Hope is all we have

“Hope can be a powerful force. Maybe there’s no actual magic in it, but when you know what you hope for most and hold it like a light within you, you can make things happen, almost like magic.”

-Laini Taylor

I didn’t have a very comfortable life as a child. We had many financial and household issues to deal with. Everyday was a struggle for us, especially my mom. However, if I were to compare my mental strength back then to now, I was way more happy, hopeful and positive in the past. I refrained from overthinking every single aspect of my life, I was hopeful and positive of a bright future, I knew things would turn out in our favour sooner or later. I had something to look forward to, I had a lot of goals for my future, the future seemed like a happy dream that I was eager to convert to reality.

Things did work out in our favour. Most of my childhood goals have been accomplished (from earning a degree, getting a stable job, fulfilling the basic materialistic goals such as buying a branded cell phone to fancy clothes to renovating my house). Life should be amazing, I should be happy, I shouldn’t have anything to crib about anymore. Well that’s the issue, why does all of this still seem difficult? Why do we forget everything that has worked for us and always focus on the things that we don’t have? Why does my mind have to overthink every single moment of my life and present me with situations that always seem unfavorable and scary? I was never this confused during my childhood when we had very few reasons to be happy or grateful for. But now when I have a zillion things to be happy about, my mind keeps redirecting me to that one thing that I don’t have or that one goal I might never achieve!

I had problems back in my childhood as well. But I was hopeful of a happy future and that dream kept me alive. It gave me the energy to fight the devils of my mind and just focus on the task at hand. As I grew up and came across more failures in life, my hopeful nature lost it’s sheen and my mind started storing and reliving the real life experiences of feeling lost, disappointed, hurt and scared. Because of this I’ve reached at a phase in life where every new decision causes my mind to relive all the pain and trauma I’ve experienced in the past. Thus, I’m unable to think straight, hope for a bright future, work towards a goal or simply be happy without overthinking any aspect of my life.

Overthinking sucks big time. It makes every simple decision of my life into a life or death situation. It completely drains my energy and distorts my ability to think straight. I know happiness is not a destination but a life long journey. A single event or goal in our life doesn’t have the ability to keep us happy forever. It’s a daily process, a life long effort and developing a hopeful attitude towards life.

I might have mentioned this many times before but I need to reiterate it to myself as I’ve lost my track and fallen deep into the black hole of overthinking. It has drained me and is now clouding my judgement. It isn’t allowing me to enjoy a single moment of peace and happiness without thinking twice about it. Few minor changes that I’m planning to make henceforth to avoid my mind to take control of my life.

• Practice being in the present : Focus only on the present moment
• Focus on what I have control over : Ignore what we can’t change, work on things we can control
• Write down your thoughts when it gets overwhelming : Maintain a daily journal
• Figure out solutions than mulling over problems : Think about all the possible way out and how it can be effective in solving the problem
• Become a person of action : Especially in making simple decisions, take decisions right away rather than pondering over it indefinitely.

I’ll share my thoughts and experiences on the effect of making these simple changes in my life soon. Till then, let’s be happy and focus on living our life to the fullest!

Thankful, Grateful

Day 29/30

And it’s almost time to end the April writing challenge. I have one more day to go but that’s fixed for my monthly recap so this is final write up. April is my most favorite month of the year as it’s my birth month. I started off 2021 with immense positivity and hope and promised to carry it throughout the year. This month really tested my patience and anxiety levels. I’m trying to fight it with whatever means I can. This month has been my least productive month of all. You might think of me as someone who obsesses over productivity and progress all the time. I don’t know why I’m wired this way, being productive gives a huge boost to my energy levels and instantly makes me happy.

I’ve written for 29 days in row and am really grateful for all the experiences, thoughts, emotions I had while writing my daily posts throughout this month. It has been a long month and I have spent most time of this month slacking. I’d still not bash myself for it. It’s been a tough month mentally and I’m taking my own sweet time to come to terms with it. I do want to get past this slump soon and get back on track. Because having a powerful routine and following it to the tee truly makes me happy. That’s the fact of my life and I need to embrace it.

Thankful for all my blogger friends who took time out to read and comment on my posts. It means a LOT. It encouraged me to post on days when I absolutely didn’t want to. You helped me keep going and now I have a month long blogging streak to my credit. This feels incredible.

