Should I / Shouldn't I ?!
Life. Is it about being content or being greedy. Some say you've got only 1, make every minute count. Do everything you possibly can and some more. No fun limiting yourself. Step on the gas. Reach for the stars. Little do they realise that the same star can make you evaporate in no time!
On the flipside there's the opinion that you should know your limits. Lead a slow peaceful life with no tensions no worries. Go with the flow , exercise, work only to earn 3 square meals a day, be content with watching people having glamourous lives on t v. What about the monotony such a life will lead to ? What about the exotic life beyond the confines of your cosy home that you often hear about ? Are you content being Alice who never went down the rabbit hole ?
Yeah, Yeah! I know what you want to say. Take the middle route. But how do I know what's the middle route ? How'll I know where I am being content and where I am pushing myself to the point of breakdown ? Is it possible to be able to exactly pinpoint the situations where one needs to be content and the ones where one needs to be greedy. I'd love to meet a person who can say that they've never made mistakes regarding the same.
Can I borrow some time please ?
Time flies. I can't believe it'll soon been a year since I wrote anything. Not that I can write well, but it used to be the only ways of getting out things that used to corrupt my paranoid mind every now and then. I am thankful I haven't had to resort to it in the past year. But then when I used to write, I had the opportunity for introspection. This past year has gone by without letting me breathe. Weekdays I used to feel I had nothing to do. But by the time I got to work and back(put in a couple of other things here and there), I would be begging god to give me a longer day next and come weekend I'd be out of town on some obligation(Thankfully never on work!). My parents feel I don't visit them often. My friends complain they never see me enough. Is it my age or am I the only person suffering from this syndrome , I wonder. Am I that bad at time management or is it too much for my lil being to take ? In between all this I can't remember what happened to Pramod as a person. His dreams, his aspirations, his life! Some of you might know there was something I wanted to achieve this year. Something I wanted desperately and have been dreaming about for quite sometime. I don't see myself even on the road that'd take me there , let alone being anywhere near it. Have I got my priorities wrong ? No , I couldn't have spent this year any other way. Then what went wrong ? How have a lost a whole precious year of my life and more importantly youth ? I know there is no point crying over spilt milk but I would definitely want to know the answer so I don't end up doing the same mistake again.
"Goals"
It's been a long time since I blogged. I seem to have lost it because there doesn't seem to be anything making me wonder these days. I go to office come back home. Catch up with friends over the weekend and that's it. Isn't there anything happening anywhere or is it just me ? Why do I feel like I am sailing away in no particular direction ? Why don't I seem to have any goal in life ? I used to have goals in life. I used to say I am going to do this by this time. It used to feel like there is nothing else to life but that. But once I was done with what I set out to do , there was a sense of emptiness taking over me. Ofcourse there used to be the joy of accomplishment. but that was momentary. Once that wore off it was back to routine. Back to directionless sailing that I talked about. Is it worth the effort ? the momentary joy of having done something ? It's been quite a while since I really thought of doing anything with my whole heart. I seem to be doing just fine. There hasn't been anything missing from my life, yet I have a weird feeling it isn't normal. But how do I determine what's normal ? It's from what I see everyday. My peers define what's normal and what isn't and when I see them running the rat race that life's become , I feel I am not normal. I feel I want the zillion rupee job. I feel I want the MBA degree from the most coveted institute. I feel I want the ferrari with the engine that schumi will be driving for few more races. I feel I want the beach house in the carribean. I feel I want a private gulf stream IV. Do I really feel all that if I take out the "peer" factor ? and so I keep sailing away directionless.....
I need a break :)
Ever thought what a vacation does to a person ? Till now I was under the impression that it just gives you time to explore the world miles away from you. That it does little else than letting you see exotic locations (based on your budget that is ) so when your friend tries to make a comment or 2 about it , you can jump in and say you are damn sure that you have better knowledge about the place , since you'd been there last summer. People were saying a lot of things about relaxing mentally during their vacation but that seemed utterly meaningless since I didn't know how much more relaxed can a person be than his/her normal life. That anyone would have a clear mind in whatever situation s/he might be. Which should be the ideal situation otherwise the person won't be able to make the right decisions ever in his/her life.
