Mid life crisis…the lost “YOU”!!

Still a few years away from the magical number, but I was curious to know more about this keyword so was reading around. Hindu mythology states that there are 4 stages in a man’s life (strangely that’s not true for women though). I can safely assume that there are no age boundaries around each of these stages as am still running behind schedule (pun intended!!).

Bramcharya (Bachelor)-> Grihastha(Married) -> Vanaprastha(Wanderer) -> Sannyasa(Sage)

I was just wondering, with Marriage given an utmost importance in worldly culture, why would a human opt for a wanderer or Sannyas stage after having all the luxuries of relationship and love. People have kids, their future & life to plan and a wonderful time with family and friends.

But then I guess it is someone else’s life they are working on.

People lose their own identity, their own self in the process of giving and providing for others. They stop thinking for what they want for themselves and rather surrender to the needs and fancies to maintain a happy family. Then the questions like “what is there in for me?”, “why am I doing this?” start to emerge in their mind.After being tired of working hard, providing for the family, ignoring their own desires coupled up with impact on health and signs of aging people hit this milestone called- “Mid life crisis”.

Midlife crisis thus, is a depressing epitome of lost desires, lost patience and above all a lost feeling of self.

An action always causes a reaction and then we react…some do panic buying a high value car, some have an urge to stay fit and look younger and some look beyond their relationships for something new.

We all will go through this someday and in some way and the reason would be “me” “myself”. So, what could be a mitigation plan for a crisis risk (hard to avoid PMP terms J). An alternate plan could be to take a step back and think of the path your life should take. It could be one or all of the following (or more):

1. Worklife balance – Rejuvenate and take time out for your self - Don’t let those hair fall, that face wrinkle, that body flab to make you look ugly and that heart go weak with ailments
2. Create a checklist of things you want to do before you die
3. Plan an annual holiday to unwind
4. Make new friends and learn from their experiences
5. Fall in love with yourself - Learn to enjoy your own company and let go fear of loneliness
6. Count your blessings
7. And keep smiling

Above all, do realize that you, as a human you are an important entity in this world. Your contributions to this world are unique and no one, no one can be like you. 

It’s your life, live it with peace & contentment as what matters at the end is - “YOU”. 

Raise a toast for - Toastmasters!!

What do you usually do on a Sunday? Rest & rest, go out for a movie, meet friends, spend time with family, just idle in front of television or work (for Mr. & Ms. Workaholics).

I tried something new, something different on this sunday. I attended a meeting of knowledge @ Toastmaster International. It is a club of & for people who are working together to develop an inbuilt talent we all have, but often don’t attempt to nurture.

As I walked into the room, there were many people from different walks of life – students, strugglers, executives and senior citizens (introduced as 60 year old kid). All had come with an objective and a common goal to get over their fear of public speaking. The session was conducted in a class 5, room in a school in Rohini. Sitting after decades on a school bench and noticing the “wall of the week”, I read through some cloud shaped charts on discipline, perseverance - words we often studied but seldom understood their importance at that age. I was just visualizing my days in school, when a round of claps brought me out from the flashback.

The session started with pleasantries where I got to know about people and their vivid interests.

The group I was with, is a club of members where I had joined as a guest along with other such anxious people, joining them for the first time. In a group of 12 odd people, some people were holding their hands tight, memorizing something as if they had to appear for an exam. Within a few minutes into the session, I did realize that it indeed was a test of their shyness, their fears and their ability to structure their thoughts into an inspiring speech. 

With other senior members, taking up roles of evaluation, orator’s nervousness was visible in their shaking hands and the use of AHs, Umms, pauses in speech. But one thing which was common in all of their speeches was the brilliance of their thoughts, their views and the research which has gone into their speech. They had written it with passion, researched thoroughly which took attention of everyone in the room. They have definitely spent time, tried to make this worth a topic people would love to hear.

How often in a HCOCH life, do we take out time reading about a new subject or even thinking about something different? But these people here have actually taken that initiative to think beyond, share their thoughts and learn in the process. Their speeches had stories of successful people like Steve Jobs, references of things they read from books and their experiences of life. 

