Making sense of it all..

Has it ever happened to you that you tried reading a "famous" novel or watching a movie but couldn't get it? And then you happen to come across the same novel or movie again, years later, give it another try and voila, it seems to make sense? Not only make sense but you are better capacitated to appreciate the beauty of it?

Well, I don't know how many of you reading this would agree to the above statement but it most definitely has happened to me. So many times. Case in point, its true that we mature over years and become more able to handle things we couldn't even understand earlier.
The funny thing is there are so many things in my life which still baffle me in quite the same fashion as they used to years earlier. These are the things which make me doubt if I'm growing and becoming mature by the day at all or not!

Most of them are regarding people in my life and not things anymore. Tangible things, complex subjects and issues I can handle now, its the people around me which baffle me. Like this best friend I never had. I never could quite understand whether she liked me, hated me or secretly despised me. I still can't. It was like being judged all the time. Being judged if you achieve something, being judged if you date a guy and being terribly judged on how to behave and my clothes when I used to be around her. I never quite came around to telling her that this behavior of her's confuses me, not to forget prevents me from respecting her completely.
Also, that she was this perfectly normal, affectionate friend for others, but for me.
God knows it that the day I lose it or I'm too drunk, I'm gonna give her a piece of my mind. But maybe, I'm just too coward to do it, thinking it would hurt her feelings and all.

I fail to understand why we allow ourselves to become a doormat for someone, allow ourselves to be "used" emotionally, mentally and professionally by others. In our hearts, we know we would never take this bullshit and we still do.
It's this human tendency to be loved, to be wanted and the due course, somewhere it all just gets too confusing.

These people around me are the new "challenging" novels in my life that I still haven't been able to figure out. But eventually I will and probably, I would also then know how to behave appropriately.
Amen.

Analyses of others are actually expressions of our own needs and values ~ Marshall Rosenberg

Missing the Point

There is this very interesting animated video which a friend showed me the other day.

The video featured 13 men, carrying heavy buckets of water from left to right. When the video starts, a warning message appears, "Notice the thirteen men in the video. One of them would drop the bucket. If you notice which one drops, you win".

Being my usual self, I got into my I-will-win-no-matter-what mode within seconds. For the next thirteen minutes, I observed the 13 men, painfully entering the screen from left, carrying the buckets in their hand and exiting from right.

When the video got over, I gave my friend a quizzical look. "Damn, no body dropped their bucket", I exclaimed.

"Wait, the video is not over yet", he said.

A message appeared on screen now. It said, "Did you notice that a bear appeared on the stage during the video, danced around and left?"

"Hell, no! I was watching the video closely. I didn't notice any bear coming on the stage", I exclaimed.

At my insistence, my friend replayed the video again. And there it was, halfway through the video, a white bear appeared on the corner of stage, jiggled around and left. I, on my part, was dumbfounded!

Was I really that stupid to not notice a huge bear? Or wait, maybe I could use a visit to the eye doctor.

"Well, that's not the case. It's all about your focus", my friend explained.

"When you were watching the video, you were too busy trying to find fault with one of the 13 men that you forgot to notice anything else in the video."

The moral of the story is simple - We only see what our eyes want to see and our eyes will not see what our mind does not know.

Maybe, that's what I have been doing for quite some time now. Focusing too hard on certain things while completely ignoring others.When I started writing this blog, it was a way to vent out my feelings and experiences, even if they didn't mean anything to anyone but me.

Sometimes it felt nice to come up with a "good" post which people liked and appreciated. However, I was not trying to become some super talented writer whose pen spewed only thought-provoking words. I was just laying bare my feelings, because sometimes its good to get the word out.  

But that's just it!!!!

It gets stupid when you start focusing too hard on something that you used to do effortlessly earlier. Be it writing, drawing, acting, selling, cooking anything!

It becomes more of a distraction than an ease when something which is the source of your catharsis becomes the reason for your distraction. Maybe, that's what I stop need to do. Trying too hard where I don't need to.

