Something...

to read...adsorb...decide to do...make sure we do... force ourselves to do...

Remember - 

"The way people dress is the way they identify themselves, and that’s exactly fashion," says Berlin-born director Alexa Karolinski. 

And this is especially for those of us who are oldy-goldies, those who have given up on life, those who are so badly wounded in their hearts that they have no reason to have any self-esteem, for those who feel that caring for ourselves and loving ourselves is wrong, for those who are ambivalent about themselves vis-a-vis fashion or style, for those who feel that their time is past so why bother......and for those with all such thoughts that demean them and take away from their essence....

Till we leave this earth we have an identity, and it's best to realize that, understand it, accept it, and do our best to preserve it....

Check out - http://www.nowness.com/day/2012/7/29?ecid=ema1785&CID=# and you'll get the drift...

At some point...

we have to deal with a hard and essential fact: we discover that the things we're good at and the things we love are not necessarily the same...(wisdom from Robert James Waller)

and we must never feel guilty about it or distressed by this realization.

.........I may be very good as a teacher, but my heart may lie with wanting to run a cafe cum library...

so I do what I'm good at and dream about the other....knowing that it's all right to do so....



By extension this fits into so many areas of life....

If...

someone hurts you, there is no point in trying to either sort things out, or clear the air, because it only gets worse with each one defending his/her position. We end up saying things we neither mean nor would have in saner, calmer moments. Share your feelings only with those who recognize and feel and understand your heartbeat.......for the rest, only smile....

Talking about pressures...

Check out these two pix (taken from my window):

The picture alongside is of a Weeping Ashoka across the street - the top of it is jagged and with a magnifying glass you may be able to see the painful slit going through the main stem. It was a beautiful tree and looked lovely with the branches spreading out!

The picture here on the left, is also a Weeping Ashoka on our side of the street. It is regularly pruned by the gardener of our complex, and has a full head. Since the gardener prunes the branches, it is of the same circumference from the top to the lowest branch.

So what happened? There was a storm the other day, and the top of the tree mentioned first, just broke off....the top of the other one remained intact, and as full as ever.

A lesson here - we hate it when life prunes us, and it does - surely and painfully. But it is because of this pruning that we plumb depths in us we never knew we had; we grow in various ways, not imagining we had those potentials; we are forced into new and better ways of thinking; and we realize what we can be, and do - again, and yet again, and yet again...

Next time the Good Pruner comes around, allow yourself to learn something more about yourself.........and you'll be surprised at yourself.....

There are many times...

when we feel the need to ask for help. Or, we are in a bind, and people around us see this and come forward to help. Friends, colleagues, acquaintances all give us their well-meaning advice/help/suggestions. Our loved ones and dearest friends tell us, and debate and discuss with us the pros and cons and try to show us the path they feel would be good for us.

However, the only satisfying way is to look inside of ourselves for the answer - to listen to the voice of our conscience. Of course we must listen and accept what everyone tells us, but then................. we must heed that small, soft voice from deep inside, that tells us what we should do - gives us a solution we would be most comfortable with - guides us as we decide how we would really, honestly like to go about the problem - offers advice that syncs with what we are. Sometimes it may be contrary to what everyone, even our dearest ones have told us, it may seem we are flying in the face of all that is rational and reasonable, but................ it is what our heart tells us to do....it is what we believe we should do.....and it is the way we want to act... . In such cases we are ready and prepared to face the consequences, even if they are negative ones...simply because we have acted in a manner that is true to what we are.

And so, find your solutions - YOUR way - it will help you to deal with what comes after - the good gets highlighted, and the bad is bearable and eminently solvable.

Words of wisdom...

from two wonderful, fascinating, amazingly phenomenal women I came across in Ari Seth Cohen's Advanced Style (I'm totally hung up on his blog - advancedstyle.blogspot.com - in a word, it's extraordinary and very essential for women)



Mimi Weddell: 
You dance as you walk through life. If you don't dance, for heaven's sake, you cannot aspire. you do not lift up from this earth.
Rise above it. We're not supposed to be happy, happy, happy and jumping for joy every second.
Grace, is what it is - you dance as you sail through life, and furthermore, it heightens your living as of the moment.
..........you have to have the downers and the uppers to be a complete person. 




Illona Smithkin:
It's a wonderful thing not to need to have anything.
Perfection is a man-made concept. If God wanted us to be perfect, He would have made us so. 
Imperfection can be beautiful - makes a person easy in style, and better.
Don't be uptight about perfection. It doesn't add; it pressures us and doesn't accomplish what one pays for.