One day left in April that I need to utilize well to prepare for a new month and all my goals attached to it. Let’s make the best of it.

Slowly but surely

“Positive anything is better than negative nothing.”

–Elbert Hubbard

Day 25/30

A pessimistic attitude towards life can suck the energy out of you. Our life is built on hope and in it’s absence we will feel absolutely unsettled. Given the current scenario, it is very easy to go off track and feel helpless. We might feel like we have lost control over our life. Our brain can easily spiral into the wrong direction and give us all the possible reasons to be unhappy.

Our time is limited on this planet, every single second is precious. While it’s practically impossible to make every moment count, we can try and train our mind to see the good in every situation. We can strive hard to live in the moment, write down every thing that we have been procrastinating on for a long time and tick off the checklist one by one, buy those things that have been lying in your wish list since forever, reconnect with old friends, watch a feel good movie. In general, use your time on things that make you happy.

The last 2 days have been emotionally harrowing. Two of my closest extended family members are dealing with this deadly virus. I’m praying that they get well soon and come back home hale and hearty. This situation has forced me to think about how I spend my time stressing over things that never take place, being anxious about my past and future alike, not being satisfied with the way I live my life and treating happiness like an expensive commodity. I do end up allocating a huge chunk of my time in life on things that aren’t fruitful or don’t make me happy. I tend to consistently worry about the implications of my current decisions on my future life and stress about not being able to make the most of my life. Well guess what, even after stressing about all of this day in and day out, I haven’t made any progress on figuring out the perfect manner of living a fulfilled life. It’s high time I stop caring about this and start channeling all my focus on the present moment alone.

Going to make it my life’s motto to live by this rule.

“Be happy in the moment, that’s enough. Each moment is all we need, not more.” 

— Mother Teresa

Let go

“Things are as they are—we suffer because we imagined different.”

– Rachel Wolchin

Day 12/30

Certain things in life are just not meant to be. We try our best, fall down, get back up, try again, fall back again, get back up YET AGAIN and this cycle continues. We never lose hope but never get closer to our dreams either. We stumble and fall so many times that the dream seems too far fetched now. We still hope that things will miraculously change for the better and life will turnaround. But it doesn’t happen YET AGAIN. Things don’t change, we are still hurting yet we still try not to lose hope. That’s what is taught to us right? Try, try, try again. But what if we tried for the 1000th time and failed, yet again? Do we continue trying?

No, absolutely NOT. We let go, GRACIOUSLY. We did our best, prayed, wished, worked hard, begged at times, cried, but it still didn’t happen. Boy, we need to understand Universe’s signals by now. Some things in life is just not meant to be.

Let go, move on, focus on things that are under your control. Focus on yourself, focus on your happiness. Be at peace with yourself, with or without such things.

You’ve tried really hard, it’s time to let go. It’s time to forgive ourselves and forget about such things. It shouldn’t be this hard. It’s not meant to be.

Be in charge of your happiness. You can do better, you are better and bigger than this.

Monthly recap : March 2021

This month went by in a breeze. I went on a vacation to Bangalore for 10 days this month and honestly had the time of my life. I wish there was a way to make my entire life as happy as I was on my vacation. It felt surreal really! I ate without any guilt, didn’t workout or meditate for most part of this trip, yet was super happy throughout. So my progress this month has been abysmal. I’m planning to make up for it in April. It’s also my birthday month. Though I have 0 excitement for my birthday, I plan to be as productive as I can this month. The motto for this month is “Small progress is still progress“. I will be consistently working on improving myself each and every day this month. One month makes a hell lot of difference. I realized that during my “Fitness Queen” practice session. Also, I am planning to blog everyday this month. I really can’t think of any other way to make this month special.

Mental health

• Meditated for 20/31 days. I was very disciplined right till the day I left for my vacation. I stopped everything for almost 10 days after that. It was difficult to get back on track after coming back from vacation. When I rejoined office I had to start my daily routine again to cope up with office stress.
• Journaled/documented my day for 10/31 days. I’ve been terrible at this. Maybe that’s why I have limited memories of how I spent this month and don’t feel productive at all.
• Practiced gratitude journaling for 10/31 days. As I said, progress has not been up to the mark.

