This post is part of the Chennai Bloggers Club (CBC)'s themed posts series initiated to keep the spirit of blogging alive and challenging.
 |
A mystic start! |
I was prompted to write this post after someone asked me
this question, what is the most difficult things to do on the whole wide earth?
I started wondering, maybe...
Being able to survive Lord Voldemort?
Being as broad-minded as Edward Cullen?
Being able to survive in dire circumstances during natural
calamities?
Sleeping with open eyes?
Counting your hair?
To accept and let go of someone whom you love?
Talking the Truth at the right time?
Confessing, apologizing or forgiving?
I thought a lot of these things, guess so many of them,
google-d them, but hard luck. However a simple reply took me by awe – try being thoughtless for a minute.
It made me wonder - it’s ironic
because even the very thought of being thought-less is a thought. These are in
fact the words of Baghwan Ramana Maharishi, a great saint who lived in
Tiruvanamalai. He said an ideal man’s mind must be in a state of
pure jnana.
This shows that thoughts play a very significant role in our
day to day life. How one perceives oneself influences how one perceive about
others; just like when you look through red shades, world goes red and when
you view through blue shades, the world around you goes blue.
So to simply state, when I think right about me, my perception
about others and towards others also changes for the better.
Every big event is a culmination of small thoughts which is
not complicated and pretty simple to understand. When we look at the tiny
things we get to understand the real big things in life
People grow and learn by seconds, this happens all through
their life-time.
Think about it
You look at a vast river flowing across, despite the fact
that it appears to be the same does it mean that the water is stagnated? No.
Even though it appears to be the same, it travels all along and we can be
called stupid if we think water stagnates just because it does not appear to be
flowing.
Similarly people grow over the day through their experience,
they change by the minute and when we are going to brand people for what they
were, are we not looking at the stagnated water in the river, the possibility
being null.
When I was looking for the bud, it became a flower; when I
was looking for a caterpillar, it became a butterfly; how do I look at them?
When you believe that you grow over a day through your
learning and experiences, won’t you extend that same thinking to others around
you? Won’t it reduce conflicts?
As we said, life is made of small things, how often do we
see them?
Are we moving with life in such a fast pace that we are losing out on
the joy of living?
When was the last time you enjoyed a landscape ?
When was the last time that you looked at the urban mess, and instead of grumbling about it, enjoyed the moment, the calm of the chaos?
When was the last time you enjoyed looking at a flower?
Was there even once when you went to the office and enjoyed the something in there?
Can you put your hand on your heart, touch your conscience
and tell that you enjoy your life thoroughly and enjoying every 84,600 seconds
of a day?
I’m saying this because
I believe that if we take care of
the seconds, minutes, hours, days and years can take care of themselves!
I believe that if we look at life as a matter of
seconds, we accept life better
I believe that we enjoy life better
Think about
how often do you laugh during a day?
How often
you feel so good about yourself?
A kid laughs almost 90% more that adults. No
wonder we like hanging out with kids. Kids look at life with awe, look at the world for the first
time at the magnificent picture it shows. What happened to that kid within you?
It’s still there, but the problem is that we never let that kid take the lead. That kid within you
will be happy to see a balloon
enjoy
the smell of rain
be awed looking at the goods stacked in the supermarket
enjoy looking at small ants that crawl up.
They find joy.
They are happy.
It’s never too late to look at them for what they are.
Waking up in the morning and realizing that you have time to
sleep
Wanting to catch an elevator and find that it is just waiting for you
liking the last few pieces of chips in that bag of chips
writing on the
vaporized mirror and look at it disappear
realizing that you were quick enough
to get the largest portion in a pizza...
It is a never ending list that goes on forever. How often do
you see it?
Life is so awesome to live, but there is a catch – you just
got 100 years to live them.
Do you think you have time being depressed about
things, be glum and grumpy about happenings around you?
Or
Do you happen to
live life to enjoy them and be happy about living.
As someone said, “ The biggest irony is man himself, he lives
as if he will never die and dies as if he never lived; he works and earns money
at the cost of his health and later spends all the money earned to recoup his
health.”
Are you going to be one of them? I hope not! Because I
believe that everyone wants to live life and to enjoy while living, think about
it!
