Happiness

“Happiness is a state of mind “

I am a kind of person whose mood is always in extremes. Either am in a very happy mood or in a saddy saddy mood . I don’t know why but there is always something or the other running in my mind.

But last month I realized something. I realized that my mind was actually controlling me a lot in the sense that it wasn’t allowing me to be happy. It was always making me think about things which were not in my control and thus making me feel sad about it.

Two things which always make me go in depression are when someone close to me hurts me or is in trouble. Second thing when am in deep trouble inspite of doing nothing wrong. Last month strangely I faced both. I wasn’t sure how to get out of it. I was angry over myself that these are last couple of months for me with my family and friends here and am spoiling these days for someone and something which is not under my control. Add to it, I was sure I did nothing wrong.

But my mind wasn’t allowing me to take control. I decided its time I fight for my happiness. I made it think about the good things happening in my life. I started telling myself that its one of the best phases of my life. Am close to realizing my big dream of MBA , in couple of months I will be working in financial world, am blessed with great family and friends who are always there with me and love me a lot,dugdug is sitting by my side for a change showing his concern etc etc.

It took me couple of days but I succeeded in clearing my mind and with it I learnt a lesson.

Happiness is actually a state of mind. My life will never be perfect. At max it can be “ Almost perfect “  and I will always be striving to make it perfect . But the human nature is such that everytime I get something I will start asking for more or crying why I don’t have this or that in my life.

So it is upto me either to cry for that missing thing in my life or be happy about the other important things which am blessed with today.

Right now, I can list down 4-5 things that I don’t have and I want them badly. I can cry for them and feel sad. But I have decided , I will work harder for the things which are in my control and things which are not in my control I am not going to cry for them and happily give time to time to forget them.

Since that day every day I wake up , I say to myself “ It’s going to be another great day today “ . I sleep saying to myself “Yeah I had a great day “. J J

I wish I can keep this attitude for life. J

The Big Reason

“Everything happens for a reason” . You must have heard this million of times . I too had and used to call it a cliché.

Then I heard another version of this statement and it sounded very interesting. “ Understand the reason behind everything that happens “ .  I got confused. So I went to the person who told this statement and asked her what actually she meant by it.

She started explaining by taking me as example and asked me why I asked this question. Before I could answer this she said “ Because you were curious to understand this statement “ . I nodded my head in affirmation. She continued “ This is understanding the reason behind you coming to me with that question“.

I asked her “ How can I use it “ .

She replied , “ You can use it everywhere from understanding people  to even predicting the future. “

The next line she said , I can never forget . She said “ No one in this world is Jesus Christ. Everything everyone in this world do is for their own happiness or need. So if someone is talking to you , its because he/she finds happiness in doing it. Someone calls you , you have many choices that moment. To pick up the phone/ to leave it ringing / to cut it down / to silent the phone. You choose the option which brings happiness to you or is the need of that moment.”

I intervened n asked her “ Are you trying to say they are selfish and don’t care about me or I am the selfish one “ ?

She smiled and said “ No, they care about you and in that they find happiness. So appreciate that you are a reason for someone’s happiness and feel good about it. Always remember the people who call you or try to get in touch with you want to be with you. So value them and keep telling them how important they are to you.“

I was amazed by her thoughts.

It was time for us to leave for home. Just before leaving I asked her last question “ Are you there with me because it brings happiness to you  or you are there with me because you know that you are the reason for my happiness and you feel happy in seeing me happy “.

She just smiled and left.

Today I have the answer to my question. I understand the reason behind what happened. J

DREAMS

It feels great when dreams come true. The feeling is out of world, amazing to say the least.

I had this feel couple of times in my life. The last time was yesterday night. Around 4 am when I was driving back home. I couldnot help myself thinking where I was exactly 2 years back. I still remember what I was doing exactly 2 yrs back that time.

I was standing on 6^th floor of my hostel building all alone around 4 am looking at the stars and asking God where the hell is my life moving to. Nothing was going right in my life that time both at personal and professional front. I can definitely say it was my worst period of life, the first 5 months of 2009. My last ray of hope to get things right was to get into a B school which I had dreamed of since 2^nd year of BTech. After getting percentile of only around 95 ( yeah it is only ) I had no hopes of doing good in that respect too.

