Whatever works for you

If there is one thing the 21st century does to you, it is constant exposure to diversity. Gone are the days where people are born around the same set of people, grow up and live in conformity to that same society and live their last days surrounded by the same. We have mixed up. We now live with or around people who distinctly differ in back ground. When faced with such differences, we have clinically tried to tackle them across boundaries. We have learned that living with people doesn’t always spell understanding to a full extent but it always means accepting differences. Various cultures may contradict in their practice but their beliefs are all rooted in history; in their heritage; in the very core of their being but all deserve equal respect. 

In life there is always the divide between the things that we control and those that we don’t. The former is easier, in comparison, to navigate or forecast. Primarily the reason is attributed to the fact that the result is measurable and there is a clear gauge of success or failure. It is the later that is always confusing. We all have different ways of addressing the unknown. The reactions of the unknown can be ignorance, superstitions, fear or panic, OCD or various others. When it comes down to working differences, it is these reactions to the unknown that makes it difficult to accept. Let’s face it even with the known, when we loose no one likes to be mocked for it or looked down. It is when we are dealing with things that are incomprehensible to our logic, or when faced with situations which jolt us out of our comfort zones, that we have to be more tolerant or accepting.

Maybe it scares someone to cross a road after a black cat does, maybe some people feel they will fail an exam if they don’t pray or take a bath (even after studying), maybe some people always put their right foot first when they climb up stairs, maybe your God is different from theirs, maybe some people are scared of cats but just fine with dogs, maybe some people date differently to you. These maybe feelings, superstitions or just belief but they all are differences. However long we engage in a debate or we condescend based on grounds of irrationality or difference from what we believe in, the fact remains that we will never arrive at a conclusive verdict. We are not expected to rationalize or understand them. As long as they are not imposed or intended to harm (those who believe, feel or know different), we are just expected to let them be. 

It is inevitable!! In our times we will be faced by an overwhelming difference in reactions from people we work with, our friends or maybe even our own family. Maybe when faced with the unknown all of us react in our own unique way.

Maybe the best thing we can say when we react to difference is “whatever works for you” of course it not being imposed or harmful……

Life!

Life is Responsibility
Responsibility is Choice
Choice is influenced
Influence is Background
Back ground is Family

Family is relationship one can’t choose
Lack of choice is restriction
Restrictions are unknown
Unknown makes belief

Belief is a feeling 
Feelings are uncontrolled
Uncontrolled is Dangerous
Dangerous is Discomfort
Discomfort makes us learn.

Learning is observation
Observation is Knowledge
Knowledge is power
Power is pride
Pride is insecurity
Insecurity makes us fail

Failure is being small
Small is weak
Weak is protected
Protection is caring
Caring is love
Love is trust
Trust is expectation
Expectation is confusion
Confusion is struggle
Struggle makes us hope

Hope is change
Change is Life!

Be Careful what you wish for....

It has been four months now. 16 weeks since I had a routine, a schedule or a job. The productive eight hours between leaving home and getting back is filled with vacuum, meaningless trials to engage your own mind, to set a rhythm, to have a life. It’s funny because when you were pushing extra hours at work staring at your PC, drafting report after report only for your boss to unleash his fury, all you think of is dropping it all and cruising to an endless holiday somewhere far from all the bureaucrats, far from the politics. 

When working you count minutes to the weekend when all of it will make sense. Work has become a means to an end. We work (a.k.a live through) seven days a week for two days of fun. We wait for the weekend to drink or club or date or socialize anything that will wash off the previous forty hours of our life. The fights in the office, the never ending meetings, the gossip, the ruthless competition, the sucking up are all things we think we do to pay the bill. Suddenly the long hours you put in college thinking you will be somewhere different to where you are, add to the confusing reality equations that you struggle to solve.

We have our life (the reality) and our wish (what we hope for). Sometimes it is a struggle to have your wish realized; sometimes reality is nothing like your dreams. The fact remains that our lives are constantly lived in between our dreams and the reality. No matter what we have we always wish for more, maybe that is how we better ourselves or maybe it is just plain old greed. If we sit and do the simple exercise of recalling what we have wished for (or wished to be) and then compare it to what we have (are) everyone will have their discrepancy. That is normal…..

What is abnormal and an increasing trend:

To not know what one wants and make a wish only to get it and realize it is not what one wants

or

To know what one wants, wish for it; be ungrateful when one has it and then regret once it is gone.

The purpose of this entry however is not to decide which one is worse or better, (that I leave to the reader). It is to simply introspect and see where we are, what we have and who we have become. To understand and make peace with what we can’t be or what we can’t have and to be grateful for who we are and what we have. So next time before you make that wish….be certain because your wish may be just what you have.