It is most natural...

to take offence, feel hurt, or feel slighted, when people are rude or abrupt with us, especially if the person is someone we love, or care for, or admire. We feel this way too, when those who are hierarchically superior treat us badly or show disdain for our work, or are just plain rude. When strangers respond to our help in a rude or abrupt way, these same feelings well up inside the heart...and the only thing we can think of at that moment is to hit back-----and sometimes hit back hard - for the thought that is in our minds is: what have we done to deserve this response?

Let me share what I came across today -

Great kabbalists have taught that we should wait for at least three full days before we respond to a perceived misdeed.

Two things stare out from this sentence:

To wait for three days - an almost impossible thing to do, especially when the heart is welling up with all kinds of feelings, and the tongue is just waiting to lash out, and the brain is on overdrive putting all kinds of thoughts into our heads which are on the verge of coming out.....

The word perceived - which we, if we give a little thought to, will slowly but surely make us realize that it is actually perceived, because we do not know what was going on in the mind of the person who was nasty....we do not know what his/her mental/emotional condition was...and in fact we do not know even what our mental/emotional condition was like, to have received the spoken words as nasty or rude or uncalled for.

So, if we put the two together - that, what we understood to be rude was possibly a perception of ours, and  we must force ourselves to wait for three days before responding, it is bound to work well in our favor, and preserve our peace of mind.

Reactions only lead to grief.......but if we can train ourselves to walk away, and shift our focus to something else every time negative thoughts come up, for three days, just three days, we will feel the difference in ourselves.....

Surely we owe it to ourselves to preserve the peace and serenity of our minds.

Adding to my take on work...

Even the best person at work, one with a 'most valued employee' certificate, most efficient troubleshooter, extremely dependable person, 'indispensable' person etcetcetc.... is still, at the end of the day, dispensable. That is why it is so important that we don't allow the work, or these tags to define us, and instead define the work that we do with what we are all about. This is so that if you have to leave, for whatever reason, you would do so knowing that you had enjoyed the work while it lasted, and you have happy memories of what you gave to your work and your colleagues. You would be able to draw the line painlessly, and without bitterness, and quite naturally move into what came next, taking with you all that you had garnered...

A tribute...

to a wonderful person called Kakda...

He was one of India's teeming masses. But he was very special to all of us who knew him when we were trying to get a school up and running under the most trying of conditions. The Admin Assistant Ravi, a singularly amazing person, brought him and another worker, Baliya, to the school as workers - their job description: any kind of work. Kakda was the leader of the two. The conditions, as I've said, were dreadful (an understatement) and our little team was trying to work a miracle out of nothingness...there was no time for us to worry about the nitty-gritties of daily life. Kakda and Baliya seamlessly moved in. Clean the rooms - Kakda; tea - Kakda; meals - Kakda; help in getting the rooms ready for the kids - Kakda; clean the toilets (when the housekeeping staff decided to play hooky) - Kakda; for pouring balm on jagged edges - Kakda. For everything it was Kakda. He would not speak much, but there was always a ready smile for everyone  - no matter the time of day. He would be dropping with tiredness, having run around all day, even then if there was a crisis - large or small, the first person on the scene ready to help wherever he could was Kakda, and Baliya of course. He never waited for anyone to tell him what to do - he just went wherever he felt there was a need and plugged the gaps. His purpose in life was to look after people and do whatever was needed for the looking after. When my DD and her husband came to visit us, there was no way I could look after them, as I would have wanted to. There was so much to do, and we were pulling and heaving against odds and time. Kakda ensured that their meals were on time, that there was nothing lacking in hospitality for them - all without even being told. And he did the same for everyone. Even after the school started, with inhospitable weather adding to every other calamity, Kakda was there when there was no water in the taps, or the electricity supply got cut, or whatever, whenever...And where he could not be, he would depute Baliya...

He stayed on in the school after my husband and I, and the rest of the team left - he had stayed on because of the money - and as he knew the ins and outs of the school, he thought he would be of assistance. One day, not long after we had gone, Kakda and Baliya appeared on Ravi's doorstep - they had left. After a lot of coaxing the truth was out that they had been ill-treated, demeaned, and insulted by the owners of the school. Money or no, it was too much to bear - their spirits had been wounded. For the rich in India, incidentally, the poor are not human - they are nothing, and to be treated as such. Ravi helped them to get jobs. This was some years ago - but till date, Ravi, who has kept in touch with us, said that they always talked about us with great fondness - all because we treated them as human beings - workers in the same organization that we were working for, and we made them know that it was thanks to them that the wheels were moving without squeaking and groaning. And we all remember them with great fondness.....there is no price tag on what Kakda did.

