Guilty feet got no rhythm

I believe that of all the feelings /emotions one experiences, guilt is a very strong one and at the same time very disturbing.

Knowingly or unknowingly if you make a mistake or hurt someone, somewhere down in your heart you have that strong feeling of guilt. The feeling of guilt eats you up inside and doesnt let you be in peace, and all one cares is to ask for forgiveness. One doesnt care if the other person forgives you or not, but all you care for is to ask for it.

Recently I read in the papers, a man had committed some murder and the guilt within didnt let him sleep, he could get his peace of mind only once he admitted to his crime. The police on their part were surprised to someone so happy in the jail, they had never seen someone so happy and relaxed inside the prison cell, but I guess thats what the feeling of guilt does to you, it keeps eating you inside unless you seek for forgiveness.

However, I have also realised that at times it takes one days, months or even years to realise that one has made a mistake. You feel guilty only when you realise that you have made a mistake until then you are all too happy with yourself/your life.

Accepting Positive Feedback

A very small blog, more of a rejoinder to the cinderella story, many a times it so happens that we take others opinion very seriously and that too selectively.

Say, there is a colleague of mine in the office, and he happens to give me some feedback. The feedback has some -ve pointers and some +ve pointers. He says that you are an honest person, hardworking but at the same time you are selfish and a jealous person.

Chances are that I will ignore his positive comments and only take the negative ones to heart. I will presume that she was bluffing when he mentioned the +ve points, how can she know that I am an honest person so fast, maybe she wants a promotion hence she is praising me, I am sure she doesnt know me that well to point out that I am a hardworking person.

But, yes I surely must be a selfish person, the other day I didnt ask her for lunch, maybe I refused some her requests to help, hence I might be a selfish person.

The point is that the same person giving +ve feedback, we dont accept, but we are easily able to accept the -ve feedback !!
Due to insecurity/lack of confidence ?? I would say forget the -ve and only accept the +ve ones :)

Cinderella

I am sure all of us know the story of cinderalla, the fairy tale which we all grew up hearing.

I had read a small anecdote on the story, which mainly delves into the people's attitude of inferiority complex/self doubt.
Many a times, when things suddenly start going better in our lives, we tend to doubt ourselves, wondering what have we done to really deserve what we are getting, if people are really good to us, we start wondering maybe they have some ulterior motive, maybe he/she has a hidden agenda in helping me, etc etc. In short rather than being happy about the turn of events, we start doubting ourselves.
To that effect, the article mentioned that, when the Cinderella's prince charming decided to marry Cinderella, never for once did she have doubts that why does he want to marry me, maybe he has some ulterior motive,
he is such a handsome prince, he can find suitable matches in someone who is of his caste/creed,
what does he find so beautiful in me, i am just an ordinary girl.

Cindereall doesnt have any of those doubts, instead she happily agrees to marry the prince. If you think deep, at times we also doubt our good fortunes, which is not a healthy practice !!
Dont doubt yourself !!!

Act as per your nature

This is some what a continuity of my earlier post titled Gandhigiri. There is a fable in the same vein that someone shared with me during one of my training sessions.

A sage was meditating near the sea shore, when suddenly something bit him, in pain the sage opened his eyes, saw that there was a small harmless scorpio which had bit him, so he put the scorpio back again in the water and started meditating.

After a while, again something bit the sage, again he opened his eyes, and saw that it was the same scorpio, this time, the sage put the scorpio back in to the deep water so that it wouldnt bit him. But nevertheless he put him back in the waters.

A young fellow who was watching this whole episode was curious to know why the sage put the scorpio back in water the second time, so he asked the sage, twice the scorpio has bit you and disturbed your meditation, why do you still keep saving his life ?

To which the sage ventured, it is in the scorpio's nature to bite people, and similarly it is in my nature to help people. Both of us are behaving as per our inner nature. Just because the scorpio is biting me doesnt mean that I should stop saving his life. We are both behaving according to our nature.
I loved this fable !!!

Gandhigiri

Gandhiji said that an eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.

And the movie, munnabhai showed a lot of examples which implement this quote and show us that so called gandhigiri works.
The one example from the movie which comes to my mind is the good ol society neighbour who always spits near his neighbour's window, but finally relents/mends his ways due to the so called gandhigiri.

My question is that does gandhigiri work in today's world ? The movie depicted various scenarios at a fast track, but in real life, who knows how long can it take for some people to change, it may be hours, days, weeks, months or some times never ?

In today's jet speed world, does anyone really have the time to wait for someone to change, do they have it in them to keep being good, even if the person goes on making mistakes ?