Goals for April:- 20 min meditation everyday (maintain my streak on headspace app), practice journaling and gratitude journaling everyday. (Same as last month)

Personal Growth

This section is for a new skill or talent that I’ve acquired in this month, tried a new activity or thing that has pushed me out of my comfort zone.

• I went on a 10 day trip to Bangalore/Mysore. Although this isn’t a new skill or talent, I want to mention it as I came back a rejuvenated and changed person after this trip. My happiness grew multifold on this trip. I have been feeling unmotivated and lethargic ever since. I plan to change that in April.

Goal for April:- Cross 500 followers on my blog before my birthday on 13th April. Run 13 kms on 13th April.

Workouts

I had packed my running shoes and attire with the intention to run in Bangalore. Though I am disappointed that I couldn’t make it a reality, I did get some workouts done on my trip.

• 4 long runs in this month. Longest distance covered : 10 kms
• HIIT workouts twice a week during the weekdays (ranging from 20 to 30 mins). Managed to complete 3 workouts of 40-50 mins during my trip.

Goal for April:- Lose the vacation weight (3 kgs), skip 800 rounds at a stretch, 10 pushups in proper form

Education

• Zero progress with CFA level 1 curriculum. Took an extended break as my exams have been deferred to July 2021
• Zero online courses completed in March

Goal for April:- Complete first reading of pending 2 subjects of CFA and 2 online courses (at least 1 Korean language course)

Entertainment

• Completed reading 2 books Start with Why by Simon Sinek and The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks 
• Completed 1 movie The Cat returns (English dubbed) 

Goal for April:- Read 4 books, watch 4 movies, 1 K-drama and 1 documentary

April, let’s get it!

Would I be any different?

“There is no paycheck that can equal the feeling of contentment that comes from being the person you are meant to be.”

-Oprah Winfrey

I’ve had a tough childhood and have always considered this as a good excuse for all of my failures in life. For the longest time, I have blamed my father for not giving the rest of our family the means to do well in life. I still do this at times when I feel frustrated or stressed for not having things under my control. There is a nagging thought I have every single day and that’s my lack of efforts in living life to my full potential.

I always believed that my childhood experiences have shaped my personality, the good, bad and ugly. While I’m proud of all of my accomplishments, I’m fairly unsatisfied with the importance of career in my life. While growing up my family faced a lot of financial crunch, I took up my current profession and job to give a comfortable life to my family. I never wanted to experience financial trouble ever in my life. That was my sole motivation to earn a degree and look out for a job. As soon as I achieved this purpose, my life felt empty and directionless. I started hating my profession, job and everything related to one of the biggest aspect every human’s life, my career.

I have spent a lot of time blaming my father, my childhood, our family circumstances for not being able to achieve better things in life. I have also conveniently BELIEVED that my life would have been a lot different if I had the privilege of experiencing a comfortable childhood. That was far more easy for me than taking responsibility for my life.

Come to think of it, I don’t think my life would have been any different with a better childhood. I would still be the same person, with the same level of motivation and ambition in life, maybe even less as I wouldn’t have a solid purpose to dream big. I probably would have ended up doing nothing great in my career and led a comfortable life handed over to me by my wealthy father. WOW! This realization just hit me hard! My inability to achieve my full potential cannot be attributed to my childhood! It’s because of my half hearted attempts, my laziness to plan and chase my goals, it’s all ME!

Now that I know this well, I want to know what I’m truly capable of. I want to realize my full potential. I want to be the BEST in what I do and keep learning new things in life till the end of my existence on this planet. I’m truly pumped up and excited to start this new chapter in my life. I will share my journey, learning experiences and achievements here. Eagerly looking forward to see how life looks like on the other side of regrets, self sabotaging thoughts and all things that bog me down. I promise to utilize every ounce of my strength to fight the demons of my mind.

Start your day right

#50/100

“Inaction only makes a task more daunting in your eye. Act quickly, before you overthink, get anxious or give up.”

― Avina Celeste

Clearly I’m not an expert who can advise you on how to get your work done and be productive in life. I have dealt with chronic procrastination before. I still can be quiet an annoying procrastinator and terribly lazy at times. Over the years, I have come across few tricks that have worked well for me to complete my tasks well before time and get a good night’s sleep knowing that I have been productive today.

