It’s Not That Big Of A Deal

Have you ever embarrassed yourself?  If you have, that’s fine. If you haven’t, how did you manage not to? Surely, you must have at some point embarrassed yourself. Just say yes already! >.<

Anyway, I remember the last time I embarrassed myself, I curled on the floor and bawled like a baby. For 3 days I didn’t step out of my house. A sort of house arrest I set upon myself so that I could rethink and over think and rethink and over think my embarrassment as many times as I could. And mind you those 3 days weren’t enough. When I’d be smiling of or laughing with my friends, that stupid embarrassing memory would creep its way into my happiness and shred it to pieces. I killed myself over this moment which didn’t really matter that much to begin with.

Its crazy when I think of it now because it was so unnecessary. I wasted all that time and for what? If you would have seen my crying you would have thought that I’d suffered some great loss akin to the death of a loved one. I acted as if the world had come to an end with the sky falling apart and the earth drenched in a rain of fire. If I could go back in past and hit myself bloody, trust me I would. All that drama for naught. All my energy wasted for naught. All my tears, my emotions, my motivations wasted for naught.

Next time I embarrass myself I’m going to chant, “It doesn’t matter” until I start believing it. I will force myself to smile and trick my mind away from the sadness that is eager to follow. I will definitely not forget the incident but learn from my mistakes and move forward instead of dwelling on the past which is gone. I can’t go back in time and save myself the embarrassment any more than I can go back in time and counsel my teenage self to just relax and take it easy instead of acting insecure and rash. What I can do is move forward with this new lesson and not repeat my follies.

Your past does not equal your future and that is the best thing about life. Because it’s not that big of deal as our brain tends to make it.

Relax. Think about it.

Love Yourself Like It’s Nobody’s Business

Love yourself like it’s nobody’s business because you deserve that. Love yourself like it’s nobody’s business also because only you can do that. You know yourself best, the way that no one else can know you. You know what makes you happy, you know makes you sad. You know all the times you stumbled and fell flat on your face and the times you got back up. Each time you got back up you were different and better.

I remember when long holidays meant staying in my room all day long. I was terrified, I didn’t know what to do with myself. It was difficult to have fun, to love my company. I wasn’t a big fan of myself back then. It took me years to fall in love and enjoy my own company. I know some of my friends who can’t even think to spend some lone time. I get bored they say. But if you get bored by yourself, doesn’t that make you the boring one?

It won’t be easy and it will take time but it will be worth it. You will become independent in every sense of the term. I am not asking you to unfriend everyone on facebook and run off to the mountains but I am asking you to become your own best friend. Loving yourself is a powerful feeling. You will be able to control your happiness, because you are your own happiness. You won’t be dependent on others to entertain you, to make you laugh, to do things for you because you will be enough.

You won’t grill your brain over what others think of you. You will make your own map, steer your ship whichever way you want because you are in control and nothing beats that. Love yourself like it’s nobody’s business because you’ll always be there for yourself and that will be enough!

Think about it.

Control What You Can

Can you control the day and night?

Can you control the movement of the stars?

Can you control the mind of a animal?

Can you teleport?

Can you spin your head 360 degrees like an owl?

NO? You can’t do any of that.

How about these?

Can you control your anger?

Can you smile?

Can you give your 100% effort while doing something you love?

Can you take responsibility for your actions?

Can you say YES when you want to and NO when you want to?

YES? Yes you can do all of those things.

Then shouldn’t you be focusing on the things that you can control? rather than cribbing about things that are not in your control.

Once upon a time in a sea far far away, lived a little puffer fish named Cecil. One day Cecil’s Professor Meena, asked Cecil to conduct a research on the effectiveness of the education system run by the clown fishes. Cecil was given 3 months to conduct this research. During the 3 months, Cecil was required to constantly report to his Professor and seek counsel accordingly. In the initial weeks Cecil consulted his Professor Meena and things were going quite well. Gradually Cecil gained confidence and thought he knew what he was doing and hence he stopped reporting to his Professor. Prof. Meena reminded Cecil again and again to meet her and discuss the research findings. But Cecil paid no attention to her. At the end of the 3rd month Cecil handed his research paper in for marking. When the results came out, Cecil scored poorly. He had received 60/100. Cecil’s other friends had all scored above 70. This made Cecil very angry. He blew up and was in a sour mood all day long. He snapped at his friends and started bad mouthing Professor Meena.