While listening to them, I was just thinking of the hours they would have spent writing and rehearsing their speeches. How much self-confidence, they must have gained from where they started in this club and how different will their level of knowledge be, when they reach the final level in this club.

I obviously was comparing where I stand, when I “as a guest” was called on the podium too. I cursed my friend, but she had already warned me that you will be picked. With a pounding heart, I walked to the podium. An impromptu topic was given to me and I had to speak about that for a minute. I confessed that am more into writing at leisure than speaking, but I quickly wrapped up what I could say about the topic. Fortunately, I didn’t fumble, but would I say I was confident and expressed myself well…I would say “No”.

Communication is a key trait of a manager and we do this all the time in office. But is that efficient or effective enough, for a level I aim to reach. Will I have the same impact someday, as these orators had on me today? It will all be possible, if I nurture this missing skill and if I try. 

Am sharing this with you, to encourage you to act beyond the monotonous life we share. Develop your forgone interests and take a step into improving your skills to achieve greater success in life. It will not only give you pleasure but take you forward into a beautiful world of “KNOWLEDGE”.

Still thinking what is HCOCH ;-)?? It means Home-Cab-Office-Cab-Home and I learned this today. Happy learning!!

When your World, is just not end of the world!!

How do you react when your most desired wish, or a relationship in which you have invested a lot of time/expectations slips from your hand? You have been living that life, everything around you is just focused on that - One thing/Person.

You are shattered!! You stop believing in yourself and just hate the world.

So was the story of a girl, whose marriage is called off by the groom a day before marriage. She stumbles, cries and continues to call the man, who ditched her. Empty empathy of people around, marriage decorations and all celebrations haunt her all night and the last word she hears is she wanted to go to Italy as her dream wish. She gets up sober in the morning & tells her parents she wants to go on her honeymoon.

A typical innocent middle class girl, who had never dreamed her life without this man, has not stepped out of her home all these years, never traveled alone  sets herself for a foreign land.

A lot of guts are needed for many of us to step out of our comfort zone, but at times that is the best you could/should do. Change your environment. That is what she does with a brave heart, but the pain persists when she see couples around.

Further sections of the story, I could relate it to the first time, I stepped out of India for a job assignment in foreign land. The way you are brought up, the cultural difference, language challenges exposes you to an entire different environment which is beyond our general expectations.

Wearing a Kurta on jeans, being unaware of the use of cutlery, ordering wrong dishes which you can’t eat, not knowing exactly how to cross the roads, always expecting a lady with child to have a husband, being amazed when a girl next to you drinks like mad etc. These come through as cultural shock and at times you just feel like going home.

On the rolls, you meet some people, you get chances to talk through your heart and share your time the burden on your heart reduces. As you hear stories of people around, you feel that your pain is very less as compared to others. By managing alone, you gain confidence and meaning of your life, your worth. Your co-habitats, your colleagues your friends become everything to you. You develop new habits, upgrade your skills and start seeing the world with confidence.At that time, even if that wish or those people turn back, who meant everything to you once, seem to be immaterial.

We often read and share quotes on face book and rather than just words, we should try to implement those in our lives. More & more you repeat to yourself, more & more you relate them to your life. 

That is the strength which we learn as we get to see more experiences and that makes us the person we are. But still there is no limit to what we can become and how we become stronger, when we are perceived as the weakest.

The story and its depiction is a great inspiration for you, when you are going through pain. It tells you that what you sometimes consider as your world, is not exactly the end of the world & life goes on…

Why we meet?

8th March, 9.30 AM at Ross Frisco(Texas USA), I stood in a dilemma looking at travel bags, a black and a grey. It was too early for shops to open and shop keepers cleaning & smiling at me. Having bitten by shopping bug and its side effects, my bags couldn’t accommodate all I had bought and I had to shop the last gift for myself, a travel luggage. LOL!!