Although I have a good sleep schedule, I can’t avoid negative thoughts on those nights where I feel I have been unproductive throughout the day. This has happened with me almost all my life. When I was a student, I loved making schedules and timetables to study. But I never understood why I was always unable to stick to those timetables. I know now that it was my anxiety acting up and building unnecessary stress and fear in me to work on my tasks. I wish I had this realization back in the days. It would have definitely help me make better use of my time.

Well, it’s better late than never. I have picked up few techniques from my experiences that help get my work done, at least in most cases. I’m still the same person with a better ability to fight the evils of anxiety, fear and laziness.

The thing that works best for me is preparing a ‘to-do list’. Yes, I still get excited while preparing schedules. Preparing a to-do list helps me organize my tasks on a sheet of paper (you can use any method) so that I have a fair idea of tasks on hand (than leave it to the mercy of my unpredictable memory). I really wish to jot down a to-do list every night for the next day to be mentally prepared for each new day. Now this is something I really need to push myself to do. Next up, start before you can think. Yes, you have your to-do list in place which gives you an idea of the work you have to do during the day, pick one task (possibly the most difficult one) and start right away. You can spend some time on thinking of ways to get it done in the best possible manner but I tend to slag around and waste my time when I do this. On most weekends, starting from Saturday, I used to wake up late and then sleep some more till I came back to my senses at the end of Sunday. My weekends started getting more productive once I created a early morning running schedule and forced myself to stick to it each time. Once I got the most difficult thing done first thing in the morning on a weekend, the rest of the day just passed by blissfully. I am a morning person, I like to get to work first thing in the morning as those are my most productive hours. For night owls, I suggest you understand your productive hours and complete your work during that period of time. The last and most important thing that works for me is to plan well ahead of time. I hate last minute jitters, trust me when I say that it doesn’t help in the quality of work at all. I have shrugged off work to the last minute all my life and ended up with a feeling of extreme dissatisfaction at the end of it. It’s better to pre-plan your work and add it to your to-do list each day so that you are able to work on it bit by bit each day.

That’s about it! These are the ways I’m sticking to currently to avoid that nagging feeling of disappointment at the end of each day. Hope it helps you in some way or the other. Do let me know if it does!

Twist of fate

When it comes to life, we spin our own yarn, and where we end up is really, in fact, where we always intended to be.

–Julia Glass

#24/100

A guy hears gun shots. He runs for cover in the woods, trying to save his life from the robbers who caught him sneaking on them. He can hear his heart thumping and breath getting heavier but he needs to continue running to stay alive. After running for a while he reaches a dead end, the robbers vivid footsteps can be heard clearly now as they draw closer. Realizing that the end is near, he slowly turns around to face the robbers. He closes his eyes to 3 robbers with pistols in their hands waiting to shoot him. He hears a “bang”, a gunshot has been fired. Does it take this long for the gunshot to hit me? He opens his eyes to see the robbers on the ground writhing in pain. The police arrives just in the nick of time to save him.

Haven’t we come across such thrilling scenes in movies numerous times? We are in total suspense till the end of the scene with the hope that the good human is rescued or saved after all. And in most of the cases, that’s exactly what happens. When I saw Ned Stark’s head being ripped off in Game of Thrones, I couldn’t believe my eyes. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be! The good guy should always survive. That was the first time I saw a realistic portrayal of life. After watching numerous movies and shows where the a bad situation somehow gets solved at the right time, my mind seeks a way out in my real life scenarios as well. We always wait for every complexity to magically disappear from our life at the right time.

I cannot say that I haven’t come across certain miraculous situations in my life. We have the tendency to keep waiting for everything to be perfect to finally celebrate our life. But that doesn’t have to be the case, always. Life is too unpredictable to wait for the right time for us to start enjoying it. No matter how our past and future is, we can definitely find one thing each day to be thankful for. As we start focusing on finding things that make us happy than stressing about things that don’t, a lot of our obstacles in life magically find a way out. I’ve always believed in magic as a kid. I still believe in it, deep within. We all have magic within us. The magic to change the way we look at life. I truly want to believe that I am and can be happy despite the manner in which my life unfolds in the future. The choice is always with us. Let’s pick the one that makes us happy. 🙂

Surprise…..!

