Why We Sink Our Own Ships

There are times when a writer doesn't really have an idea what to write about or too many ideas for them to pick one. In those perilous times, a very good idea is to cut to the few latest (or earlist) good movies or books you have gone through. If you don't have good ideas, simply borrow from the unending plethora of hidden messages that our civilisation has amassed over the course of history. 

That brings me to one of the most favourite ideas that movie-makers and writers have pondered upon timelessly -- the tendency of mankind to cut the branch they're sitting on, as a race and as individuals. Our self-destruct habits as a society are quite obvious already, most discussions on the internet these days is about how we are leading a lifestyle that dooms us all. But we often forget that despite all the variations between one person and another, the society is made up of individuals, and each one of us represents mankind in our own way. So, if we are destroying ourselves by the second as a civilisation, it means YOU are destroying yourself by the second as an individual.

So let's just cut to the chase and see the reasons Why We Sink Our Own Ships:

1. Show Off - "There are those who cry alone when they feel sad, and there are those who feel sad with Angel Priya and 55 others". This has to be one of those trending posts on social media that deserve a 'Truth has been spoken' card. There was a time when we shared our problems with our friends and loved ones, now we have the means to share them with every Tom Dick and Harry who uses the internet. And we make 'BIG' deals of 'little' problems, and in essence, worsen our own situation. And yes, the little achievements we make become a big deal on social media. Also, if someone so much as taunts us in a comment, it is full-fledged war right out in the open (I've had a few of those myself). It points us to a simple question - don't we have anything better to do?

2. Love, or our own twisted version of it - It is believable if a person has more than one relationship these days, that's pretty much the way the world is today. But what is really surprising, and weird, is the fact that most relationships are never even planned to last. We make tall claims of love and loyalty, but our relationships simply don't survive, and we are all 'broken inside'. Yes, of course, you flirt with every girl you see because you were cheated on by the one girl you really loved, so it is not your fault. And yes, every guy you meet knows that your relationship had no chance of surviving your 'family issues' (which mostly is just another term for a caring family) but it was his fault for expecting too much when you had 'made it clear in the very beginning' that there was little hope for a future. 

Guess what guys, you have no right to make one bad experience an excuse for being an ass. Think again girls, little is more than enough when it comes to hope. And we claim that we have experienced love, claps!

3. Interest Issues - A lot of people I know tell me that I am very talented. I try my best to be modest (I'm not, but it leaves a good impression). But I often hear that people complain how they have been forced into making a life over things they find boring or don't enjoy, and all those things they like are left in the dust as they have no time for it. Guess what, a last year engineering student also doesn't have time to write a blog about life lessons, and here we are! 

If you want to write, take a pen and start writing. It is going to be boring as hell, all the way down to the last word. But when you read the first good article or story you made, you'll realise why it is worth it. Don't make excuses of NOT being able to do something. DO what you love, and you will experience how it feels when you LOVE what you do.

4. Abandoning Things - It is easy to run away from things when they get hard. That's why we have so many suicides, so many unfinished projects, so many great ideas that never saw the light of the world. We are so good at running away and so bad at facing our realities. Consider this, you start a popular gaming app on your friend's recommendation. You love the game initially, there are quick level-ups and fast progress. The game stays on your to-do list for a few weeks or months. Then, by which you have reached level 30, the game suddenly turns boring. There are not many rewards, levelling up takes an eternity, and you simply fall out. There are so many new games out there, isn't it?

Good policy for casual gaming, but bad policy in real life. It's not unnatural to leave things when they get tough. But doing that in projects that you actively undertook (like a relationship or a professional choice) begs the question, when will we learn to face reality rather than attempt to overturn it?

Life is choices, we make them all the time. So, if you wonder why things seem so pointless, stop to think for a while. Are you making decisions that are destroying you? If yes, it is time to step up and take command of your life. It is your ship, after all, you can save it if you realise that the biggest enemy you face is you!

Ashita's Dilemma

"You two should spend some time alone, get to know each other."

