Saanams Mind

How many of us believe that a lot of the things that happen in our lives are pre-destined or acts of fate. We have, am sure, often encountered certain incidents in our lives that go beyond explanations, that happen without any action from us. Maybe it’s a spate of good luck, or sometimes it’s just a series of unpleasant painful happenings.

Though am a firm believer in making what I want of life, certain circumstances that are beyond my control do occur at times. Ever since I read the book called ‘The Secret’ by Rhonda Brynes, I have always believed that our thoughts are what fashion our life and the energies in the universe get tuned into your thoughts & fashion the happenings around you. It is called the Laws of attraction where your thoughts attract all happenings towards you and your life.

But sometimes I look at the life of a couple of friends of mine who have tough times happening in their lives despite them being so positive…then where is the power of attraction gone?? There is something beyond any human mind & thoughts. We call it fate, destiny or in other words Gods plans for us. This is something no one can change.

Fate or destiny gives you absolutely no explanations as to why , how & when things happen. They just do .How then can one explain incidents that are narrow misses like I have had the last year, our car skidding, spinning 180 degrees , hitting the median, nearly toppling over & then just stopping on its wheels & all of us in the car without a tiny scratch? Just wasn’t our time to go I guess, or maybe the fact I was headed towards a temple saved it? Or how do you explain why few moments of delay saved several lives in the 9/11 tragedy? Like a train delay, forgetting something & going back home for it.Well fate had decided these many lives had to be saved .

The only thing as positively thinking humans we can do is just develop a healthy attitude to deal with what fate doles out to us. They say give life your best shot & leave the rest to God .There is truth in it that ultimately The One above has planned what is right for your life & when you try & give it your best shot, he decides where life should go on from now.

Its said “Fate only takes you so far, then it’s up to you to make it happen.” .Well isn’t that true? We take whatever circumstances we are dealt with in life & decide what we have to do with it & that’s where our attitude comes to play a part! Rita Mero says “I have no regrets in my life. I think that everything happens to you for a reason. The hard times that you go through build character, making you a much stronger person.” I believe it too. So no matter what fate doles out, its all in our hands what we make of it then on….how we move on from there .

Often as a girl growing up I would look at movies , I would look around at people around & wonder what is love , what is it about love that makes the whole world go gaga over it. Then came my stint in the hostel where I played an agony aunt to many a gal who wanted to weep her woes n seek help n advice in the new love relationships they were involved in. It made me wonder does love always hurt. Why then is it called the most beautiful feeling in this world.

As I grew older the whole idea of love, the perception of it all changed ,I realized that Love is something we can call the universal truth. A feeling, though so well explored, written about & spoken about still has so many hidden dimensions to it. Its only when you truly deeply fall in love you begin to appreciate & understand the essence of love.

True Love , as I look at it is the most beautiful emotion created by God. Love brings out the most positive emotions in a person. When a person feels the warmth of love , automatically all that is good in them comes out. There is sharing, caring, generosity, kindness, all the positive emotions forge out & come forth. So love is a catalyst to bring forward the best in every one.

Love in its purest form expects nothing much from the loved one except maybe kindness n care. So I realized, that giving is the second name for love. Give a lot & not expect anything. To me unconditional love is love in its purest form. Taking happiness in your loved ones happiness. Love in its true sense is an energizing force, makes you believe that anything & everything is possible. Love creates bonds, melts walls between two people & helps one grow & move towards positivism. Love removes Egos, always wants the best for the loved one.

Love always doesn’t have to be a bed of roses .Love does bring in tears with it sometimes, but love is what makes you strong enough to fight the travails of life and carry on to face tomorrow. With love you know you have a backup necessary to perk you up when you are down. I have seen how love can make one strong at the same time make one real weak…love makes or breaks relationships, it is such a strong force it can build nations or break them.

Love is the little gestures you show to your loved one, love is the tears you shed when they are in pain, love is the smile you see when little things about them make you happy, love is the prayers you send up for their well being, love is the picking up you do after them without cribs, love is the energy that makes you smile at the end of the day when you see their face, love is the extra bit you are willing to do just to make them happy, love is when keeping them happy is your main priority and comes before yourself even. Love is even doing ridiculous things just to wipe the tear from your loved one’s face. Love is the racing heartbeat when you catch a glimpse your loved one. Love is the euphoria you feel when your loved one smiles at you.

To me love is not about possessing. It reminds me of something ‘If you love something set it free, if it came back to you its yours, if not it never was’ Well true don’t you think. Love should set you free not bind you in shackles. Love makes you grow, love makes you understanding. Love forgives. Love helps you move on in life. Love makes you feel special , love improves on you as a person. Love kills violence & promotes peace & harmony.

After all this , I still discover newer aspects of what love is everyday of my life.I feel if you have love in your life you do grow as a human being, discovering so much of a joy In every moment of life.So I would say Rise in Love n stay in love because it keeps you young, happy, human and a better person .