I am all for gandhigiri, coz I believe, if your effort is genuine, the other person will change or relent, the bad can be conquered by good only. But at times the time it takes for the other person to change makes me wonder that does it work ?

Just Say It -II

I guess each point has an argument and a counter argument to it.


Few days back, I had mentioned in my blog, just say it, that we should express our feelings, say what is in our minds. But I also have a contrary opinion to that.

Many a times, when you are expressive, vocal about your feelings, people tend to take you for granted, they assume/consider you to be weak and take you for a ride.
Saying everything that you feel is not always right as well.
Sometimes in the interest of everyone, its better to just keep quite and keep things to yourself. As they say actions speak louder than words.
At times words end up being empty promises.
Many a times, people dont believe what you say. So maybe its true, that silence is golden.

And yes, there is a nice advt that is playin in India these days, will add the video later, but it says
"bole bin jo kahe sab kuch, andaz hai zindagi"

With great power comes great responsibility

As kids we are taught to care for others, respect others and always help others. But as I have grown up over the years, I have at times been hurt by people, hurt by their actions/in actions. I used to wonder, why do others have to behave in such a manner that hurts me, dont they realise that their behaviour is at times rude, at times hurting me ?
Then I happened to read the above phrase, with great power comes great responsibility. And I realised, many a times, I as an individual (may be due to my immaturity) am unable to comprehend the future or the possible outcomes of some of my near term childish behaviour and it is left to others to guide me/reprimand me for my actions, which at times is painful.

I have realised that at times one has to do things which we know may hurt others and at times hurts us also, but as they say, we have to swallow the bitter pill at times just coz in the long run it is good for us.

Diwakar : I need your help to fix this blog :(..I couldnt write more

Great Expectations

As my friend mentioned, that "Somehow the people we love the most, we end up hurting them the most". And as a corollary if I may add, we tend to have the maximum expectations from the people we love.

I have been told and have realised that expectations is at the root of many a human miseries. You do something for someone, and then you start expecting something from the other person. If I sacrificed something for you, so should you and if you dont I get hurt.

I had a personal experience which made me realise that, the more I like someone more are my expectations and more I put myself at the risk of being hurt. 3 of my friends were to go for a movie. Of the 3 of us, 2 of us were good friends, close friends if I may put it and the 3rd person was a casual acquaintance.
On the day we were scheduled to go for the movie, it so happened that both my friends couldnt accompany me for the movie, both of them had some work to do. As a result I was left all by myself to go watch a movie. It was an SRK movie, so I had to go for it, there was no choice. But I was hurt by their last minute refusal. However I was more hurt by my friend's refusal than that of my casual acquaintance. Both had refused to come for the movie at the last minute, both had committed the same action, but I was more hurt by one and less by one. That day at dinner time, my behaviour was the same with my casual acquaintance but there was a cold war that ensued with my friend which took a few days to cool off !

That made me realise that at times, the closer we are to some people, the more we expect and are prone to hurt, similarly, the closer we are to some people, more we burden them with our expectations. Whereas it should be the other way round, we should be forgiving towards the people we love.

Since then I have tried to not burden my close family with my high expectations, but I still have a very long distance to travel.

Letting Go (Guys, what can be a better heading..pl suggest)

A year or so back I had attended a course, it was what you can loosely call based on personality developement (tht is not the right word, but that is what comes to my mind).

It was a 3 day course, and on the last day, we had a small session wherein, there were around 50 of us in a room (hall is a better word), there was loud blaring music. And then we were all instructed to shout, basically they instructed us to take out all the hatred, the past hurt that was buried in our hearts/our minds from the past experiences we had with people. They wanted us to shout/scream/curse/do whatever it takes, but take out all the negative feelings/thoughts that we had carried in our hearts since our birth. The music was so loud that you couldnt really hear your neighbour also. So basically we were all shouting in an uninhibited way.

This session lasted for about 15-30 minutes. And then the music was shut down. Later few of the participants were asked to share their experience of those 30 minutes.

The gist of what people said was that over the years, they have all been hurt by someone or the other, their siblings, sometimes their parents, sometimes their friends. And all this hurt had piled on in their mind and somehow effected the way they behaved with them. But up until now they were never able to voice their hurt/share their pain with someone and over the years it had piled up. It alternatively surprised me and saddened me to see that people generally miss out on some good friend/companion with whom they can share their happiness/sorrow. All these ppl wanted was someone to whom they could pour their sorrows to..But that was not to be.

A year later, I saw this movie Metro, life in a metro, and it had used a similar concept wherein the heroine screams and lets out her anger..the message is clear, dont harbour negative feelings in your heart for long, let them out, vent them out, share with someone, do something !!.

