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!

To the good place

“To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.”

-Thomas Campbell

Day 26/30

To my dear aunt who lost the battle to covid today, hope you are in a better place now and not hurting anymore.

The importance of gratitude

#75/100

“When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.”

-Willie Nelson

I didn’t believe in this before. I was thankful for all the help and support I received from the kind people around me. But I’ve never actively counted my blessings and practiced being grateful in my life. Whenever I read or saw videos about ways to bring joy in life, turn our life around, better our relationships at work and home, the art of practicing gratitude tops the list. I once heard a podcast on topic of finding our dream job. The first technique told to us in the podcast was to “be grateful for the job we presently have and try to enjoy it”. This sounded absurd and made absolutely no sense to me. How do I enjoy the job I absolutely despised?

It took a long time to understand the power of being truly grateful for everything in life. Imagine a situation where you hate everything in your life. You can’t find a single thing to be happy or thankful about. Try to think of a person who doesn’t even know where the next morsel of his food will come from. We are a small part of this planet. No matter how hard you find your life at the moment, there will be someone who has it harder than you. Yet, they might find a better way to deal with their hardships.

There was a time when I wrote down 3 things I was grateful for in the morning and 3 things that I liked about the day before I went to bed. This was suggested to me by a counsellor at a time when I found every part of my life painfully difficult. At first this practice felt superficial. But I didn’t even realize how happy it made me feel within a matter of days. I quit this practice right after I felt better about my life. These practices ought to be made a habit. Our subconscious mind needs to be constantly reminded of our blessings in life so that it gives us the motivational boost when it’s necessary in life.

The ultimate goal of my life few years back was to be happy with every part of my life. I considered happiness a destination back then. Had I been grateful for every thing I had in life at that time, happiness would have been a journey instead of an unachievable dream. You can always turn around every situation if you think of reasons about how it could have been much worse. To be grateful for our life and everything in life is the best manner of loving ourselves and finding joy in the mundane and basic things in life. After all, life is not as bad as we think!

Just the way you are

#44/100

Out human mind is so fickle. I believe we are under a constant state of metamorphosis in our thoughts, likes, dislikes and every single detail that makes us who we are. We wouldn’t be able to relate to our past self today. I was in conversation with my younger sister about my personality back in the day (probably a decade ago) and it left me questioning my choices in life!

I was a very happy child turned into a cowardly teenager. I had all sorts of issues, self esteem, low confidence, hatred towards my own self, body weight, you name it, I had it. But all those issues and my battle in overcoming them have made me the person I am today. When I was going through those issues, I never ever imagined in my wildest dreams to reach a point in life when I won’t have them anymore. I still can’t imagine it but those issues have toned down a lot and have given me the strength to deal with them in the right manner.

When I was younger, one of my biggest concerns was not standing up for myself. Forget big issues, I couldn’t even say “no” when I desperately wanted to. I always thought that people will ditch me if I don’t go by their choices. I never voiced my thoughts or let anyone know if I had a difference of opinion. What made me change this destructive behavior? I learnt to love myself, brick by brick, step by step. About 2 years back, I saw the movie “You can heal your life” at a close friend’s suggestion. The entire movie is based on the concept of accepting and loving our self. It seems like a really basic concept but the most difficult one to implement. If we ever pay close attention to our thoughts, it’ll blow our mind into a million pieces. Our thoughts can be fiercely negative and horrific at times. A few moments in silence with our thoughts might make us wonder as to why we hate ourselves so much. Learning to love ourselves is the first step to a better life and calmer mind. Just imagine if you could make your mind your best friend, won’t you be invincible? There won’t be any room for negative thoughts or emotions, our mind will motivate and push us to be the best in every situation, just like a best friend does.

Once I had this realization, I could work on changing myself for the better. It took a lot of effort to reach my current version and I’m still a work in progress. But, I’m definitely a lot more happier and content with my personality and life now. Let’s not be so harsh on ourselves, our inner child needs all the love and care it can get. Let’s feed our selves with positive thoughts, be grateful for our life and make it easy to forgive ourselves.

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 🙂

What’s your purpose?

#20/100

I felt like a motivational guru while asking this question. Isn’t this the hot topic of discussion amongst every motivational speaker? It’ll always revolve around these grey topics which might end up confusing people more rather than helping them. People like me feel motivated at first however when things don’t fall in place even after following all the vague rules listed out by the gurus, we feel more empty and lost than ever.

