Adding to 'Is it critical?'

Going beyond using 'Is it critical?' to deal with pressured days...

I think we can ask this question of anything that we do, or that comes our way....

Is this critical for me - for my happiness, my intellectual growth, my peace of mind, my emotional well-being, my weight program, my bank balance, my holiday plans, my dreams and aspirations, my dream home, my study program? (and anything else that is important for you)

It also helps to ask this question when faced with a choice - makes it easier, because an answer to this will surely be in alignment with your core.

A fabulous role model...

for all of us for whom 50, or 60, or 70 is a milestone we've left behind.....

Zohra Sehgal 

She turned 100 yesterday, and is as feisty as ever.....

I am totally inspired by her......and since she is a homegrown person, it is easy to identify with her, and absorb her zest for living.

For, zest doesn't just happen. Bit by bit, and sometimes the bits are painful, it has to be built up - starting with small things, and gradually making it a habit, till it then turns and becomes the propelling force.....

What a lady! What a life!!

And best of all - we too can have it!!!!!!

An important lesson...

I'd heard from my DD, but which I see happening in real time for me now......

My DD's always worked in a corporate house, and under (what seems to me) tremendous pressure of checking quality under (to me, again) insane deadlines. Her response to a zillion decisions that need to be taken at the same moment has always been: Is it critical? or, It's not critical or variations of that.....but keeping the focus on 'critical'.

Having worked all my life with children, the concept of deadlines was rather hazy. Deadlines had a stretchable quality, within reasonable limits of course, because you can't fit kids into boxes. So if there was an issue, time was never the problem or the main point - the child was. I could take my time over a child's problems, till finally the smile was back, and self-confidence restored.

Now I work in cybersphere, and deadlines are very real. I've found that one-line mails and msgs hinting at deadlines can be quite devastating.....and paralyzing......so now, am learning the value of asking 'Is it critical'!!! What is critical to my work? to my peace of mind, and to my life......??

.......................and then pursuing that line of action...........................and..................it's working!!!!!

When the blinkers fall off...

it's actually a good thing, though the process of the blinkers falling is quite a difficult and painful process - it doesn't happen either easily or quickly...

This usually happens when someone we have been sure of, suddenly decides to break off; or when we've been doing something year in and year out, and the boss thinks that our services can now be dispensed with; or a course of action that we've been on, has to be incised or even surgically removed because it has lost its purpose with us.

The most natural reaction is to want to hang on.....that situation was (or the person meant) comfort zone for us............................that's the unhappy part.

The learning part is when we realize that life isn't stopping, nor are we falling off the globe, but life is going on steadily forcing us to change our course/pattern/thinking/life view...

The good part is that it makes us - after a bit of time, of course - more clear thinking, mentally stronger and more composed, more decisive, and best of all, more positively detached. What's also a revelation is how new ideas and thoughts start flowing, as a result of the brain having got a good shaking...

There is nothing...

that is insignificant.

Things happen, things we read, or write, or talk about, or work on, or do......nothing is inconsequential, or irrelevant, or meaningless, or pointless, or trivial.....

A simple exchange, which we may call meaningless, is not so, because in those few moments we have allowed a heart to touch ours and we have touched another's heart.

A 'Hello, how are  you. I am fine' letter, with news of daily things that happened to him/her/them, is not to be discarded as something that has nothing of import in it. It is important, simply because a connection has been established...a reaching out has happened, an inclusion of you in their daily lives.

And so on....

If we measure everything in terms of usefulness, or importance, or spending of time, or value, then we are sure to miss out on the simple things that actually goes into making life beautiful and more importantly fulfilling.

Another distractor...

(there is a word like that says the Oxford Dictionary!)

Anyway -

I've been distracted - totally and completely by Elizabeth Bard's Lunch in Paris. (A surprise gift from my DD)

I've been soaking myself in it, and I don't know what I'm enjoying more - the love story, or the recipes....or Paris.....?

As it  always happens with me, I end up trying to get an insight into the person/persons, and that invariably takes me off on another track.