Cecil’s friend Macey made him understand. Macey said, ” Cecil, you have been quick to point out Prof. Meena’s faults, but what about your own mistakes?”

“My mistakes? What did I do wrong? Meena Ma’am is partial, she doesn’t like me”

“Yes your mistakes. I don’t know about her being partial. But she did remind you to come meet her and you blatantly ignored her. Did you not?”

Cecil blew up again.

“You cannot control how she scores you. But you could have controlled your over confidence. You could have met her. Keep her reported, run her through your research questions. Perhaps then she wouldn’t have marked  you so poorly. You could have changed the outcome just by talking to her”

Cecil calmed down a little. Macey was making sense. Cecil hated when Macey made sense.

“Now what is done is done. Next time, do everything that is possible to improve your outcomes. You do your best. The result is not in your hands. But the effort is. Control what you can. Give your 100%. That’s all you can do. That’s what you should do.”

“You are right Macey. I should have talked to her.”

Learn form Cecil’s mistakes.

Think about it.

It is easy to be lazy

Today like every Tuesday I had to make a choice. Should I write this blog post today? Or should I write it tomorrow? I decided to flip a coin for this situation.

Why I shouldn’t post this today?

I am tired, really tired.

I am sleepy.

I have to wake up early tomorrow.

My migraine is setting in.

In some countries, tuesday will come tomorrow. In those countries your post will reach on a tuesday.

No one reads this blog anyway. It’s not like you have a million fans waiting to devour your words.

Why I should post this today?

Well today is tuesday.

This post will be categorized as a Tumble TUESDAY post

When you started this blog you promised to post on the designated days. (Fancy words terrorize me to work).

You enjoy writing these blogs even though only one person is reading it.

At least your brother is going to read it!

As you can see, I had more reasons on the ‘DOn’t’ list that on the ‘DO’ list. And those ‘Don’t’ reasons outweigh the ‘Do’ reasons or do they? It is easy to be lazy. To walk away from things that need to be done. It is easy to pile on all the things on your TO DO list because you’re the one supervising it. It is easy to binge watch your favourite anime or read that book or just turn the lights off and say good night to the world. It is easy to break the promises you make to yourself. Easy to make up excuses, one after the other. We never run out of excuses do we? It is easy to convince yourself with the promise of tomorrow knowing fully well that tomorrow never comes. It is easy to cheat yourself. It is easy but its not the right thing to do.

Dumbledore once said: Soon we must all choose between what is right and what is easy. He didn’t say ‘wrong’ instead he said ‘easy’ and how appropriate is that! We often push things to tomorrow. But never do we once stop and think how Future you will be mad at the Present you for being lazy. We all have gone through this. The infamously famous last minute rush to reach the deadline. That’s when we think, “If only I had started a day earlier, I could have done so much better”.

So today when my migraine was setting in, getting cozy cosy, just about to rip my thoughts and peace to shreds, I decided to not be lazy. I decided to fight laziness. I shot Laziness thrice in the brain, twice in the gut and once on the foot. I persevered and I won! And this feels so much better than being lazy and just consuming entertainment produced by others. I chose to be a creator and that should and will always be my priority.

Travel in time a little, see if you are happy or frustrated in the future. Choose wisely. Everyday.

Think about it.

Angry and STUPID

As a child, I remember constantly being on the look out as I kept losing my temper. Just like the boy who cried wolf! after a point my friends stopped helping me in my search for temper. That’s when I realized that no ones likes grumpies. A grumpy little kid, now I wonder how I even had any friends. I think my cousin had something to do with it. The past as always makes me cringe!

Growing up I realized that anger is worst kind of emotion as it brings satisfaction to no one. Its not like sadness, you cry for a while, you feel better and you get right back on the horse. Or like joy that fills your life with sunshine or rain, some people like rain better or snow (whatever you prefer). Anger is just outright unhealthy.