I’ve read a lot of self help books on various topics meant to improve the quality of our life. I’ve tried listening to my absolutely chaotic inner voice with no respite. I’ve watched videos of many successful people who have noticeably made it big in this world. I’ve tried to list down the common traits that exists in all of them. They keep saying, love what you do and everything else would be taken care of.

People talk about following your passion, finding your true self, doing what lights up their soul, but what about the ones who can’t seem to figure out the source that lets them experience these emotions?

Are you as confused as me in this matter? Should I let you on a little secret that I’ve discovered recently? I really like being happy. Happiness drives me to do better, it lights up my soul and I’m completely passionate about it. But my happiness is not restricted to a single source. These days, I’m learning a new language and that makes me immensely happy and fulfilled. A cup of hot steaming green tea, a sweaty workout session, my 20 minute meditation routine, reading a good book, watching a great rom-com, figuring out new things about myself, learning a little more about people and the world, the list is endless. I experience true happiness when I indulge in these activities.

I guess I might have finally figured out my purpose after almost losing all hope to never discover it in my entire lifetime. Can you see how dramatic I can be about these things? I have absolutely no clue how the future will turn out yet somehow I managed to beat myself up everyday for not finding out answers to these “unnecessary philosophical questions”. Yes, I called them unnecessary. Racking my brains behind these questions stressed me out, made me lose my confidence, forced me to look down upon myself and made me lose a lot of my precious time on this planet.

My purpose on this earth is simple, be happy and do everything possible to keep myself truly happy. I don’t want to bind my happiness with a rule book, I just want to be truly happy as much as I can during my time on this planet.

“Happiness consists more in conveniences of pleasure that occur everyday than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom.”

-Benjamin Franklin

The blame game

#15/100

All blame is a waste of time. No matter how much fault you find with another, it will not change you.

-Wayne Dyer

Do you have a person in your life who you hold accountable for all your troubles? I’m not talking about finding a scapegoat to pin all your worries on. This person might have actually caused a huge hindrance in your life. Your life would have panned out differently without the involvement of this person. It could be a toxic friend, sibling or parent. Someone who is a big part of your life yet a hindrance to your growth.

What do we do with such people? How should we ignore their negative energy in our life? Mind you this is a person you care about the most and can’t disassociate yourself with. Yet their insecurities, fears, selfishness, lack of knowledge casts a shadow on your life. You feel like you are are stuck in a rut and desperately seek a way out. Since this person couldn’t take responsibility of their life along with the ones dependent on them, you rose to the occasion. But this person would never accept their in-capabilities or acknowledge your efforts in setting things on the right path.

Now that you’ve been handling these responsibilities for a while, you feel lost in this journey of life. You do not understand the reason for your existence. You feel like you’ve given up a lot of your time for other people in your life and cannot identify with yourself anymore. The responsibilities that drove you earlier and gave you a purpose have transformed into a burden. You gave up the crucial days of your life trying to set things right for your family and ended up without experiencing the carelessness and freedom enjoyed by a teenager. Now that you are an adult and are ‘expected‘ to take care of everything, you want your childhood back, your innocence back, you feel like taking a backseat.

There’s a turmoil in your mind and you take it all out on the person who was supposed to make you feel safe, be there for you, shield you from troubles and guide you. But they didn’t do any of it. Is it right to keep accusing the person for your troubled past, burdened present and blurry future? Can we allow another person’s inadequacies to control our life’s decisions?

I’m a big admirer of Oprah Winfrey and absolutely look up to her for motivation and guidance. She had a troubled childhood too, yet she didn’t let that define her destiny. With everything that went wrong in her life, she discovered her purpose and aligned her life’s choices with it. Despite all the accolades, fame and fortune earned by her, I respect her for being happy with her life. Everything else is superficial if it can’t give you peace and happiness. One of her famous sayings goes like :-

“You are responsible for your life.”

It’s a simple and profound thought yet extremely difficult to implement. Especially when you have dealt with many situations in life which you weren’t responsible for and were beyond your control. But these situations are a matter of the past now. Your reactions to these situations determines your present and future.

I have to accept this harsh reality. I would be able to see the silver lining and maybe change my life for the better once I own my life in it’s entirety. I’m clueless on how to begin the process of doing what it takes to take the reins of my happiness. I might stumble and fall along the way but hope to be persistent on this pursuit of being responsible for my life.