Its amazing  how my life has changed for good in these 2 years. Today I understand completely what it means to “ give time to time” .

I have lived my dream in last 2 years. Yes , MBA was one of my biggest dream. I was always fascinated to learn more about the real world rather than learning about how an amplifier or diode works. I wanted to learn about how people make things work with their mind and ideas.

I find it hard to put into words what am feeling now. I think am living a dream. A dream where in I just completed a dream of doing MBA , now am enjoying holidays and twenty days later I will be living another dream. The dream of working in a financial world. Yes , this too is a dream of mine. A dream for which I had worked hard over past one and a half years. One and a half years because for first 6 months I was not sure what I exactly wanted to do after MBA.

I worked hard for this dream and so am really happy for this too. I studied hard to understand the financial concepts because I had no educational background of the same.Before, joining college I even had no clue what a balance sheet was. In addition, I had an option of staying in Delhi during my summer internship but I chose to go to Mumbai and work for Sharekhan without being paid. Credit for achieving this dream goes to my family. They have always supported me a lot both emotionally and financially. I still remember before Crisil/Irevna was to come to college, I went to my Dad and told him that a company is coming to college and I wish to work in it but it isn’t paying much so shall I go for it. He replied  with a smile , Money doesn’t matter, If u want it go n get it. Am really blessed to have such a great family.

Am taking first step towards my next big dream in 20 days time. The big dream is to walk like “Chris Gardener in the movie Pursuit of Happyness” on the Wall Street. For start, I wish to be just another someone working on Wall Street and with time to be The One on Wall Street. I hope someday I will realize this dream too. The good thing today is atleast I am on a right track.

My life is almost perfect today. Yes it is “ Almost “ .

The one line which keep coming in my mind right now is “ This part of my life …this part right here .This is called happyness. “ J J

F.R.I.E.N.D.S.

Every1 will stand with u to get a photo clicked during happy times but very few care to walk with you during your failure..those are FRIENDS for life...

 F.R.I.E.N.D.S.

Say this word and close your eyes for a minute. You will start  thinking about some people, faces will flash through your mind. Those are your Friends.

In life, there are parents and siblings, who will do anything for your happiness. Then there are friends who will do anything for your happiness because that brings happiness to them. Then comes acquaintances who are with you or talk with you because they find happiness with you. The day they don’t find happiness they will leave from your life. Rest all are strangers with whom you never talked or they are there with you because they need you.

Everyone is playing these all roles in life. You are a friend to someone today, also at the same time an acquaintance or a stranger to someone else. So, it will be wrong if you are thinking right now that acquaintances and strangers are bad people. If that is the case then whole world is a bad place which I believe is not.

In this post, I wish to talk more about how to realize who is a friend and who is an acquaintance. I believe this is very important and one should ensure that we don’t end up hurting friends for acquaintances. And at the same time not to give over importance to acquaintance. Believe me, you will be the one who will end up hurt.

Well, there is no set formula or trick to find out this. I kept doing this mistake time to time in my life and even today I might be doing it. But yeah the frequency has certainly decreased.

First things first there is no substitute for time. People who have been with you for how many years even you don’t remember are your FRIENDS. They are the one who know the real person in you, seen you changing with time, seen you making new friends . Inspite of all these even today they are with you. These are diamonds in your life who will keep bringing brightness in your life forever. Am really lucky to have these diamonds in my life.

Now the others. A careful observation can help you understand who is a friend and who is an acquaintance. A friend will stand by you during your failure , do everything possible to take you out of trouble whereas an acquaintance will be there with you to get a photo clicked during your happy times.

Trust is the basis of relationship. So, if someone is sharing common friend’s secrets with you with whom he/she behaves as close friend in front of world then understand the same is being done for you also by him/her. That is an acquaintance, who is trying to build trust with you but at someone’s else cost. A friend is a one who will share his /her secret with you.

