A usual but not so usual day

Majority of the workforce would concur with me on my statement that  my Mondays to Thursdays are very hard to set apart. All four days start with going to work in the morning followed by returning home in the evening and fixing up a meal. The days end with eating food in front of the TV and falling asleep. The days are so similar that its hard to remember what I did on a Monday against what i did on a Wednesday. However, today was different. The day started just like any other day of the work week. I forced myself to leave the bed in the morning after repeated warnings from B, packed lunch and rushed to the office. At work also it was a usual day filled with a few meetings. Once i left work today, my day has been very different from other days of the week. I took the train back from work . After getting down at the station I saw an old couple trying to find out which train to take to San Mateo and how to buy tickets. I helped them through the whole process and felt really nice about it. My karma brownie point for the day! After helping them out, i walked to the library and picked up a couple of books. At the spur of the moment i decided to grab a hot chocolate at the bean scene cafe next to the library. I was deliberating for a few minutes if i should enter the cafe or walk back home. I thought that it should not take this long to make such a trivial decision and just entered the cafe. Here i am sitting by the window in the cafe and writing this blog while sipping my hot chocolate. The conclusion is that a very small change or activity in a typical day can make a big difference in your usual day setting it apart from the Monday to Thursday loop.

A day in your life is a pie.

I remember that as a child, i used to strive for happiness in everything. There were ups and downs on many days, but the happy days used to be completely happy. On the happy days, i expected everyone in my family to be equally happy as me. If i would discover some problem that any of my family members were facing on that particular day, i would try to resolve it, or atleast as i thought so when i was little :-). I would try to make everything around me perfect so that the day would be happy in every way. Looking back, that was one of those many things that only kids can see and do.
As we grow old, we realize that there is no state as perfect happiness. There will be concurrent issues and problems running in your life and in the parallel lives of your loved ones at all times. You have to steal a moment and confine yourself in the shell of that moment to feel the happiness radiating out of yourself. The combination and presence of different things and parallel lives can not let a 360 degress happiness circle be created.
As an analogy , if a day in your life is a pie then different slices of this pie belong to your relationship with different people. A slice might belong to you and your mom, another one to you and your sibling and so on. All these slices can not be equally sweet on a given day. If you are waiting for the day when you can have all the slices perfectly sweet, then you might be disappointed. Infact instead of waiting for that day, you should grab a small slice from that pie everyday for your relationship with yourself and make it as sweet as you want. At the same time each slice is different. Enjoy any slice that is sweet by itself in a small moment of your day without worrying about the other slices. The slices that are sweet today might not be sweet tomorrow and all the slices might not be sweet simultaneously.
Enough of the pie talk, i hope my analogy got the point across.

So long summer.

I hear the wind shrill sometimes, and sing beautiful notes another instant. I watch the leaves dancing to this music playfully and turn into beautiful colors as if someone cast a magic spell on them. I feel the cold but not so cold breeze dandle me. Intermittent showers burst from the sky painting everything gray. The sun parts these clouds pouring a golden glow on everything around. I could watch the leaves dancing and falling whole day while the wind changes its course every few minutes.

Welcome Fall..

Yoga - Path to rejuvenation

As a kid, we use to have a yoga class once every week in school. It used to be fun for two reasons. Firstly, it was an hour's break from regular academic classes and secondly all the girls could wear jeans for the duration of the class (instead of the school uniform which used to be a skirt). We had a very diligent yoga teacher, who used to try real hard to make the students reckon the benefits of this ancient Indian practice.
After middle school was over, i never practiced yoga seriously. About 3 weeks back, i was motivated enough after meeting a friend to commence yoga practice. I signed up for a monthly trial package at a yoga center. Since then, its been a wonderful journey.

I was probably the sloppiest student in the class when i started, and maybe I still am, but i am amazed by the progress i have made. Additionally i am stumped by the class turnout every time, most students being non -Indian and practicing effortlessly as masters in the class. Yoga has acquired a lot of popularity throughout the world, i am delighted that so many people around the world take it so seriously.

Its the only practice by which you can stretch each and every muscle of your body, which you may have never realized could even be stretched. It builds endurance, strength and flexibility. The balance that you feel physically and mentally after some serious practice is the cherry on the top. I am thoroughly enjoying it as its a challenging physical activity and needs a lot of mental focus too. Yoga has the power to obliterate most of the aches and discomfort we experience in our day to day life.

So, to all of you who are looking for something physically challenging and mentally rewarding, i encourage you to try or reinstate your yoga practice.

Layers within us

A chocolate shell with a delicious filling inside looks like a regular chocolate shell till you bite it and taste what lies beneath it. It could also be the other way, a colorful candy looks innocuous and you bite it, just when you realize it had a bitter liquid housed inside it.
We humans are even more intricate. Not just one or two, we are made of several layers, which are beyond our own comprehension. Most of the times, when we see ourselves, we look at the outermost shell. We live with this shell day after day, without exploring what lies beneath. Sometimes, a certain situation unique in its own way, acts as a catalyst for us to talk to our layer underneath the outer shell. On these occasions we might feel discontent, overjoyed, depressed , bitter or peaceful after a perfectly normal disposition depending on the nature of the filling which could be the sweet chocolate or a bitter gel. Its good to communicate with the layers below regularly for the overall harmony of yourself. There could be many means through which this could be consummated. Meditation could be one, music, wine and anything that makes you talk to yourself depending on what perpetrates the act for you.

Take a vacation...

I realized its been a while since I wrote. I usually pick up the pen, when there is something that takes me through a roller coster of contemplation. It could be something joyful, or something regretful or something forlorn. I did have a joyful time, about a month back when i went for about a week long vacation. Traveling always makes me happy, i like the whole package that come with it, like bookings, planning, packing, photography, walking, hiking. It makes me so happy that maybe i should consider starting some Vacation packages company after retirement ;-). Not just that, following our trip, we usually talk about it, share pictures, again talk about it, and that keeps the memories fresh for another couple of months after the trip. And trust me, a good vacation goes a long way in alleviating your stress, anxieties, and makes you come back all charged up and refreshed. So those of you who havnt traveled in a while, do consider doing a trip sometime.

Always Busy Syndrome..

Sometimes it gets me thinking, why is everybody so busy all the time(including myself), that we dont even have time to enjoy some simple things. Five days of the week (no wonder they are called the working days), most people I know (including myself most of the time), end up just working, and doing the basic diurnal activities. Barely managing to get some time to cook, or sneak in any other activity in the packed 24 hour day. Crazy as it might seem, i am starting to think, that this is actually a syndrome with the current generation, the being always busy syndrome. We want a lot from ourselves, we want to excel and grow at work, we want to travel , we want to workout and stay in the best possible shape, we want time to read books, play with our electronic gadgets, we also want to pursue a few hobbies. The laundry list of things keeps growing. Its not that we should not have any goals and just sit and do nothing, but I think , many of us are converting ourselves to high efficiency machines, aiming for even higher efficiency. We expect a lot from ourselves, and sometimes we get extremely involved in achieving that, that we forget the simple pleasures and human interaction.When do we spend time to just sit and talk, or get involved in some human interaction? Well, its just an observation and I could be wrong, but maybe we are evolving towards becoming self fueled egoistic machines, with more of efficiency and less of human traits :-) .