This whole time when I did not record my experiences or memories simply seems as it just "flew by". Truth is, I stopped taking time out to appreciate little things, record special experiences My entire focus throughout this time was to make something out of my life. So much so,  that I forgot to see what my life has to offer me right now. I looked straight through it. That's precisely when I missed the point. ,

Writing was a distraction. Taking out time to write seemed like a burden.  When I would sit down to write, ideas wouldn't come because frankly, I never bothered to look up and notice things around me as they are.

My entire focus was to bring back my original style till the time I sat wondering,"Heck, I don't even know what IS my original style. How can I recreate something I have no fucking idea about."

Truth is, I might miss writing sometimes. But what I miss more is acknowledging and appreciating the day-to-day experiences that life has to offer me. Because my real learnings are from the experiences I had. Not from some lame posts on a virtual platform.

Maybe my original style lies in observing my life from a closer perspective. Documenting it in a blog could only qualify as a formality I do in the end of that process. I don't really miss the writing, I just miss the memories, which could have been!

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self ~ Cyril Connolly

Suits Me? Suits Me Not?

There is no such thing as a one-size-suits-all in certain aspects of our lives, I guess. In the last few months, I've figured out certain aspects where I would prefer a custom tailoring please.

I write. Or rather, let's just say I used to write. Of late, I don't write. Don't write what I would have preferred to write, scribble my thoughts on a paper, type them out and share them. No, no, I just don't do that anymore.
Am I happy? Hell, no!
Let's just put it like this. I'm 22 years old. Have always been writing. Started out my career early, as a writer and pretty well flourished in it. And then, Bam! One wrong decision and I don't know what to do with my life anymore. Or rather, I do know but I just dont have enough guts to go out and do it.

Now, this is more or less of what I write(endless number of times in a day, mind you)

Hello,
This is in reference to the job opening on XYZ job portal by you. I'm interested in applying for the position of Copywriter/Principal Correspondent/Editor/Sr. Content Developer and Corp Comm Manager post. Please find my resume attached. Available for discussion. Feel free to contact me at ***********.
Kind Regards
Prianca Arora

Well, yeah, that is more or less what I get to write nowadays. No, I'm not jobless. In fact, people tell me that I'd got myself quite a killer job (high pay, perks, stylish office, yada,yada,)
In fact, I work quite a lot. Enough to keep me busy and away from blogging. And that sucks!
There came a point when I was angry. Really angry. I was angry at all the people who forced me to go ahead and grab this opportunity with both hands. Could they not see what I was in for. I was angry at myself for being so naive.

Then, came a point of relentless damage control. Frantically applying everywhere to get out of my current situation. Seems life doesnt always work in our way. It was only after I got myself into a completely wrong job (for me) that I realised the importance of a right job and things which matter more than monetary incentives. But this time, jobs were hard to come by. A few did and they paid very handsomely too. The only glitch was that they wanted me to do boring, mechanical and completely technical work. Coming from an Arts background, I can't even begin to explain the  horrorful feeling when I realized that I'm surrounded by core-technical people, who might not have even a single creative bone in their body!
Okay, maybe I'm being a bit too harsh here but come on, like can't they see why I am looking for a change in the first place?

And now, it's all too funny to me now. I'm bored of being stressed, tired of applying. Plus, the negative factors at work just dont bother me anymore. It's like bing elevated to a higher state of calmness, from where you see things in a different light, from a new perspective that you'd never considered before.
I remember the old times. I had this huge list of things I wanted to buy when I would earn big bucks. Now, that I do have that kind of money, the desire to spend it is gone. Now, what do I do when I get my monthly paycheque? Nothing. I let it rot.

I have the option of moving out, leaving this job (and the big bucks) and simply go with the flow. Like take a break from work. Be vella. That would be a task for me now. Especially, with everyone around discouraging me. All they see is that paycheques would stop flowing in.
I feel that calmness and clarity might seep in my life once I get out. Honestly, I'm so used to working now that not working would demand some preserverance from me. On hindsight, I'm thankful I had this experience so early in my life. It's not until we find ourselves in completely unsuitable situations that we realize what suits us most, realize the importance of things  and people who matter but whom we took for granted earlier.

It's never too late to be what you might have been! ~ George Eliott