This story begins where most Indian marriages start. Yes, there are a good number of love marriages happening these days but arranged marriage still rules in most sections of the Indian society. And arranged marriage was what Ashita was fated for. She adjusted her blouse and smoothed the folds of her sari in front of the mirror, stroked her hair, and turned about. This wasn't her first time wearing a sari, but somehow she felt uneasy. She was suddenly embarrassed of how much of her petite belly was exposed by it. She would've preferred her usual jeans and top, at least it covered up her waistline pretty nicely. It was a funny feeling, she had never been so conscious about her body and how would someone else look at it before. Maybe this was just a general spell of nervousness, mother had said that it was absolutely normal.

Still, something within her gave her an uneasy itch. She had always thought of males as things to be feared and to stay away from. Okay, maybe not always. She had an affair or two in her college days but they had ended badly for her and she had stayed frosty towards men since. Even before, she used to get so frightened when the boys called out her name on the street that she'd start crying. With time, she became confident enough to handle them. And now she was going to marry one. No, too early to say that. It was just a meeting, that's all. It was a long shot from actually getting married.

"Ashita", her mother called out, "come dear. We are waiting for you."

Ashita staggered for a second. “Erm…coming”, she wailed out. Outside was the setup that made her go weak in the knees and shaky in the limbs even at a distance. She was about to enter a realm where she would be under a strange scrutiny of people who had once treated her like their own daughter.

“You look pretty as always, dear.” Rini Aunty was grinning ear to ear when she saw Ashita. Maybe it was time for Ashita to start practicing calling her mom. Right next to Rini sat Mohit, Ashita’s supposed prince-on-a-white-horse. He looked at her with soft interest, blatantly staring through the noisy conversation enveloping him. Ashita blushed for no reason. This was just another guy looking at her and it normally didn't mean anything. But the circumstances coerced her to act stupid. Part of her wanted to run back to her room and lock herself in, but her feet wouldn’t move an inch. She only swayed a little, shaking from the waist down. Her hands trembled their way up to her hair-locks and she made an attempt at a smile, reciprocated instantly by her prospective groom-to-be.

“We can have our chats later”, her mother was saying, “But let the kids get to know each other first. They are the ones getting married after all.”

Five minutes later, Ashita and Mohit were face to face with each other, disturbed only by a tray of tea and snacks. Mohit seemed to be enjoying his time, looking around Ashita’s room and smiling to himself. Ashita couldn't help but scowl. Sometimes, smiling at people can be a crime too. Mohit realized his mistake, and toned down apologetically.

“Uh, are you not going to ask me anything?” Ashita asked.

Mohit shrugged. “I don't know what to ask. I know enough already. You were a great student, always top of your class, you excelled in co-curricular and cultural activities, you got a good job here, and you are good at all household chores. About me, I am an engineer, earn enough to call myself rich, just returned from Delhi to settle down here at home.”

Ashita took her time to be impressed.

“That's…nice but…is that all we need to know about each other?”

“Um…well…if there's anything you want to ask me…feel free.”

Ashita hadn't expected this. True, modern day arrangements weren't like old times when things were one-sided and only the boy got to ask questions. But she hadn't expected to run into a guy who had nothing to ask to her but was willing to answer whatever she wanted to know. Maybe her independent girl demeanour had rubbed off on him earlier and he thought that playing it humbly would be best. Either way, it was curious and needed further conversation.

“See, I don't approve of the men of this society. You people would stare at girls in micro-minis and jeans-top but want a girl in salwar-suit and sari, happily become studs by sleeping with many women but call a girl a slut first chance you get, no matter how normal that girl is. If I am online at 1 am in the night you'll ask who I am engrossed with but nobody will ask you why you stay up till 2. You get away with all the horrible things you do but we get trashed for everything. How do you expect me to marry a man if I don't approve of your kind?”

Mohit let a minute pass in silence.

“It’s a tough question”, he said. “And I thought marriages are easy. Stupid me.” He smiled again, defiantly this time. “As a man, I concede that you have all the right to be upset about how the society treats you and lets the boys get away with everything. But I don't represent all men here, and neither I am like all men. I am Mohit Singh, a person, an individual, and that is the only way I'd like to be judged. My being a man doesn't change the facts of my life, it doesn't change my character – it only changes your perception of me. If you can get over your general ‘disapproval’ of ‘my kind’, perhaps we can have a more fruitful conversation.”

