Given-Taken

“When two givers indulge in a connection, it’s like magic. It’s alchemy. I water you, you water me, we never drain each other, we just grow.”

-Anonymous

Day 8/30

Life would have been so much better had the world be filled with givers. However, that’s not the case in our world. Most people are takers and that’s the main point of contention in many relationships. There are many people who want everyone’s attention, they want to be the center of the Universe, they want people to care for them, guide them, notice them, help them and in return they’ll still complain that the other person is not doing enough. Can you notice the dynamics of a classic giver-taker relationship here?

Givers are self sufficient, they can handle their emotions and needs well on their own. They have expectations from takers too. But the takers are so immersed in their own life that givers learn to take care of themselves. However, takers end up being extremely dependent on givers for all of their emotional needs. The worst part is that no matter how much the giver gives, takers are never satisfied. They’ll always find faults and shortcomings in the taker’s efforts to keep them happy.

The takers are borderline selfish (some don’t even realize it), yet givers do their best to keep them happy. But it comes at a cost. Initially, givers do everything out of love and care for takers. But there comes a tipping point in every relationship (sooner or later) when the givers realize the importance of their own expectations and happiness too. And once the tipping point is breached, givers stop caring about the takers. From this point onwards, givers only try to discharge their responsibility without feeling any love or care for the takers.

If you are a giver in any relationship, make the other person understand your expectations and put yourself first. Only when your cup is full that you can help others. Do everything to make sure that your cup is overflowing with love and care for others so that you don’t burn out doing things for others without getting anything in return.

If you are a taker in any relationship, be conscious of your actions and make time to understand your givers expectations as well. A relationship succeeds only when both parties are happy and fulfilled.

The relationship in question can be anything, husband-wife, siblings, parent-children. Take efforts for people around you and they’ll always remember (sometimes give back) the gesture. Spread happiness and kindness around.

A close call

Today has been adventurous to another level. I travelled all the way to my office in the morning hoping to have a normal work day today. When I reached office, I had to go through the normal workplace protocol of showing my identity proof and the status on a government based mobile app (Aarogya Setu) which tracks the coronavirus infection of users who have downloaded the app on their phone. This app collects details of infection of everyone who uses it makes it easy to conduct contact tracing process. When I checked the status today, it showed I had a “high risk” of infection as I had come in contact with an infected person about a week back. I was surprisingly calm throughout as I had experienced no symptoms till then. I was asked to go back home and check with the helpline on the app for further process.

Once I reached home and told my parents about it, they freaked out. My parents are complete opposites of each other and their reaction to this news was also poles apart. My mother was very scared but kept it within herself and showed a brave front. My father called a friend, brought me medicines which I had no clue about and asked me 10000 questions within a span of 10 seconds. Mind you, they went through all this stress only with the news of me coming in contact with an infected person. I hadn’t even tested positive by this time. After talking to my friends and contemplating on the situation for a long time, I decided to get myself tested. I went to a diagnostic center near my house and my swabs samples were taken for the tests. Let me give a heads up here, the process of taking the nasal swab samples is extremely creepy and weird. The swab is inserted deep inside the nose and for a moment I felt that it had reached my brain!!

Then came the somewhat long wait. The antigen test results are quiet rapid and come out within a span of 15 mins. The results for the antigen test are inaccurate at times and hence I got myself swabbed for the RT-PCR test as well which is the most accurately used testing method. Within few minutes of taking my swab samples, my antigen test results were out. Fortunately it was “Negative“. The RT-PCR test results will be out tomorrow. My life changed within a span of few minutes after I came to know about the status on my Aarogya Setu app. Most of the times the stress of the actual situation is more troublesome and frustrating than the situation itself.

I’m glad I decided to take test after all and find out about my condition today itself. My initial plan was to self quarantine for a week or so before getting tested. I am extremely grateful for my meditation habit which helped me be calm in this situation. I’m really glad that I worked on making it a habit and spent 20 mins everyday on healing my mental health. It came a lot handy in today’s situation.

Fingers crossed for my RT-PCR test results tomorrow!