The age we are in this observation also becomes important and can save us from getting hurt from an acquaintance. How much a person gives importance to friendship in comparison to relationship. If a person is in relationship and then you meet him/ her then it becomes lot easier to understand your value in his/her life. But  If a person completely forgets you or changes in a great way towards you after entering into a relationship then in future be careful of him/ her. Because this is going to repeat in his/her next relationship too.

I am a great believer of giving time to time. It takes me a lot of time to trust anyone and think of someone as friend not an acquaintance. In the same way I also don’t become a friend in anyone’s eyes fast.   I have been criticized for this by many that I take a lot of time to open up with someone, I observe everything a lot as in each and every word spoken and action taken by anyone. But I believe this has worked for me. Because the people I didn’t trust in beginning have shown that they didn’t deserved to be.  

When I was entering MBA, people told me that its not a place where you go to make friends. It’s a place where you go to survive 2 years, stay wary of cunning people and come out with good job. I think I did all this well but in addition played all the roles well and  by understanding who is an acquaintance and who is a friend, today am going out with some great great great  F.R.I.E.N.D.S.

Agnosticism

I always have been confused about where do I stand in terms of belief in God. I am still not sure about this even today. I remember when I was a kid, I with my friends used to go to temple to get free sweets. Panditji used to tell us that first go n touch the feet of God’s Idol and then come to me for sweets. We happily used to do it.

As time passed on ,I stopped going to temple for this reason. I started making my own views about the belief in God. I am not a complete agnostic person but I think my views are somewhere close to it.

Till now, it has never ever happened to me that I got a inner feeling to visit a temple. I don’t think I will find peace or happiness by visiting a temple. I go to temple when am left with no other option like my mom tells me to go there or am on a outing with my friends. The last accidental visit to a temple was with friends when we were on trip to Sariska and before that it was around a year back when again with friends I went to Akshardham Temple. The trip to Akshardham was a planned one and I went there because I had heard that the architecture of it is amazing. I wanted to see that.

I believe that inside each of us is a God and a Devil. There is always a fight happening inside us between them. Sometimes one wins, sometimes the other. When God wins we do good things, when Devil wins we do bad things.

Family plays a huge role in shaping of an individual attitude towards God. I have many friends who are religious. They pray to God every morning, go to temples etc. They believe in god and hence do all this. They have been doing this since they were kid. If they find peace and happiness by doing all this, I think they are really lucky. I mean to find such a place where u get peace in today’s world is really difficult.

I have made all my decisions in life myself or by consulting my parents and sisters. I have never ever been told by them to do something or the other. They trust my decision making capabilities and they know if am in doubt I will come to them. I think that is the reason inspite of my mom and dad  praying every morning  by going to the small room where we have kept idols , they never asked me to do it. They realize that if I wanted to do it , I would had started doing it myself.

The question about the existence of God takes my mind always to some questions. I remember my elders consoling people by saying “ Bhagwaan ke aage kisi ki nahi chalti “ , “ Jo teri kismat mein likha hai vahi hoga “ . These two lines always confuse me that is everything which is happening in my life has already been scripted in my kismat or am calling the shots with my choices or God is making choices on my behalf. Is kismat/luck and God same thing? If God is actually there then why do bad things happen to good people ? How come terrorist attacked and killed people in Akshardham Temple ? Why is there so much of bad things like famine , tsunami happening in this world and people suffering from it ?

Is god not watching all this ? If he is then why he is not doing anything about it . If he exists then did he just create the world and left it on people to make choices and thereby run the show themselves or he wrote the script and now we are just puppets in his hands ?

Too many questions and I don’t know the answer. That’s why I said in beginning itself am still not sure about this. If you are , then please share your views. J

Who is playing on the Other Side

                                               Zindagi Hai Dhuaa To Kya,

                                               Bujh Gayi Har Subah To Kya,

                                               Rootha MujhSe Khuda To Kya,

                                               Ho Gaye Hum Judaa To Kya

There are times in life when a question pops up in mind “Why me “. The interesting thing about this question is it never comes to the mind when things are going absolutely fine in life, it comes up when we are in a dire straits. Those are the moments of extreme sadness. And we start thinking about what is going wrong. This leads to the other question in mind that moment “Who is playing on the Other Side”.