When you get angry:

1. You upset the person subjected to your flaming words

2. You upset yourself

3. You regret things you said

4. You ponder over, ‘How did I miss this point? I should have said this. That would have done it!’

In short, nobody wins. By becoming angry you are letting the other person have control over you. How and why do you give anyone the power to offend and thereby control your emotions? Do you want someone else pressing the buttons on your remote or would you rather keep your remote control to yourself? And what if the other person doesn’t give a damn and you are left fuming, wasting your time and energy on imaginary arguments which you COULD have won in case the argument takes place at all.

Tyrion Lannister once said, ‘I prefer angry and stupid to composed and cunning’. This quote puts my message in a nutshell. Being angry = being stupid. No one wants that. Getting red mad is easy, just like cakewalk or is it catwalk? definitely cakewalk. You are just being lazy. Staying calm however is difficult and requires a strong amount of self control. But its not impossible.

Keep your remote control to yourself. Avoid voluntary stupidity.

Think about it.

Have a snack

You know those annoying moments when you are in a restaurant, hungry like Scooby doo and the waiter takes forever to serve your order. Those are the moments that tell you who you really are. You are impatient, constantly looking at the waiter wondering if she/ he has your order yet. You make crazy comments like, “what is happening in there? are they cooking food from the scratch?” One after the other you look at tables around you wondering, “damn! that looks so good, I should have ordered that”. You play that stupid game that every customer plays in a restaurant, asking yourself over and over, “is my food here yet? when will it come?”. Your stomach gives you a hard time, constantly reminding you to feed it. You lose all your patience, you pick up that fork and start air-eating* and you use the spoon to drink water. An itch almost convinces you that there is nothing weird about requesting a bite from a stranger’s plate. Your entire life flashes in front of your eyes and you are just about to collapse. The food arrives to your rescue. Resurrected, there is nothing stopping you from behaving as if you have seen food for the first time.

The above is a recent episode from my life. I and my friends went insane and we let this happen all the time. We are a happy bunch and the only time we ever had thoughts of strangling each other to death were when we were completely starved. We realized that the hard way.

Have you had one of these episodes too? You become so cranky you start disliking yourself? I am used to eating every 2-3 hours and even missing one meal makes me act like a Godzilla wanting to destroy everything in front of me. To fix this, I have decided to put some snack packet in all my bags to avoid episodes like this.

I know people who skip meals for no reasons and stupid reasons like, “I want to fit in that LBD”. No that’s not what you want you need to eat. Eating is more important than fitting into anything. Weren’t we all taught that, ‘The three basic necessities of life are food, clothing and shelter’. See, food comes before clothing! Food comes first and it always should because otherwise it will intervene with our happiness. Now we don’t food to add to our stress causing pile.

Next time you get cranky for no reason, have a snack.

Think about it.

Pepsi over Fepsi

Given a choice between Pepsi and Fepsi, which one would you choose?

We have good brands like Pepsi. Original brand of beverage, red, white and blue logo with black fizzy liquid inside. A plastic bottle filled with awesome. And then we have a spin off brand which is called Fepsi. Now, Fepsi looks and feels like Pepsi. It might even look better, shinier.

Red, white and blue logo? Check

Black fizzy liquid? Check.

Plastic bottle? Check.

But you know that Fepsi can never be as good as Pepsi. You don’t even have to taste it to know it. You may get fooled at first sight but when you take a closer look, you know its not Pepsi and that it is going to taste horrible.

Here’s the problem. People tend to choose Fepsi even after knowing that its not Pepsi. They are going to open the bottle, cringe at its stench, chug it while complaining about its terrible taste and then order another bottle of Fepsi. Fepsi will only bring you unhappiness and diarrhoea and yet people choose it, why?

I am not really talking about Pepsi and its fake sibling Fepsi. I am actually talking about the people in your life. You can categorize people as Pepsi and Fepsi, and trust me no one deserves a Fepsi. Like I said you might be fooled at first sight, you might even open the bottle but its never too late. Walk away from the Fepsis you meet, these negative people will only bring you unhappiness and diarrhoea. Don’t hang out with a Fepsi. Chill with only those who are Pepsi.

I don’t know about you but I don’t like diarrhoea. Actually I do know about you, NOBODY likes diarrhoea!

Let me ask you again. Given a choice between Pepsi and Fepsi, which one would you choose?

Think about it.