Chasing growth

I’ve had a long hiatus from blogging. The reason I couldn’t post regularly anymore is because I sensed a feeling of stagnancy in my writing. I felt that I was writing about the same stuff, time and again and had nothing new to offer to this community. The break was needed and a lot of things happened in my life during this period of 4 odd months that I was away from word press, with the exception of my monthly recaps. I feel much better now, mentally and I consider that a huge plus considering my frame of mind in the last 4 months.

My initial purpose of starting this blog was to write about my thoughts and feelings freely here and gain some mental clarity in the process. Today, I’ve come back here to do the same thing. I’ve had a nagging thought going on in my head for a long time now and I desperately wanted to stop pondering over it. I tried drafting this post multiple times in the last 2 weeks but just wasn’t able to get my thoughts together. It’s Sunday today and I have all the time in the world to complete this post and bring a closure to my thought process on this topic.

Let me start with a question. How close are you with your childhood friends now? I guess this question is relevant to the people who have crossed the major milestones in their lives (school > college > job > marriage). As we grow older and shoulder more responsibilities in life, our priorities changes at times and we aren’t able to sustain the same level of connection with our friends in the same manner as during our teenage or young adulthood days. Some may accept this change quickly and move on with their lives. Others may wait endlessly for things to revert back to good old days and refuse to come out of their comfort zone. The sooner we realize that each and every person we know is capable of change, sometimes into a completely different version of them that we no longer connect to, the better it is for us to prioritize our own growth.

For the longest time, I was upset and hurt at these people who left without a trace, who went from talking about every random thing in the world everyday to finding it difficult to hold a conversation, who only contacted me only when they needed to get some information or work done, whose thought process or ideologies did not resonate with me anymore. There were times when I could see my close friends in pain and agony because of their mindset and negative beliefs and I felt absolutely helpless as my words or actions were of no help to them. It made me feel incapable of providing support, emotionally drained and mentally exhausted. I blamed myself for not being a good friend, not being there for my closed ones when they needed me the most, not being able to help them out of their misery. This also took a toll on my mental health as I felt guilty of not being a good friend or even a helpful human being and I blamed myself for leaving such people in distress to concentrate on my own well being.

However, in the past couple of months I’ve realized that you don’t need to change your core nature, your beliefs in the pretext of helping others. The ones who seek help, will figure out a way of dealing with their troubles (if you no longer serve the purpose) and connect with those who make them feel better in their own right. You shouldn’t blame or bash yourself for not being the one helping them or be upset with them for reaching out to others for support. While they are away figuring out their lives, it’s imperative that you concentrate on your own and make sure that you make yourself a priority.

We spend most of our life in our head, amidst our thoughts. Naturally, we need to ensure that our mind is the most positive and encouraging place to be. Feed the thoughts that foster your growth, keep the negative thoughts at bay, nourish them by being grateful towards our existence and thankful for all the opportunities that have led to our growth in life. There is no one way to lead a happy life but we can figure out the things that definitely don’t add value to it.

Recently I saw an amazing keynote speech by Hal Elrod, #1 international bestselling author of The Miracle Morning. He discussed an amazing rule that he swears by to keep his emotions in check.

He calls it the 5- minute rule.

According to it, when things go wrong, it’s okay to be completely negative–but not for more than five minutes. With this rule, Elrod learned to set a timer, moan, complain, whine, and express every negative emotion he liked during a period of five minutes, and then took a deep breath to say three remarkably powerful words:

Can’t Change It.

“It’s simply an acknowledgement that I can’t change what’s already happened, so there’s no value in wishing it were different,” he explains.

With this, I’ll stop thinking about ways to change the external factors in my life or regret my past actions. I’ll work on taking complete responsibility of my life and make sure to do everything to improve it’s quality. It makes no sense to blame our circumstances for everything that goes wrong as it doesn’t provide any solution or help us with the way forward.

Accept it, own it and hustle harder.

Becoming unstoppable

#62/100

“Who you are today is not who you have to be tomorrow.” 

–Zdravko Cvijetic

Okay, so there have been few inconsistencies in my life of late. My routine has undergone a 360 degree change. I’m incredibly blessed to have a mother who understands the importance of having a stable mental health and doesn’t force me to do things I don’t feel like. Yet, I know I’m not giving my best. She has fractured her hand and needs complete rest at the moment. I am currently overwhelmed with the responsibilities of the house as well as office at the same time. I have been doing a terrible job at both since the day I took the responsibility.

I have the tendency to consider myself a victim of every uncomfortable situation that I’m put through. My initial reaction is to blame every person/thing that I consider responsible for being the reason behind my misery. My way to cope up with such situations is to do nothing about it. Since I’m a perfectionist, I take a long time to do any work that is expected of me. That makes it difficult for me to manage a lot of work at the same time causing me to procrastinate everything till the last moment.

But I’m really tired of finding the easy way out in all the difficult situations of my life. I always waste time when I have a lot of it. The minute I’m supposed to do something that I don’t wish to do, I’m reminded of all the work that I could have done in that time instead. My defense mechanism goes overboard to make me feel absolutely terrible at times.

So I’ve decided that this time, I won’t pick the safe route. I’ll get all work done, in the manner that I’m supposed to do, to the best of my ability. My mom is my biggest inspiration in life. Her grit and positivity always shines bright on me. The way she has handled all the difficult situations in life can be a rulebook to ones who get scared of it. She gets motivated to work harder when things don’t go as per her wish. I’ve hardly seen her disappointed with failures. She takes every mistake as a learning lesson and challenges herself to do better next time. This is exactly what I’m planning to do.

Cheers to a new challenge. If I can deal with all the brick backs life throws at me and end up learning something new in the process, won’t I become the person that I truly want to be? Be truly unstoppable! Let’s do this!!

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.