#22/100

I absolutely love gifts. I’m always excited to plan gifts for my closed ones. I make sure to get thoughtful stuff that would bring a smile on their face. I anticipate their reactions on the gifts and it just makes my day when they let me know that they love it too. Similarly, I love getting gifts as well. I just find the thought or gesture made by someone to make you happy in the form of any gift beautiful. As a kid, I would desperately wait for my birthday each year. That’s the only day you are showered with gifts after all. However, I always feel low at the end of each of my birthdays. I’m really not aware of the reason yet. It could be because of a year long wait for the next one or just that I expect too much for no reason.

I still remember how sad I was during the last few weeks of year 2016. I wasn’t looking forward to the new year at all, mind you I’m a person who loves new beginnings. New years always excite me as they bring new hope and endless new possibilities. However 2017 was different. I was overworked at my workplace and was dreading the new year because of the extra challenges at work for 2017. I just wanted to disappear from the face of the earth. I cut contact with my friends and resented myself. I went into a shell. But my best friend still stuck by me despite my distant behavior. On 31st December, she came to my house and handed to my mom a gift that just changed the way I looked at the new year. It was a jar filled with 365 notes for each day of the year. The notes were beautiful and straight from her heart. Till the time I got the gift, I was sure nothing and no one could pull me back from the dumps. I don’t know what I did to deserve such an amazing friend in my life but I felt extremely grateful that I had her.

The most incredible gift of my life 🙂

It doesn’t end here. Today, she surprised me with another marvelous gift. Just when I was sure that no one could top the note jar gift, she surprised me with a gift that overwhelmed me with emotions. It was my birthday in April when my country was under a strict lock down. She made sure to make my lock down birthday special too by making me a video montage with amazing pictures and messages from my friends. I had absolutely no expectations of getting a gift 5 months after my birthday. But my best friend knows me too well and gave me something that touched my soul.

My most incredible gift 2.0

I love creating bucket lists, I have one on my blog as well. The joy of striking stuff off from my bucket list on completion can’t be put through words. I’m overjoyed by this gift.

Ever since I’ve decided to chase happiness and live in the present, my life has changed for the better. I feel extremely grateful and at peace. Happiness is about the small things after all, you just need to pay attention 🙂

Road trip, anyone?

#21/100

Don’t we all absolutely love road trips? Long serene drives through the hills, flashy music blasting from the stereo, chit chatting group of friends and some food for company. Ah, sounds blissful right? Hell NO! For someone who has suffered from motion sickness since childhood, even the sight of a car can make me go dizzy!

I remember my first all girls trip to Manali. The place was a wonderland. It was the first time I saw snow in real life. This trip was pure delight with an only exception of the 9 hr long drive from Pathankot to Manali. While my friends were having fun talking to each other, listening to music, watching shows, my head was safely perched on my lap with eyes shut trying very hard to not puke and disgust my friends. It’s really an unfair situation since I can’t even go to sleep while travelling in a vehicle. Oh yes, I can never take the middle seat in a vehicle, a corner seat with the windows open somehow helps me sail through the ride without any unnecessary instances of puking.

Ever since I was asked to resume office, I had sleepless nights thinking about the 7 hr long bus ride I was supposed to take each day. The first day, I kept the big window next to the corner seat open to take in fresh air. The ride was smooth although I was exhausted by the end of the day. I was disappointed with the pointless wastage of time spent to and fro from office. I felt helpless because I absolutely couldn’t use the travel time to my advantage because of my motion sickness.

However, yesterday was different. Ever since I’ve decided to only pursue activities that truly make me happy, my brain somehow is in sync with this idea. I seem to have a teeny tiny bit control over my thoughts and negative self talk pattern. Meditation has a huge rule to play in this welcome change. I listened to my favorite music and was blissful throughout the 7 hr ride. I even managed to cover few episodes of a drama I’m currently watching. When I reached home, though my body felt some exertion, my mind was totally fresh. I was chirpy and happy throughout. This happened today as well!

I have absolutely no scientific explanation for this phenomena. Was it this simple always? Why did I waste my precious time dwelling on negative thoughts all this while? I don’t really know how long I can sustain this but I want it to be a permanent change. I know life has it’s ups and downs but I really wish to be patient and bounce back to my happy self in no time. I’m rooting for my happiness this time!

He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe. 

-Marcus Aurelius