The first time I felt being in such kind of situation, I went to my mom and she consoled me by saying that “ Its god wish , Your destiny “ .I am an agnostic kind of person so I wasn’t fully convinced by her answer but  thought ok if mom is saying so it should be that way. Next time god will be on my side.

The next time when things didn’t go the way I wanted them to, I went to my sisters. I asked them the same question “Why me “. They came up with a better answer. They gave me a frank opinion that they didn’t feel I had worked hard to get the results desired by me and hence didn’t deserve it. I agreed completely to their thought and decided to work harder and smarter.

Its amazing how over a period of time the person I kept on asking the question “Why me “kept on changing. I feel it’s a natural progression. As we grow , the situations in which we feel that kind of sadness also differs  and hence the person with whom we feel at ease in discussing personal things too.

So the last time I felt this I went to friends. And they came up with one line “Wait for your time “ . I found this line very interesting and started giving more thought to it. I started recollecting the situations in past where this question had popped up in my mind.  I started to think was I actually in a bad situation or I was just over reacting to it.

I am a great believer of a thought that at every moment of life we have one topmost priority. This is something which I have experienced whole life and with time learnt to set the topmost priority right. Thinking about the bad times in past where I failed to achieve my topmost priority I realized that I was being too much optimistic in setting the priority itself. I learnt that the use of “ And “ is not at all a good thing in setting up the topmost priority. Say for e.g. “ I wish to work in core finance and stay in delhi “ . That is a wrong priority. It should be either “ I wish to work in core finance “ or “ I wish to stay in delhi” . Now the question which will be coming in your mind right now is that there are people who are actually living this dream, so you dreaming of that is not at all wrong. The answer to this question is that Yes there are people who are actually doing what I wanted to and that is MY FIRST ANSWER to the question “ Who is playing on the other side “.

MY SECOND ANSWER to this question is that I believe that we will pay for all the sins we committed in this life. No one will get away easily in life. Life is beautiful in this sense. I believe a lot in this.

MY THIRD ANSWER is that don’t jump into thinking that life has been bad to you by not giving you your topmost priority. This might sound optimistic answer but I guess there is no harm in waiting and letting time to unfold the consequences. There are times in life when we set the topmost priority in life wrong or give too much importance to a person/ happening and set it as topmost priority. At those moments we become too much emotional and start crying over it without even understanding that life wont stop at it and there is so much to look forward in life other than it.

I will like to end this post by just saying that we have no control on who is playing on the other side. But, we are in full control of ourselves, so the least we can do is to work towards achieving our priorities with honesty and be good to people on way to achieve them. The day we achieve our aim, we should have our family and friends by our side in celebrating the success and the day we fail to achieve it they should be there to share our sorrow also. If we are able to ensure this happens consistently then surely our life is a SUCCESS.

Special Songs

Its amazing Listening to some songs take you down the memory lane but some songs are so special that they themselves become memories. I have a list of some songs which in some way have become a part of life as I listen to them almost daily. There is a beautiful memory attached to each of these songs. Every time I listen to them, I feel at peace. I feel that my heart and mind for a change are in complete sync and are thinking together about the same memory.

First on this list is “Someday Someway” by MLTR. Its my all time favorite song. I don’t think its that famous song . So if you cant recollect this song please listen to it once.

My Second favorite song is “ Ae kash ke hum “ from the movie Kabhi haa kabhi naa. I love this song  and also its video. Its beautiful.

Third on the list has to be “ Ek din teri raahon mein “ from the movie Naqaab. I can just say listen to its lyrics carefully and am sure you will end up sayin Amazing lyrics.

Fourth is “ Ye dooriyan “ of Love aaj Kal. Again the lyrics are wonderful and its really well sung by Mohit Chauhan. This guy sings really well must admit.

Fifth on list is “ Aate Jaate “ from the movie Maine Pyaar Kiya. One line from this song is amazing “ tera wo yakeen kahi main to nahi, lagta hai yahi kyu mujhko baar baar “.

Then some other songs in list of my favorites are “ Somebody’s me “ by Enrique , “Yaaron Dosti “ by KK , “Pehla Nasha” of Jo Jeeta Wahi Sikandar  and “ Aashayein” of Iqbal.