“Oh, pardon me. Did I offend you, perhaps? Men get so riled up when a woman takes this kind of a stand. Maybe you'll come up with something like ‘all men aren't alike’ or ‘you shouldn't go about generalising people on the basis of what a few people do’. Don't worry. I am not interested in exposing you. I just want you to know what you're going to get if you marry a girl like me.”

Mohit displayed no signs of surprise, rather, he looked quite amused at the way the conversation was going. “I am not ‘riled up’, neither am I interested in defending mankind, in principle. I am just saying that it doesn't matter what you think about all, or most, men. What matters is what you think of me. Getting married to someone is a big deal, you know. We should utilize our time well.”

“Um, you're right. So allow me to start with the first question. Why are you going for an arranged marriage? You could very easily pull off a love marriage.”

“I could throw the question back at you. But I can imagine what your answer would be. In any case, I agreed for an arranged marriage because I think my parents would make a better choice than I would in this matter. It's a lame answer, but it is all I got.”

“You've never been in love before?”

“I don't know. I had a fling or two, but they were more like juvenile stupidity. Didn't really turn up into much, you know.”

“Are you virgin?”

“Excuse me?”

The pace of the conversation had suddenly come to a standstill. An awkward silence gripped them both as one struggled to find their words and the other observed quietly.

“I asked you”, Ashita continued, “Are you a virgin? Because I am not.”

“Oh. Pardon me. I was just not expecting you'd ask this. It's such an irrelevant thing.”

“Irrelevant? Do you really think someone's virginity is irrelevant?”

“Yes, as long as it is given away with true consent and after a proper age. If there is love in a relationship, or even if there's just a relationship, it's not very surprising if some physical dimension involved. After all, isn't sex something as normal as life and death?”

“So you wouldn't mind marrying a girl who's had a past?”

“As long as it stays in the past, there’s nothing for me to mind. In fact, to tell you the truth, I was actually hoping to marry someone who wasn't a virgin. That would give at least one experienced member to my couple.”

Ashita was dazed into silence. This man was either a maniac, or the most forward-thinking guy one could run into.

“And what about your family? Wouldn't they mind?”

“Well, they don't have to know everything. Though they are my family, but certain things between me and my wife are solely my business. I think you'll agree with me.”

“I don’t understand. How can you be so open about all these things?”

Mohit finished his tea and put down the cup. When did he start taking his tea? Ashita's cup had meanwhile already run cold. Mohit smiled to himself as he began answering her question.

“I am open about these things because it’s my secret wish to be the father to a daughter someday. And there’s no way I can be a good father if I can’t provide her a world where a man and a girl are treated as equals. The reason I am telling you all this is because I understand your bitterness towards me even though you know nothing about me. I know the cause behind this seemingly prejudiced anger. I can see the spirit that desires true freedom. And that’s what I want for the daughter I'll one day have.”

A lot of words came up in Ashita's mind but she had no sentences to put them in. She fiddled with her hair, blanked out.

“Something tells me that you don't want to get married at the moment”, Mohit was saying. “But still, I don't think that marriage is really an end to anything. It could very well be the beginning to new things. It all depends on how the two people involved get each other, reach out to each other, and comprehend each other.”

“You don't know how I…um…lost my virginity”, Ashita whispered. “You wouldn't like it. You wouldn't be so cool about it if you did.”

“Maybe some secrets are meant to be secrets forever, in that case. Or maybe you will tell me that incident as a long-forgotten story someday. Who knows? I personally think that life is what we choose to be at this moment in the present, what we plan for the future. I look forward to the future we have ahead, depending on what you say when we meet our respective parents outside.”

And then, Mohit slid his teacup towards her, got up, and made for the door.

For The Eternally Single

There's this girl that you like a lot. She seems to like you too. She's always complimenting you, she tells you that you are a nice, caring, eligible guy who is a great catch. When you met her, she was surprised - maybe even shocked - that someone like you could be single. But that's your truth, and you know somewhere deep down that it's not going to change in the near future.

Pardon me for the masculine point of view, but I think females generally don't get into this kind of bind. I personally feel - it's a pathetic prejudice but I can't help it - that women stay single by choice but men have to stay single by compulsion. Yeah, denial is a very nice way to go, but you know your truth.