No matter if it is Madame Defarge in Tale of Two Cities, or Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, or Joe Gargery in Great Expectations, or Jason Bourne in Bourne Identity or whoever....I end up spending more time getting into their lives.....trying to pry and poke into what they are really all about - what they really think, or feel....

Something I've written...

on a topic close to my heart, especially since I was so involved in it for close on 25 years - and still, though I've changed course, I get agitated when I see the nonsense going on in our schools. As for the way the government is going about it, it fair drives me up the wall......I get so mad.....

The book 'bad land' by Jonathan Raban went straight to my heart. I've extracted the bit on education from it, because I thought it made such eminent sense. Check out what I've penned down. It's at: http://ezinearticles.com/?Education-in-Schools&id=6981189

Sharing...

something I read, and found great comfort and strength in....

This is from an Upper Room reading:

No matter what we do that can ruin our lives, or how much abuse others inflict on us, that child still lives somewhere deep inside each of us.

The writer goes on to say to believers that "God can re-create any of us from within," beginning the day we offer ourselves to Him without reservation, and without holding anything back, and without putting in riders and clauses......

For the unbeliever, too, the statement offers great hope...

Knowing that the child in us is still there, is cause enough to make it worthwhile to start working on ourselves, removing all the debris that has accumulated over the years, discarding everything that has been pressing down, and squashing us, letting go all memories, refusing to let anything pop up from the past and destroy our work on ourselves and our peace of mind, striving simply because we want to get back the child, rediscovering the joy of simple things, recovering the lost sense of fun, and reaffirming our worth in spite of all the abuse...

While we read...

so much about each day being a celebration of life, I've often wondered how this could be seeing as the celebration quite often changes form, and life becomes most un-celebration like.

This morning when sending a writer a 'Cheers' note because I saw that the story she had worked on (and I had QCed), featured as the first one of the day, she wrote back sounding so happy...and then it hit me...

We need to consciously think of something that we can celebrate - anything - it need not be big; it can be quite mundane, or small, or insignificant, or a 'usual' thing.......... but it has to be something you've consciously noticed....

and then you need to celebrate that....with anything - could be an extra cup of (forbidden) coffee, 'hookie-time', curling up and dreaming/reading, when you're supposed to be at something else...walking around the block, watering the plants, relishing a chocolate. Could be..... whatever....anything.....

I do believe the day will feel different...kind of celebratory....kind of nice.......

How many more?

How many Baby Falaks and Tiny Baby Afreens, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of girls/women will have to be sacrificed at the altar of prejudice, discrimination, ignorance, callousness and insensitivity, before this country becomes a safe and civilized place to live in?

Stifling surges of anger are battling with all kinds of emotions......and I hold my beloved daughter close to my heart - covering her, protecting her, ready to fight the world for her.....

as I am sure other mothers of girl children are doing..........

Don't be...

so caught up in your responsibilities, tasks, commitments, obligations, whatever, to have no time for yourself...

so busy that you have no time for your friends...

so occupied with what you are doing that you block out the thousand other things that can bring equal, if not more, happiness and pleasure...

so pressed for time that you forget to relish the cup of coffee..., or enjoy the brownie..., or dig into the biriyani...

so enmeshed in the do's that you can't remember when last you had the happiness of the don't's...

so routine-oriented that you forget the pleasure of playing hookie...

so engrossed in your troubles, that you don't see the shy, tiny little violet that has bloomed just for you...

so absorbed in the day, that you forget to dream...

so intent in running around, that you cannot remember what it is to just be still...

Remember the poem Leisure?

What is this life if full of care? to paraphrase - if full of only care...

For all those...

(and me)

who are between two selves...

Resurrecting - rejuvenating - reviving - renewing - revitalizing...

"The journey in between
what you once were
and who you are now becoming
is where the dance of life
really takes place."

                      --Barbara de Angelis




 

You can't...

box my soul in...or draw a line around my heart...or tell my head only these and not those....

for my spirit will creep out of any boundary and roam free...it has to...or I will not survive, let alone live...