He passed on night before last...I have no words, and the tears will not stop for this singular person.....what a magnificent spirit.....

It's strange...

how suddenly something that has been there in your consciousness suddenly, after years, takes on a deep meaning and things which were hazy become clear...

A recent revelation has been this verse from the Bible:

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal..................for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
-------Matthew 6: 19 - 21

The truth of this verse came home to me like a bomb! While pretty things make us happy, and we do up our home with all kinds of things picked up from here and there as souvenirs and memories - clearly we are to realize that these cannot and must not become so important that when they get lost or broken or stolen, we become almost incapacitated and paralyzed with unhappiness and sorrow. And we end up limiting our heart to our safebox, the home, the cupboard...

But, even as we enjoy these, we have to set our sights on something more - the intangibles that really make life worth living and which, if you look at it honestly, bring real joy....chatting with those who are important in our life, pottering around with our plants, going for a walk, holding a friend's hand, a hug, laughing with those we love and whose company we enjoy, window shopping, mall ratting, snuggled in a comfy chair with a book, relishing the morning brew......and we let our heart go free to soar....

For your young ones...

Give them these gifts:

Love for reading

Love for Nature

Love for Music

Teach them to make choices exactly the way you would - no matter how young they are, kids can understand options, pros and cons, and what's good for them or not among other parameters.

Give them the respect due to a human being. Talk with them as you would to another person - whether they are babies or all of 20, or getting older at 50...

Cherish them - they are Life's gifts to us....

How often is it...

that we blame the world for our ills and our unhappiness?

How often do we ask: why me? I haven't harmed anyone or anything, then why should I bear this kind of injustice?

How often do we cry out: Why me? When I haven't hurt anyone, why this kind of hitting out and hurt for me?

How often do we question: Why me? It's not my fault that.....(whatever..)

To all of us who, more often than not have asked the 'why' which has no answers, here's something from Dennis Wholey:

Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is a little like expecting the bull not to attack you because you are a vegetarian.

Brilliant!! Now smile.....

The world will go on hurting us - unfairly and unjustly...instead of asking why, let's just try and laugh it off as another of those inexplicable lemons that life throws at us.....or the charging bull, maybe!

And by extension...

never blame or try to put the blame on anyone for showing you a path which they believed in, or thought would be in your best interests. Okay, you tried it. But when it doesn't work, opt out, and look inside yourself.


And stop blaming the world for your woes and ills and unhappinesses.....

Refer to J.K.Rowling. In her Commencement Address, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,” at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association, she said:

There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you.

There is an expiry date on blaming anyone - the responsibility for your life and happiness ultimately is yours....appreciate what your parents wanted for you - don't blame them if you have to change course - be thankful that they cared enough to set you off. Every experience is one step in the finding of yourself. Appreciate what your well-wishers want for you, but if the path they point out does not work out for you, don't blame them--they told you what worked for them and at least they have shown you what doesn't work for you.....and so it goes.......

My take on work...

I do believe that our work does not define us......but what we bring to our work that defines us.

You can be the greatest person in your organization, but you may not bring any of your real self to your work - just your super training and intellect...cold and clinical alone does not ever work...

Or, you could have chosen to be a motorcycle mechanic, but you bring your passion for things mechanical, your love for life, and your very real personality to your work, and in so doing make your workplace happier and brighter...

There are times when circumstances force us to take up any job that comes along - no matter--give it all you've got - you define it - and you'll see the transformation (I've been in this situation, and since I came upon this truth through a lot of heartache and trouble, I know it works--and works beautifully).

If you have the chance to choose something, don't-don't-don't-ever-ever-ever make the mistake of believing that your job position defines you - NEVER - you have to define it. If it is a corner store that makes you happy, go for it.....and do not believe anyone who goes - how could you, with all your qualifications do this? or how could you do this, with no thought of your family prestige? or how could you give up so much to do this for a pittance? or have you no thought for what you can contribute to the world (coolly forgetting that even the humblest - in man-made-terms - contributes to the world going round). If you know you have it in you to change policies, then hit the top of the ladder - but bring your self to it, and define it in your terms.

You have to make your life, and make it as happy as possible - and bring yourself to what you put your hand to, or have to put your hand to, or choose to put your hand to...

On...

being what I am, doing what I want, living as I like.....

We sometimes think that we don't want to be limited by shoulds as dictated by societal norms - there is no need for self control, because then how do we realize ourselves....it's my life.....