Recently I have come to realise how much of an effect a few days totally cut off from your routine can have on the way you see things. Going somewhere totally cut off from your regular life, somewhere you won't be bothered about getting up and going to office, somewhere you won't be worried as to what'll people think of what you wear, will clean your mind of the things that you take for granted or are assumed in your day to day life. So much that once you are back everything will seem so different from what you'd left it. That you'll be able to see everything in a new light. But (yeah there are buts at every point in our lives!!!) this new perspective will soon be overshadowed by your routine and again things fall right back where you'd left them. But that little window where you can see things a little different leaves a lot of room for making the right decisions before the cobwebs settle again. So it wouldn't hurt taking a little vacation before major taking any major decision that might change your life. Just a little thought :)
Fear of the unknown
I have always wondered what makes a person confident rather why some people (like me???)lack self confidence. A person low on self confidence is so because s/he thinks what s/he's capable of is minimal compared to what other people are capable of even though currently not many of them might have achieved what this person has. On the other hand an over confident person thinks s/he can do anything in the world even though s/he wouldn't even be capable of earning 2 square meals a day. It's all about the individual's perception of the other people in the planet. Since each one of us know ourselves very well , some feel that what they know should be common to everyone. They make it the base for all humankind. For the qualities they perceive others to posess can never be lower than that because what they have would've become common to them. On the other hand there are people for whom even a small thing that every individual posesses , s/he'll think to be unique to him/her. That s/he is the only blessed one on the planet.That s/he's an example for everyone else. That all that's not known to him/her can't be larger than him/her.
Either ways it's a recipe for disaster. Over confident person tends to underestimate the "opponent" in every walk of life and tends to be less prepared, while the one lacking confidence tends to over estimate the "opponent" and not take chances at all eventhough s/he might be able to win without any effort. One might argue that the over confident person might be able to come out of the situation using his intelligence but as the old saying goes "Empty vessels make more noise". Similarly the person lacking confidence might have prepared a thousand times more than what's required but think about it . Will his/her psychology permit him/her to take that one chance ? We don't live in an ideal world. It's a first hand experience that it's impossible to get rid of the either(I have experienced only one :D)!!!!!!!!!!
Love - Hate Relationship
I used to think it happens only in novels and movies, but to experience something similar in real life made me dumbstruck. It's amazing how people come to like each other and people who like each other come to hate more than their worst enemy just because of one thing which might not even last a few hours. I am not sure how many of us have experienced this first hand but this is what I have seen happen a couple of times (not to me). 2 totally different people, go through a tough time together and end up being together for life . But for that tough situation, they wouldn't have been together even if they were to come across each other regularly. Similarly if two people like each other and things are going good, one silly thing happens and they start hating each other so much that they don't want to see each other's face again or even talk to each other. Even I wasn't able to believe such things until I saw it happening to people around me. I wish I knew what these situations had in them that would bring about such a drastic change. And it's not like you can control or prevent such things. You get to know about them only when they have done their bit. All I can say is someone up there is decitating what should happen to people second by second.
Uncertainty
I am at a point where I am in a dilema. The decision that I am going to take will decide the my fate for many years to come. Not that I won't be able to change things later but I would have lost a lot of precious time to mention the least. Why is life so uncertain? Can anyone predict it perfectly ? Can anyone predict , for example where s/he is going to be an hour from now ? What s/he is going to be doing a minute from now ? I would say it is impossible. A lot of things can happen in the nick of time. One might be dead with some kind of freaky attack the very next second, another person suffering from a malign cancer would live to die of old age even when the docs have given them 3 months tops. I cannot be sure of being able to finish this post and publish it. I could stop blogging and get busy with something else this very moment and never come back again to it. It's a paradox. If people knew what would happen in the future, they would try and change the way things are happening to prevent all the undesireable events that they've forseen which again would lead to an uncertain future. I sometimes wonder if this is what keeps people going. The urge to know what's next. To see what awaits them in the times to come. To see how different things turn out from what they'd planned. Nonetheless some of us are happy of having achieved 50% of what we'd planned and the rest crib about the rest 50% we couldn't. But all of us get busy planing for the future hoping this time we will achieve a full hundred percent even though we know for sure it isn't going to happen. Even a total pessimist (like me) plans and would have hope in one little corner of his heart :)