PS: Couldnt think of any better heading..maybe trying to grab user attention !!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUA1SRDUQxY&feature=related

its a very long video, but watch it from 7 minutes onwards.

some elderly advice :)

Here are some titbits of elderly advice different ppl have given me up until now , ie in the last 3 decades or so of my existence :

Always have tremendous contacts and acquaintances, you never know when you might end up meeting someone good, but assume that everyone is bad.

When yu are in pits, the society doesnt come to help you, so my dear dont care or think about the society.

Learn to live alone in this world

Dont worry about money, you work hard, you can earn some more, never be stingy in life, learn to live life kingsize.

Displaying emotions is a sign of weakness, you shouldnt show happiness nor saddness. The purfect example is Mr Federer.. I dont agree to this bit..but anyways

You are never what a few people think about you (for someone who is worried about what others will think about me)

Dont be scared of people, the more you are scared, the more they will scare you

Life is never smooth, it always has ups n downs.

Dont share your problems with people, half of them would be happy that you have problems and the other half wouldnt be bothered.

Keep smiling..which I try to do !!

Judging others

Not sure about others, but many a times I am guilty of judging others. Is that person honest, does he/she lie, does he /she indulge in gossip, is she even worthy of being my friend.

Before calling someone my friend, I would almost always tend to judge that person atleast for a while. What if she is lying to me, what if she gossips about me behind my back, what if she is a crook/what if she is not a good person, and how can I forget, what if she is into drugs/smokes/drinks, has vices, lots of what ifs in short. I was of the type who would generally stay away from people she thought were bad people, someone she couldnt be friends with.

But after having been through various ups and downs in life, having experienced my share of good, some not so good and some very good friendships, I have stopped judging people.
I know that irrespective of the fact that my friends are the ones who have wronged, I would still stand by them, irrespective of them being guilty of cheating/being dishonest, they are still my friends.
I realised that I have stopped judging my friends.. And am sure so have they, guess thats what they call, a friend in need is a friend indeed.

Just say it

This one is straight out of my favourite muse..yup the movies.
K3G (kabhi khushi kabhi gam), has a scene wherein the father tells the son (Big B to SRK), that son I have always loved you, but its just that I couldnt ever express it. In the movie there is a rift between the father and son all because the father says some harsh words to his son which the son presumes indicate that his father doesnt love him.

That scene/thought was stuck in my mind for a while. And I ended up discussing with my friend.. Maybe in other countries/cultures PDA(public display of affection) is very common. But in India generally the PDA when it comes to parents/kids is reserved for the mothers. Generally its the mothers who are more open and more expressive when it comes to their feelings/emotions. I was asking him his opinion, what do you think, should we or should we not express our feelings ? He gave me one look, as if to say are you out of your mind ..expecting Indian males to express their feelings ?

I too am like Mr Big B, someone who keeps her feelings to herself/not very expressive. But life has taught me that some times we need to express our feelings. The maxim that action speaks louder than words doesnt always hold good. Some times, what is in the mind needs to be told as well. Coz unless you say it, the other person wont know whats in your mind.

A rose is a rose is a rose

Shakespeare said whats in a name, a Rose by any other name is still just a Rose and will still smell just as nice. But I think some times a name of the person is just more than a name, it has some meaning.
Here I am not referring to the given name as they say. But the so called nick names which a person has. A nick name tells what kind of a relationship there exists (well most of the times).

Bosses in office are generally given nick names such as khadoos, don, hitler and so on. Never would one hear pleasant names for a boss.
When one is in school/college, one ends up having/giving nick names to their friends. I have heard/come across a lot of such funny names up until now. Have met some friends who have never had a nick name their whole life and on the other side are folks who have one nick name every few weeks.

It set me thinking, what is it with this practice of having nick names, why do some ppl have so many and some dont, why do some ppl always address me by my nick name and some the very formal Madam. !!

The first thing that came to my mind and you are right, it was a hindi movie scene.
A particular hindi movie (pl pardon, I am a big hindi movie fan, and some scenes just impress me beyond a doubt) Cheeni Kum shows the camaraderie between a sixty year old AB (Mr Big B for the uninitiated) and a six year old girl Swini Khare. Big B would call her as sexy in that movie. Me thinks , that one nick name changed the relationship between the two and one could never notice the age difference between the two. That one nick name changed the way one would look at the relationship, one single name transformed their relationship from one being too formal to one which was very informal and a close relationship.

I am unable to find any good video link of any scene from the movie, will upload one as soon as I can.
As always would love to hear your take on it.