Fact is that it is only through self control that we truly test our strengths and our depths. We can know only through self control what are potential and possibilities and capabilities are.

Freedom to be and do and say as we like, is not real freedom, because in some way or the other it ends up limiting us. Freedom to be what we are comes only from knowing what we are, and how will we ever know our true mettle if nothing tests us? nothing causes us to delve inside of ourselves to find answers? nothing happens to make us use our brain with its mighty power? nothing plumbs the depths of our heart?

It's worth remembering...

that we do not need a certificate of approval from anyone...

So often we change ourselves to fit into other people's view - we want to please other people, or even those who are close to us. We forget that other people really don't care, and those who love us and are close to us love us for what we are...

We want to be accepted, without realizing that we need to first and foremost accept ourselves for who and what we are; we want to please people, and are willing even to bend and twist and contort ourselves to do so....

We have to realize our potential.....and be happy in that striving.....and be proud of who we are....we need to let our own conscience guide us, is all...

We do not need a certificate from anyone.....it is true....

So let's not limit ourselves.....let's not allow anyone to make our boundaries....let's free ourselves from the tyranny of being someone else, or something other than who we really are...

(Remember people who insist on our changing ourselves to suit them, are not people we should be with, for they are looking for mirrors and clones, and we don't need to be either...better to live free and proud, than as something/someone else under threat).

About respect........again.......

One thing I forgot to stress on while talking about respect, the other day...

Very, very, very importantly, we need to remember-practice-work on-fix into our heads and hearts - that everyone, but everyone has to be treated with respect - as much a baby as a very old person, as much those in the man-made-economically-lower rung, as the person on an economically very high platform, as much the 'important' as the 'unimportant', as much those who belong to our immediate social circle, as those who work to make life smooth for us (helps? servants? class 4? and all the other names we have for them).

I've seen how we treat our children - as if they are nincompoops, the general take-off point being--"what do you know", and with adults it is -- "oh times have changed"; it's "yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir" with those who we perceive to be 'in high places' and it's the "who the hell are you - go to hell" kind of talk with those we know cannot hit back; it's an oily respect we offer to those who we know feel will affect the quality of our lives (because we have foolishly given the responsibility of the quality of our lives to others), and rough talk with those who we believe are of no importance to us.......

Everyone, but everyone, but everyone has to be treated with respect - if nothing else, because everyone has the divine spark...

Just because...

we don't understand something, or what someone is saying, or what someone is all about, or what someone is doing......just because it is or they are different from us, from our world view, and from what we are about...just because we do not agree...

We must not disrespect it or the person, and trash it or the person out of hand.

Give them a chance, and have the respect to also give ourselves the chance to try and understand, and maybe even appreciate...

(Naturally this is not for things which harm people).

Dogmatism has to be shunned at all costs...all costs...

Reiterating...

and re-reiterating, and re-re-reiterating...

There has to not only be acceptance in a relationship if it is to at all survive, there has to be respect for the other person - his or her views, thoughts, dreams, wishes, feelings, and all that goes into making the other person what he or she is.

Code of conduct...

for those in the golden years...

Oh yes there is a code and if we follow it, there's going to be less grief all around. Growing physically old is something we have to learn to handle, especially when the heart still feels young. Being old is an actuality that we have to deal with on a daily basis.

 First of all we have to believe that our time is over - it is the time of the young.

Respect them, do not deny them the pleasure and pain of being young, and certainly do not ever thrust your views, and experiences on them.

Give them the space to discover themselves without shadowing them and trying to be an umbrella for them.

Step back and allow the spotlight to shine on the young. Stay in the shadows and keep them from becoming too dark for them.

Do as much as we can for ourselves.  While we are a responsibility for our children, our happiness is not their responsibility. Do not burden them with our demands or our talk or our wishes.

We need to be grateful for everything - every little thing. We need to be appreciative of everything. We need to be pools of light and not areas of gloom and doom.

We need to consciously never let ourselves go....either in dress, or speech, or action, or behavior. We can still be role models for our young.

We may need help to walk, but we can be a source of strength for our young to lean on.

We must speak in the present though it is our memories that we live in and tend to drift towards.

We have to, maybe force ourselves to, take an interest in everything - every little, teeny thing that is happening in the world, the country, the place where we live, the lives of those who touch us, our children and our grandchildren.

Growing old is a natural progression of life, and we cannot do anything about it. Gracefully accepting that and making the most of it, is something we can do.


(Anybody like to add in anything more?)

Every little thing...

takes an effort.....

even the teeniest weeniest thing takes effort.....be it for ourselves, or for those close to us, or for our home, or our society or....our country.