As I walked around luggage displays, I just wished I had someone who could help me make a decision. I didn’t even notice a gentle man standing next to me looking for another bag. I was talking to myself when he cracked a conversation about a choice between Samsonite and Nautica. I asked him about my dilemma and he helped me for next 5 minutes to make a choice. I bought the bag we both felt looks good and then he left the place.

As I paid the bill and walked out of the showroom, I was just thinking why did we meet? An hour in the day, when people are just wrapping breakfast, why was he in the shop? Did he come to just help? Or was I open enough to talk so he helped?

It was the day when I was traveling back home and was stuck in a bad chaos at airport. The American airlines staff mis-guided me thrice and I was just an hour away from my flight time and still waiting to get a boarding pass. I was panicked to hell and tapping my legs furiously. A man standing ahead of me just turned and smiled. He started with a small conversation and told me the late you get, more chances are there for an upgrade. He not only told me to relax, but continued his small talk to make me laugh at the incident. He was coincidently on the same flight as mine. On the 18 hours long journey, we had good conversations about life experiences, hot & pity topic of shaadi.com and a man’s view of wife and life.

Had I been on my own, I would have missed it but he also helped me get an express transfer at Heathrow airport as well as we had less time between flights. I told him I would name him as express wala in my blog, to which we laughed aloud.

I thought the day would be easy since all the drama had ended, but as I landed in India my mobile was not recognizing sim card and there he was helping me call my cab. 5 minutes more together and then we waved each other good bye.

I have often travelled alone and have managed my way, but this was the most awkward journey with incidents to remember. Was it all supposed to happen to me and so I had some one next to me to help especially on this one.

Such incidents often make me ponder; Life is a very strange journey. As you walk the path you meet people, stay together for a while and then move on as if we are strangers. What dictates when we are supposed to meet, why do we have feelings when we are together? Then why we curb those feelings and silently walk away from them as strangers.

A friend once told me, we need such memories along with breathe which justifies that we are living. But life and its experiences, keep this wonder writer wonder….why we meet?

Touch down to a technology experience.

On a ride of universal studio tour, I learnt a lot about the art of film making. As they say we tend to believe what we see, but the level of effort which goes into making of 90 - 180 minutes feature films is just amazing. From concepts, to models, to miniature creatures to use of technology, Hollywood is way above all others. Jaws one of my most favorite English movies had an automated model of shark and 75 ships were used to create its scenes. The tour also showed us Jurassic park dinosaur models, sequences creating floods, artificial models to show earth quakes, accidents etc. It also covered a 4D experience in which the tram we were on, become a victim of dinosaur attack and then king kong saved us.

2D, 3D concepts which I had read in graphics subject was exhibited in real life, as shows and rides. The best part of day was the transformer’s ride. In the ride, I was in a car and was stuck in a world attacked by Robot’s. As the alien robot held my car, the effects on the car made me feel it is happening for real. We often see in movies how people fall from a building and the same effect I could feel with my eyes. The ammunitions hit me for real and the bombs exploded next to me. It was such an amazing use of creativity, technology and mechanics, which I have never experienced before.

The special effects stage represented yet another Pandora of knowledge on how a small model can be converted to a real looking effect. The use of storyboarding, image art, giving voice to miniature creatures and putting this all together, is a tremendous effort for creating cartoons. Their creativity is amazing and so is their willingness to do better than their earlier efforts. And this has been happening since the years of Mickey Mouse, Tom & Jerry and is being given a new direction now.

The real advancement of technology and its use for entertainment, for education, health etc. gives so many avenues to the children today, which we rarely have seen at our times. As I wrote this blog, I was just remembering the days when we used to write essays in school on our holiday experiences. Collecting feathers, describing lentils etc. was the only thing we used to know about. But children today are exposed to so many new advanced technologies and am amused thinking what they would be writing or reading about in holidays.

I would appeal to all my friends with kids- as responsible parents- to expose their children to knowledge and the amazing use of it for their better future. Other than the subjects they study enable them with use of internet, amazing games and such holiday experiences, so that their minds develop to be more creative than us. Also impart them with the knowledge on how this is created and how this relates to the subjects in science. This way, am sure they will become successful innovators and contributors to the world.