While good thoughts can have a great impact on life, so does a negative thought. Thoughts can make or break people, hence it is very important to keep a check on what we are thinking and guide them the right way.
The last year in my life has typically been bad, two of
my best friends had considered about suicide. It was a very tough time to talk
it out of them. Thinking about which I was wondering why people even consider
suicide? Why do people want to end life? Is it end for all problems or the
beginning of many to come? I recently came across this story -
Ajay had persons around him who constantly were putting him
down, telling things like “you will never succeed, you are getting nowhere”. He
constantly felt so bad about himself, he tried looking into things positively
and improving, but again people were happy to put him down. Ajay’s life was one
of living hell, his family weren’t supportive and other people where just as
bad. He started considering suicide.
He attempted suicide once. He was again ridiculed for that
and was branded with various names. Meera was his best friend and she was aware
about his problems, but never did a thought strike her that he would consider a
suicide. After that incident, they had a convo which made all the diffence in
his life
“AJ, listen I know what you are going through and it is a
matter of days before things change for the better, trust me it will. You are
such a great person to be with and failing in attempts means you are inching
steps closer to success. Why do you consider suicide when you are just moments
away from victory? I’d say you failed just once when you planned to end your
life. You are God’s own Unique Masterpiece and will a masterpiece ever be flawed?
You were born to succeed, it’s not just you but everyone.
It does not matter who you are but whom you choose to be.
Who we were can never be changed; who we are is what we choose to be and who we
will be, well, we never know. Through the blue lens, everything seems blue, and
through a red lens, everything seems red; Vision is ours to see and how we see
it is ours.
Great people have had times of turmoil, Mathematics Genius,
Ramanujam and Eienstien, were considered as not fit for education and we sent
off class, haven’t they made a stirring impact on humans. JK Rowling’s early
years were those full of problems, poverty, broken marriage, single parent, no
job, no proper housing, did she not make a big impact? If not for difficult
times, we never know what we can endure, we will never strengthen our
determination, we will never know who our real friends are, we would have
ultimately never lived life. If a stone didn’t bear the pain of the chisel, it
would have never been a sculpture which people praise.
If fear of failure is dreading you, face it once. If you
live so cautiously you never failed that means, you never lived life wherein
you already failed by default. The important thing in failures that it teaches
you many things that success will never teach you.”
AJ realized his folly and promised to look life differently
and never try and attempt suicide.
I wanted to address suicide here today because I felt that people make it an auto suggestion to get out of problems, but all they
needed to do was give it time, give it some time so that things change for the
better. Think about this
You life is like a card castle, intricately woven and
designed so closely with others around you. The thought of suicide is like
touching a single card in the base. When you in fact commit one what you are
doing is you are pulling that card out of the castle. What happens? Instantly
the whle castle collapses, the impact is just not for you but for all card
castles that are built around you, your parents, your friends, the castles of
those whom you love, is it worth that?
This is one amazing short-film, just a minute but conveys message worth pondering
I find people have become very shallow that they live like
a coward and are provoked very easily. Think about it? Are you worth dying for
petty reasons? Or face them, defeat them and be known for defeating them rather
than getting defeated by it?
Which brings us to ..
How often do we check our thoughts?
How often do we realize
that we are manipulating them?
How often we realize that we need to change?
Speeding in a highway is fun, but what if we lose control
over the bike/car?
Jumping traffic signals and not waiting for the last 3-4
seconds and rush to go over to the other side, for what reason?
Teasing people for fun and end up hurting them in ways you
can never imagine?
Knowing we must not do certain things but still go ahead and
do it just for fun?
Smashing insects in the name of fun?
What are we doing in the name of fun? Are we enjoying
totally or having fun at the cost of dear things, like your own life, other’s
feelings and their life?
When you start to look into why you do it, try and ascertain
reasons for you to do them, that’s where many realizations dawn upon you.
That’s where you get to learn.
Think these before you do anything’
“Will I be doing this
if it was the last day of my life?
Will I let someone do
this to me, if we swap places?”
__
All images used in this post belongs to Vinod Velayudhan, a photographer
who records beautiful moments and delivers precious memories. Visit his
site vinodvv.com to view his pictures.
The sources of these posts are from
Infinite Thoughts,
TED Talks,
Lectures of Alma Mater (not the Rome one :P)
and some of my own thoughts
The Video is from YouTube