Is it providential?

that I was drawn to this book while browsing in my local library...Oona Mountain Wind, by Jasjit Mansingh

Still coming to terms with my Mum's passing, I found myself with this book, and though I tried to put it away and take another one, I saw myself with this in my hand - again...

And am finding it comforting. On a lot more issues than death....

Something that brought me up short was this:

"I realized, and accepted, that I was not going to get what I was seeking. Once  I accepted that, it was easy to release the desire for it." And then the author goes on to say, " I also saw that I was being unrealistic, and the we had much that was good."

I thought this was a key to a lot of things that we all go through - We all go through times when we feel that: our career path could have been better if...; our life would have been different if...; if we had been a few years younger...; I so want this, if only...; and so on... And we suffer so much, beating our wings in the 'cage' we find ourselves in, even if the cage is big and roomy and light and airy...........

Nowhere does life promise us that we will get what we desire, or wish for, or desperately want.....but we get ourselves trapped in these....To paraphrase Mansingh, if we realize that these are not going to happen, that we were not going to get what we were seeking, then accepting it would release the desire. And why would we want to do this? because we have a responsibility to ourselves - to see that we are happy and calm and at peace all the time..... When we see how unrealistic what we want/desire/wish for it, then not only do we release that, but our eyes also open to our reality and then we see that we really do have much that is good - much that we can make our life worthwhile with - much that we can make our nests happy with - much that we can use to make our lives full and complete and happy....

And...oh so strange.......

that my 400th blog should fall at Easter......

Truly time to raise a toast and start on the 401st mile...

Thoughts of...

                                                                                                                                      Renewal and re-birth and re-commitment

The happiness of knowing that every day can be a new day.....

Cardinal rules for...

freak holidays.....

Cardinal Rule 1. Do not do all the things that:

• you were supposed to do when you got time off from your sched
• you have to do
• are looking at you reproachfully from the nooks and crannies and corners of the home
• you have to do or should do or need to do

Cardinal Rule 2. Do things like:

• something totally not necessary
• something 'wicked'
• daydreaming
• whiling away the time 
• getting into cloud mode (my DD's term for floating around in the head and just generally...)

Would you not agree that...

one of the most delectable things about growing older is that we can start eliminating the shoulds....

say 1 'should' a day???

Adding to...

The whole huge problem that women face...


So often I hear women, especially, saying that they don't want to get this, or subscribe to that, or they hide and push down feelings that pine for this or that... .Often they even give up essentials, and curtail or stop buying nice things for themselves, things that have always given them pleasure and hours of happiness, because 'how much longer am I going to live', 'why waste money on me now', 'this money can be better utilized, why spend it on me', and many other statements in the same vein. My Mum used to do this.

Agreed, there are a lot of things we cannot do or get because of current circumstances, but there are things which we can do and get...and .instead of concentrating on what we can, we wallow in feelings of persecution, and discontentment over what we can't. And, this, besides being grossly unfair, is downright ungrateful. Worse, when our children or loving friends want to do something, instead of graciously accepting, and relishing and reveling in it, we push them away allowing our feelings of 'oh, why me?' 'why did you bother?' and other such, to take over.....

We never know how long we are going to live, we have no idea when the call is going to come. But we do know that we have a loving Father, who would hate to see His children waste even a breath of a moment that He has so lovingly given in not being happy and joyful and not enjoying life...

Need acknowledgement...?

don't - don't fall into that trap, or if you're already in it, then get out of it fast....I know 'cos I had the misfortune of falling into that snare...it's seductive but very dangerous and in the end not worth it at all...

Whenever we do something for someone else or something else without actually wanting to do it because we enjoy it or believe in it or want to do it - for ourselves - we are looking for acknowledgement and when it doesn't happen the way we want it to happen (and it usually never does take the shape we want), the resulting effects on us can be quite harsh.

I know there are times and occasions when we cannot do a reality check with our inner being, especially when we are young, or in dire need, but then cut out the acknowledgement bit entirely. Do it only because you know you have to do it, and are doing it for a reason. Period.

Looking for acknowledgement, is actually very stunting....