So this post is for those who feel let down, or incomplete, or simply not good enough, because they can't break that stupid old curse of being single despite your best efforts to get paired up. Yeah, there are so many posts out there on Facebook, just to boost your ego, the 'Single and Happy' battle-cry that becomes the twig which keeps you afloat on the pool of your sorrows. I don't say that it's all but a hoax; there are people out there who are actually single and happy. But they aren't the ones who need this post. This post is for those who are like a graduated engineer who didn't get college placement - you keep looking for a job and appear in all kinds of exams but you're still unemployed.

Now I won't pepper you with the usual things that most of your friends must say to you. You know - 'Its better to be single, man. We committed people suffer all the time', or 'Your time will come, and trust me, one day you'll find someone so amazing and lovely, and that day you'll thank me', or 'This is such a stupid thing to be sad about, just focus on other goals of your life and your partner will automatically arrive when the time comes'. No, those people don't know your pain. They can't possibly understand why you fuss over something as trivial as this. But that's the point now, isn't it? The trivial things in life are the most vital after all. And love sure is a trivial thing these days.

Now you may be a person who never found the right person, or one who was deviously cheated on but never actually got into a relationship, or any sort of heartbroken, empty-feeling person (yeah, girls too, you people suffer a lot too). But the medicine remains the same, no matter who the patient is. So lets get to the good part, shall we?

Ten things for the eternally single to always remember:

1. No Pain, No Gain- All right, I give you a choice. Who do you want to be your life partner? Would you accept just about anybody, or should it be someone special, someone different, someone you have only seen in your dreams? Now you can, like a novice fisherman, hook a little fish and go home. But if you want a big catch, the catch of your dreams, I'd suggest you have the guts to wait up. It takes a special one to date a special one, you see?

2. Never Give Up- If you look all defeated and dragged out all day, do you really think you can find the one you're looking for? Even if you do, do you think they would like you all that much? Now I am not an expert, but I do know that a smile makes all kinds of faces look slightly better. And genuine smiles are a really attractive bait. Your fish might be crossing your hook every other day, lure her right in, go on.

3. Look Your Best- At all times, in all places, try to look as good as you possibly can. You know the rule - first impression is last impression. And who doesn't like good looking people? Besides, you get to admire yourself in the mirror. I am pretty sure that would help your mood, agree? Trust me, a good closet attracts not only prospective partners, but great friends as well.

4. Be Funny- When in pursuit of someone you don't know or maybe have never seen or met, the best course of action is to draw attention, positive attention. Best way, a tinge of humour. Now whatever you believe, nobody is born with zero sense of humour, this thing comes with the IQ. Be snappy, be happy, is all I say.

5. Keep Looking- We live in a world where love can strike from any direction. So why filter people out? Your perfect match could be anybody - a senior, a junior, a classmate, somebody from another college, anyone. Try to keep your options open. It's no crime to look, after all.

6. Everything's A Date- When you're single, everybody you meet is an option and there is no shame about it. So every time you head out with someone of the opposite sex, make it a date. Don't get too carried away, though. Tact should never be mixed with desperation. Just keep it light, a little hint of flirty. If you can spark enough interest, the other party will make things a whole lot easier.

7. Keep The Past In The Past- Nobody like glum people. I don't say that you should totally avoid talking about your past, but try to keep it to a minimum. And only do it when you feel it's very necessary. It's a simple theory, why talk about the past when you are planning about the future?

8. Feel Free To Move On- As I said, when you are single, everybody is an option. So if you follow up on a crush and it leads nowhere, I'd suggest you move on real quick and get on with the next one. If there are real feelings, then you'll stop reading or heeding advice by lonely writers like myself and act as your heart directs. But as long as it is fun and flirty, I'd say you are free to be a little clumsy.

9. Keep Your Friends Close- If you can't find your match, they'll try and find one for you. That's the deal, that's what friends are for in the first place (its just an expression, friends are precious and they serve many purposes). Besides, a true friend would only feel honoured if he/she is able to help you in any way possible.

10. Avoid Hooking-Up On Social-Network- It doesn't pay off. At least I've never seen it pay off. WhatsApp, Facebook, Hike etc are a nice place to chat with people and meet new people maybe, but you don't get to know them through text messages (or voice notes and picture messages). Avoid it. Real love with real people shouldn't be cultivated in the virtual world.

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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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!