Coming Up Next...

Coming Up Next
When I passed 7th grade, I was told "aa! that was nothing, wait until you are in high school!" In 12th grade I was warned, " oh! this is just a start, watch out for university!" After getting two degrees from top institutions in my country, today, I am cautioned, " Blah! This is peanuts compare to what you will face in the real world!"

Notice the trend here? We are genetically and socially wired to think that the next step is harder, more difficult, and more challenging than the one we have just finished taking. Is it really? My recent realization is that it's not always the case. How challenging is putting your left foot forward, once you have already landed your right foot on the ground? .... If anything, it's easier. For all these years, I was living in an illusion that the next step is much harder than the previous one, just because it's "coming up next".

Regardless of how hard the next step is, this entire attitude of fearing your incompatibility to what is coming next, is highly destructive. Instead we should adopt the perspective, that what I have accomplished so far, has made me capable of dealing with the next phase in my life. Yes, I have new challenges but may be,just may be, I am also blessed with new motivation, new friends, new direction and new guidelines along the way. Have I failed to notice these?

The key word is "new". Because we are stepping into a new zone, ( not any "harder" or "easier" per se), that novelty (unknown) is the root of our fears. But if and when it is geared properly, the same "unknown" can create much needed spark in our routine oriented life!

When infants learn to roll over, sit up, crawl, stand up, and finally start walking... Every step of their development is celebrated as a milestone of the next. There are milestones laying around all over the sand of time and on the beaches of our lives. All we need to do, is acknowledge them, appreciate them, celebrate them!

Next time you get nervous about what is coming up next try repeating this to yourself:  " oh! the hard part is already over! I have already learned how to stand, so now walking is easy!" :)

Cheers to our lives made easy!

Happiness = Being YOU!

"No one can make a man happy, he must learn how to be happy!"

Correct me if I am wrong, but here are my realizations for today.

Purpose of life--> happiness. 

What is happiness?--> only you can decide for yourself.

What about other's (people we love) happiness?--> Indirectly, your happiness should be their happiness. and Directly, they are as much on their own as you are, when it comes to finding their happiness. 

The question is: Can we really make anyone else happy? Especially, 1) if they haven't learned how to be happy or 2) if  we are becoming unhappy ourselves (in the process)?

...Then, who are we fooling all this time?

If you survey some of the most "unhappy-zones" in your life, you may find that those are the times you were put in a situation where you could not be yourself (partially or fully). Sometimes we might have "valid" restraints, but most times it may be that we have just accepted the situation (including our new-self), and decided to live with it. 

And being yourself doesn't mean carrying the "go to hell" attitude! It also doesn't mean being arrogant or ignoring other people's influence on our lives. Actually, it's exactly opposite. It's about listening carefully to your inner voice, and being humble to your own soul. By doing that, you will automatically be humble to others, because u will start putting some soul into everything you do, and say. And that's my friends is the highway to happiness! 

So, next time, when u start being unhappy, ask yourself, "Have I started being someone else?"  

As the lyrics from a famous song goes: "Happiness runs in the circular motion, you can have everything if you let your self be!"- 1968, Donovan (Scottish singer)

Cheers! to being yourself!

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(Gems of the day, Feb 19, 2011)