Trust… this word has so much meaning, so much importance. Every relationship has this as its basis. Without it there is seldom any meaningful thing, any meaning to a thing. If we think hard enough about it, trust is present in every aspect of our life. If you do an adventure sport you place your trust on the person teaching you, if you are flying you place trust on the pilot and the airlines, if you are confiding in someone you place trust in them not to speak about it, if you are believing what a person says and does you are trusting them to never hurt you. Trust.

What do you do when someone you want to trust never gives you an opportunity to?
They say that you can trust only when you want to. But there are also times that though you want to place your trust in something or someone the reason to trust is taken away from you. You get close to the place you want to be at but suddenly you find that it has gone miles ahead of you again. You are running against a moving train that refuses to stop or slow down so you can catch up with it.

Trust can be used as a synonym for faith. It is a confidence, a belief that we have in someone or something that we have in the situation or the relationship. It is the faith we have in our actions along with the others that gets us to do things, take actions, and grow as people in our lives. Trust is a relationship of reliance, a relationship of the unknown, the statement that helps us move into the future. All we have when we take that once step forward is trust.

“It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust”
- Samuel Johnson

I couldn’t have agreed with Samuel Johnson anymore. Trust is a binding characteristic, trait of relationships. I personally have never heard or seen of any relationship without one person having full trust on the other. It is important because it lets us lean on others, to depend on others, for love, for advice, for help. But trust involves major risk. There is never a point where trust is completely fool proof.

Trusting, when needed to be successful, especially between two people is generally a two way road. It is when both the parties are open to trusting the other. It is when you accept the risk that the trust can be broken, you have the belief that it will not be broken and have faith the other person is competent enough to keep the trust you have in them intact.

There are questions that will always arise like when is trust warranted? When do we know that our trust will never be betrayed? Does anyone or can anyone be completely, truly sure that their trust will not be broken by the person, the circumstance we are trusting?

But even with the confusion, the indecisiveness in our minds. Even with the risk we undertake, the faith we possess. Even with being aware of the possibility of being hurt, being scared, we trust. Because as someone said ‘Without trust, there is nothing.’

Life – The interim between the first cry & the last sigh- the first breath in & the last breath out…. What does it really mean to each one of us. Does it mean just existing from one moment to another? Is it giving up on all when faced with difficulties or does it mean making the most of what we have been gifted with & LIVING each moment of it to the fullest?

An interesting write up I read, likened Life to a train Journey , the people in our lives being our copassengers, the delays & accidents -the setbacks & disappointments & I could relate to it as for me that’s what life is all about. A journey to another destination, every moment teaching me something new, a role we play on this world, a gift given to us to enjoy , to make some thing of. An opportunity given to us to be the best we can be , to make a difference in another human life, to bring in as much joy and happiness we can to one another and to learn to better ourselves every step of the way.

Life doesn’t always seem a bed of roses because you always face challenges, across bends & hurdles. I feel each difficulty or challenge comes your way because it is there to prepare you for something more you may have to face tomorrow.Aren’t these here just to make us appreciate our good times more??

Life though it toughens you in time, by itself is a very fragile thing. You don’t know if you are here tomorrow. Life comes with absolutely no guarantees & is extremely unpredictable. When we realize how very fragile life is we learn to value each n every moment gifted to us. We learn to live in the here & now, accepting the ups & downs taking what joys we can from that moment. We learn to accept that life has its ups & downs & that’s what its all about.

Life is precious. Ask mothers who give birth to newborns what the feeling it is to bring in a new living being into this world. Ask those who lose their loved ones what a life lost means. When it is so precious, it is our moral duty & owe it to God to cherish the lives we have been gifted with. It is also our responsibility to make sure we enrich & make the lives of those around us happy, comfortable & one they would value as well.

We see so many people, cursing their fate , their lives & looking at all the pitfalls that come their way as the centre focus of their life. They forget to count their blessings, they don’t learn from looking at those less fortunate them & forget to thank God for all that he has given them. They waste most of the gift called LIFE in cribbing, crying & losing out from every moment they waste being negative.We also come across a few people I call as our angels, our blessings, who in the face of adversity, teach us how one can smilingly face the downs of the lifes & emerge as winners just with the positivity with which they live.

I believe our purpose in life should be to give everything in life our best shot, To be able to live in the moment, to accept whatever fate throws our way , to be able to put in our 100% & to do as much as you can to as many as you can.To make sure you make a difference in a few lives atleast,to spread as much happiness you can, to share , to care, to spread warmth , love, peace .If you can share whatever you can with the less blessed am sure the purpose of life would be clearer .

If each one of us focused on being the best human beings we can be,giving life our best shot, spreading warmth, love and peace, positivism, making the lives of those in our lives happier & comfortable, making people feel they are special don’t you think it would be a fitting way to say Thank you to God for bestowing us with this wonderful gift called LIFE???

