepts rather than anything tangible. The degree to which we believe in them or the way we manifest them in our thoughts are more of a choice.

I believe that the idea of God was perceived to organize people under a common set of ideologies. God was the concept that bound the very grassroots of our society.

So was love. Maybe it is just infatuation. Maybe its just an idea that we made up to cover up a lot of lesser feelings that we wouldn't heed to unless they were combined under a greater concept. A parent loves his/her children, provides them with the best, even if it means to sacrifice his/her own comforts. It is a love that arises out of duty, but is it just limited to it?

A friend's or a lover's love arises out of common interest and the good time you spend with them (and a little contribution of bodily desires too, when we speak of lovers). But the friendships and the relationships that actually go a long way are based on a lot more than that. That is the point. You can't explain love, and the human tendency is that we want everything simplified. What we can't understand, what we can't analyse and judge, we fear it.

We are a bunch of broken hearts. That's another reason to avoid the idea of love, totally drop it even. But as I mentioned in my last post. Life is a Temple Run game. You can't get it right the first time, not in 99 out of 100 times. Doesn't mean that you just drop the idea of love as a bad habit.

There's a lot more worth writing, but between your attention-span and my own laziness, I guess I will write another post about love some other day. In the meantime, your ideas and suggestions and comments are most welcome. After all, these posts are meant to make you think, and we tend to think more in the middle of an argument! 

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Life- A Game of Temple Run

Life has its own ways of teaching us. Sometimes we learn from what people tell us, sometimes we learn from our own experiences. Our mistakes, our deeds, their outcomes, they are all great teachers. And yes, the greatest teacher of them all is time. But life isn't as easy as it looks, and all of us know this sooner or later. And we all find this out the hard way.

The most important question is, how do we approach life? The answer is simple. It's not my damn business! Not your life at least. I, or anybody else for that matter, can only give you a few directives and suggestions. But you'll have to figure out your own way. To put that in an analogy, wouldn't it be ridiculous if somebody came up and asked you- "How should I play Temple Run?" You'd probably say- "Just keep running!"

And that's what life is- it is a game of Temple Run. We keep running, we run into obstacles, get shattered, and then start all over again. Not always, though. Sometimes we use a 'Save Me' gem and continue our run from where we were interrupted. That's the fun of it. As long as we live, we're constantly exploring things this game throws in front of us. Sometimes we make the right choices, sometimes we don't. But, call this a very general experience, life never stops giving us opportunities. Yes, the next opportunity may not be as good as the last one, but you could count on it. There will always be a next time. There will always be a next run!

So, the next time you fall, remember to get back up and start running again. The confusions, the obstacles, the bonuses, they are all temporary. They are all features that make the game interesting.Your emotions may overcome you (they do that to me all the time) but they will subside. No matter where the road takes you, it will take you somewhere. Just try to ensure that you choose wisely. If you can't, there is always a 'Save Me' gem in your pocket. It is more commonly known as hope. Hold on to it. Trust yourself. Trust your instincts. But most importantly, trust the dynamism of life.

Have fun, and keep coming back for more interesting ideas about life, and whatever comes in it.

Life is a Garden. People, the plants!

People are like plants. They need solid ground (trust) to stand. But make that too hard or too soft (too possessive or too complacent) and the friendship withers away. Sometimes our friendship becomes like sand. Complacent, ignorant, so self-obsessed that it won’t hold any water (warm moments). All you can grow in there is the occasional cactus. And trust me, not everybody is that robust. At the same time, if your friendship becomes bedrock (testy, possessive, and paranoid) people go away.
You have a variety of friends. There must be one so radiant and positive that he/she brings joy to people and life to the party. That’s your sunflower. There is almost always a friend who loves you or whom you love. Great, we got a rose in your backyard (or an entire bush of roses, going by the modern day). Remember; where there are roses, there are thorns. Would you be foolish enough to place the roses next to the delicate sunflower? You have a friend who is kind and helpful. That means you’ve planted a little sapling of a fruit bearing tree as well. Don’t let the grandeur of the tree crush the little daffodils growing under its shadow. Every plant needs nurturing, so does every friendship.

Your life is a garden. People are the plants. They need water (warmth and support), sunlight (positivity), air (attention and time), space, and lots and lots of love. I don’t say it’ll be easy. The thorns in the roses will prick you. The sunflower will attract bees (lots of attention and trouble). The fruit-tree will make you work hard, asking for more time and attention lest the fruits (kindness) start to rot. But you’ll realize that true happiness, true peace, will come only when you learn to maintain your garden properly. I don’t know how, you know Farmville better than I do. But that is what you have to do!