(much easier, isn't it, to sit on one's butt and find fault, cite reasons why, create innovative excuses, pomposify, debate, and predict....)

Somehow, we tend to forget that the effort is always worthwhile, especially when we have taken the effort for ourselves. For, an 'I' created with effort, always spreads something positive...lifts the spirits of all around....tempers life...

Here's how important...

friends are....

A Bosnian proverb says: One without a friend is like the right hand without the left...

                                          (not a fantastic pic, but you get the drift...)

True friends make life complete...

Why should...

we use the concept of karma primarily to beat a person with?

It works for good and right things too....so, thinking and doing and being right will bring in its own karma too...

Gravitate to the positive when offered a choice of thinking...

It does make a difference...

when you care...

(and this is not just about people - it is about anything and everything.....care about what you think, what you eat, what you wear, what you do, what you say, about yourself, about your loved ones.......everything and everyone.)

Care without wondering if you are going to be hurt

Care with all of your heart for the tiniest thing along with the biggest; for what may be perceived as the least important, as well as with what is perceived as the most important; for small-time things, and big time things.......EQUALLY.

Two...

wonderful things that have stuck with me from a fave movie 'Strictly Ballroom', and which I refer to periodically to top on inner strength...

and

'You stick with your goals, and eventually they bring their own rewards.' 

The first is self-explanatory. Fear is the worst thing ever, and yet we allow it to do inside our beings and wreak havoc. It's hard work, but it does happen when we work hard enough at it.....

The second, I find, works in all areas (including our efforts to banish fear). It's the easiest thing in the world to give up, but stick with a problem/issue, and you will reap the rewards that come along. These rewards are double sided - the problem/issue gets resolved, and you find depths in yourself you never knew you had. The only rider is that you have to take each day as it comes without coloring it either with the past or the future...

(Of course if nothing works, then you must give it up, but at least you can tell yourself that you tried your best!)

Every new day's effort is that day's only...

DD speak...

Injuries have histories - that's the whole thing...

so while we yowl at the time, we can look back, in wonder, perhaps, as to how we could have managed that!....

(injuries here refers to physical ones, since my DD has a habit of hurting herself, sometimes even when there is nothing around that she could have fallen on, or hurt herself on! - it's a family joke that both of us have this amazing knack of acquiring wounds and scars all over our arms and legs!!)

I'm sure...

all of us have gone through situations when we have been the butt of a joke on account of some gaffe we've made, and to hide the embarrassment, have joined in the general laugh with an apologetic 'that's me,' or 'well, what else,' or some such deprecating thing.......quite as if it is terribly unnatural to make a mistake, or say something 'different.'

While I know it is a terribly embarrassing situation, I also feel that we need to train ourselves not to put ourselves down. It comes very easy to want to blend into the wall, or disappear into the ground - but that doesn't help because what they said and what you said and how you felt will always come back to haunt. The best would be not to join into the general laughter, and to maintain a distanced silence, while boosting your own inner self and morale - simply because they would have forgotten it in the next 5 minutes, and if you are not to suffer, and to also forget it, then it is important not to let it damage you. Just tell yourself it's okay to make a gaffe.....absolutely okay.....

As to how many gaffes?....................................any number. You are a wonderful person.

We all admire the confidence some people have - confidence of dress, of attitude, of whatever they do, everything.....that hasn't just happened - it has been carefully cultivated - and to my mind (and I too am working on this) it comes from constantly telling myself.............I matter....

A new day...

and a new way to look at everything.....

I want to share two wonderful morning prayers....

This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

And

I offer thanks to you, Loving and Eternal Kind, for you have mercifully restored my soul within me. Your faithfulness is great.

I've found that these prayers especially help when it seems difficult to face another day.......

Another day should not be just another day - it should be a brand new day.......so we need to be brand new people too...

An important ingredient...

for a relationship to be meaningful is participation.

It is only when we participate in the lives of those we love, those who love us, our spouses, our kids, our friends, or our colleagues, that a relationship comes full circle and becomes meaningful...

Don't bash.....

yourself......

and don't criticize yourself overly - it can become a habit.

The thing is, we all have it within us to keep growing, stretching, and trying for better times, or higher limits or greater goals. But we limit ourselves with self criticism, which then starts off self-doubt and all the other related feelings which end up crippling us physically and emotionally.

If we feel we cannot go it alone, and need help, then we need to do something about it and get the help we need.....the best thing about seeking help is that though we may not follow to the letter what is told to us, it opens up avenues in our minds that finally help us to help ourselves....that is really how it works....truly....