In life I have seen being a passive communicator means getting walked over by everybody.When you dont have the guts to speak your mind you often find that your needs and wants , your thoughts & opinions are brushed aside by so many who are little more aggresive than you.So developing assertiveness as a personality trait would be a good thing to do .

Assertiveness & Aggresiveness we often mix up these two , getting aggressive when you should be assertive.I would say assertiveness is a peaceful way of putting your point accross n aggressiveness is when violence is used to get your point across.Assertiveness is a developed personality trait where you clearly speak your mind & assert yourself ,which is linked to self esteem.It means you do not allow an aggresive person to push you around but put personal boundaries so that aggresive folks do not cross that.Apart from the fact that you feel good about yourself, you tell others how you want to be treated.

Being assertive, I have noticed I am able to express what I think , my thoughts & feelings.I am aware of what is right for me & though I do get angry I do not allow anger to get in the way of my thoughts or cloud them & affect the way I behave.Apart from that I can see & guage what the person I am dealing with is thinking about.Assertiveness is like i mentioned earlier different from aggressiveness in the sense it does not border on dominance.An assertive person unlike an aggressive person does not impose his thoughts on another.More often aggresiveness borders on anger too.

Having mentioned the difference between the two I would like to to highlight that in life being assertive helps in many ways as we generally come across people wanting to dominate you.Be it in relationships, work place or basically everywhere.Assertiveness teaches you to make people respect you as a thinking human, to draw invisible boundaries that they cannot cross.It makes you stand up for yourself & will teach you to say no to what you dont believe in.It gives you quiet confidence in yourself.So as a positive personality trait it would definitely work to ones advantage to learn to be assertive

I often wonder what the value of human life is and the first thought that comes to my mind is the measures used by the Insurance companies to calculate it before they issue the insurance policy. And so it makes me shudder because all I see is an “ECONOMIC” connotation attached to it. All its worth is what you earn, what does your account balance say and what designation or power you enjoy currently. It’s suddenly all about the profit with regards to a certain someone’s life, and so there must be a break-even point as well… you know like how much of human life loss is acceptable and how much is not. Not just that, its also about how a common mans life is not much of a loss as compared to a big shot who’s life is more precious than a whole country.

Beyond that, in general also, it’s sad to see how we claim that our life and that of our near and dear ones is priceless and at the same time we shamelessly toss it aside as cheap when others are concerned. The value of the comfort that our car provides is more than the value of the air we all breathe; we value what’s right for us more than what’s good, right and just for all. What we value must benefit us and if it causes any harm to someone else, it is none of our business. And when we don’t have answers to any of these questions, we conveniently put forward the Darwinian Theory…Survival of the fittest!!! It’s like placing LIFE in the same category as the products that marketers must sell by hook or by crook.

Wondering where it’s coming from? Well, I have become appalled in recent years at the amount of murders, crimes, selfishness and just plain disrespect of human life in our society. The murder, kidnapping, bombings and worst of all the honor killing stories being re run on all news channel every day make me sit back and think every single day about how life only has a monetary value, but nothing else. What am I worth even if I am a CEO of the biggest Multinational Corporation in the world??? Nothing! 9/11 attacks affected everyone equally. It din matter if the one who got killed was the CEO or an AVP or just a cleaner… for that matter, it means nothing even to a simple thief who would kill to save himself from the trouble of being caught. Every time I feel sad about a meticulously calculated number being attached to life and I try to look beyond it and its implications… I don’t see much. In fact it upsets me further to know that economic worth of a person is much higher than the emotional value of his/her life

On one hand are the terrorist groups that are actually working on innovative ways of how to slaughter people and on the other hand are the small time crooks that murder to survive. And both don’t make sense to me. How can life be so cheap? It troubles me deeply to know that each one of us, in our very own way, disrespect other person’s value while we probably place the highest on ours. And its not just about you and me, it’s also about the people who are related to us. The importance of life is not restricted only to the individual. It’s also about the emotional cost that a person carries; the influence that ones existence or non-existence can have on the lives of our friends and family.

And as if the people we don’t know were not enough, the people we know are also becoming a threat. Look at the recent Arushi murder case where the father killed his own daughter… I mean seriously, a perfectly normal guy, a well renowned doctor, had all the money and reputation one wants in life…What was he thinking? Its like at both the individual level and the community level, the sense of security and safety people usually feel is eroding gradually.

I don’t know what can be done about the situation and the way LIFE is treated by us, I don’t know if I myself can do something about it but it surely does pain me to see the way we abuse the gift of life and the gift of compassion that we have been blessed with. Wish we could really be the superior living organism that we are supposed to be, because if it’s really about the survival of the fittest than I don’t know how we are better than the so called lesser beings.