Thorns(Problems) are part of our life…see the beauty in them!
When the time will come to leave, you will have only memories and regrets to take along with you. Ensure your everyday is filled with good memories and no regrets.
Life does give second chance. WRONG! Life gives many chances; only you need to keep your eyes and ears open to identify and explore the opportunities around.
Life doesn’t offer you trials or practice matches to make you ready for the actual event. You need to be prepared all the time to face anything in life.
There is nothing like good time or bad time. Time has been the same as it is now for billions of years. It is we who need to grow and change ourselves to create a better time for us.
We worry too much about the outcome or the chances of Failure. In the process we give up the opportunity to try. When you try, you create chances of Success but when you don’t try, you have already failed.
Q- What you are destined to become? A- What you intend to become. So,the destiny doesn’t make you. You make your destiny!
When you only focus on problems, you will have more problems. When you focus on solutions and possibilities, you will have more opportunities. Don’t decorate your problem; you may not want to get rid of it.
“In a day, when you don’t come across any problems – you can be sure that you are travelling in a wrong path.”
“The greatest sin is to think of yourself as weak.”
“We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far.”
“Be not afraid of anything. You will do marvellous work. It is fearlessness that brings heaven even in a moment.”
“Learn everything that is good from others, but bring it in, and in your own way absorb it; do not become others.”
“We are responsible for what we are, and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves. If what we are now has been the result of our own past actions, it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in the future can be produced by our present actions; so we have to know how to act.”
“Each work has to pass through these stages—ridicule, opposition, and then acceptance. Those who think ahead of their time are sure to be misunderstood.”
“Whatever you think, you will become; if you think yourself weak, weak you will be. If you think yourself strong, strong you will be.”
“We reap what we sow and that makes us the makers of our own fate. When the wind is blowing, those vessels whose sails are unfurled catch it and go forward on their way but those which have their sails furled do not catch the wind and remain where they are. Is that the fault of the wind? We make our own destiny.”
“Believe in yourself and the world will be at your feet.”
“Things do not grow better; they remain as they are. It is we who grow better by the changes we make in ourselves.”
“He who struggles is better than he who never attempts.”
“People laugh at me because I am different; I laugh at people cause the are all the same.”
“It is a very hard thing to understand but you will come to learn in time that nothing in the universe has power over you until you allow it to exercise such a power.”
“Talk to yourself at least once in a day otherwise you may miss meeting with an EXCELLENT person in this world.”
“Be not afraid of anything. You will do marvellous work. It is fear that is the great cause of misery in the world. It is fear that is the greatest of all superstitions. It is fear that is the cause of all our woes, and it is fearlessness that brings heaven even in a moment. Therefore, “arise, awake and stop not until the goal is reached.”
Cheers!
Note : Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) was an Indian Hindu monk and a key figure in the introduction of Indian philosophies of Vedanta and Yoga to the western world. He was one of the most influential philosophers and social reformers in his contemporary India and the most successful and influential missionaries of Vedanta to the Western world. Indian Nobel laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore had suggested to study the works of Vivekananda to understand India. He also told, in Vivekananda there was nothing negative, but everything positive. To know more about Swami Vivekananda, click here.
When I was growing up, I had to face an annoying member of my family. And the member being an elder one bullied me to no end. Then, I use to think that let me grow up fast, and then I will show this person what I am! I then believed that once I grew up I’ll be independent in my life and then no one will have any say in my life. I did grow up and became fairly independent at a very early stage, both financially and emotionally, and had a good fortune not to see that person anymore. Well, being a family member we still have contacts but the person was out of my life long back once I stepped out of my house. But did it mean I did not have anyone else subsequently in my personal or professional life who was not a trouble monger to me? Or to state the broader perspective, did my problems seize to exist?
You are all aware of the answer! The ‘problems’ never seizes to occur. Rather they continuously appear in your life, time and again. The intelligent is the one who accepts this fact and makes his or her lifestyle such that it has ample room to accommodate the problems. The problems then don’t scare the intelligent because he or she knows that the only way to tackle them is to take them head-on and not by escaping or trying to avoid them. With this mindset, you attack the problems rather than getting defensive about it. And when you attack the problems head-on, you are actually engaging your-self in finding the solutions to your problems.
My experience in life has taught me one thing; a problem is as big or as small as you want to see it. And an example to that statement would be of a soldier who has lost a vital organ in the battle field but still has a smile on his face and continues with his life dealing with all problems still managing a smile on his face and with pride in his heart. At the same time, you will find many people in your day to day life, despite having the required materialistic possessions to sustain a good life and reasonably sound physical health, still complaining and cribbing day-in and day-out about the pettiest of issues! Really funny! No?…No, the real irony.
My simple suggestion to tackle a problem is to find the root cause of it. When you find the root cause, you will be in a better position to make a judgement about it. To give perspective to this rational, I would like to quote an example from the usage of technology. When we deal with systems and applications, there are occasions when we find errors showing up while using the system or the application e.g. when you check your bank statement every month, you find that your total balance does not tally as per your calculations. You do a deep dive and provide all the details to the bank staff. The bank representative looks into the matter and finds that all papers and documents are proper and in place. He further forwards the query to his technical staff for resolution of the issue. The technical guy after doing a thorough check finds that one particular investment account is not linked to your master account and hence there was a discrepancy. So, here the root cause was the linkage of a secondary account to the primary account was not in place.
Similarly, in life too we have issues interlinked with people and things. Only we need to untangle one wire at a time to reach to the main cause. See, if you can fix that. If not, continue to live with it making arrangements in your life so to have a bare minimum impact on your well-being and mental peace.
Some interesting quotes about problems:
“Never tell about your problems to others…20% don’t care about them and the rest 80% would be glad that you have them!”
“If you decorate your problem, you may not want to get rid of it.”
“When you only focus on problems, you will have more problems. When you focus on solutions and possibilities, you will have more opportunities.”
Your true potential lies in starting from scratch again. And you are never too old, never too late and never too weak to start from scratch again.
Everything begins with a desire. Desire leads to action. The action gets you results. If you can dream it, you can do it. And if you can imagine it, you can achieve it.
You are UNHAPPY with what you have. Someone is HAPPY with less of what you have. What makes one happy? It is not the materialistic possessions or money but your ATTITUDE! Have a positive and healthy attitude always.
I am not angry…I am at peace!
I am holding on to my grudges, anger, and hatred. What am I getting in return? More grudge, more anger, and more hatred. The cycle is vicious. What if I let it GO! I will have a chance to discover peace of mind and joy. Decide for yourself. Pick the right choice!
When the time is tough and things are going wrong, just close your eyes and say ‘I know I am being shaped for good, this is my test and I’ll pass it with flying colours. I’ll wait for the day when God will reward me for being this strong’!
Fear, anger, and hatred are the outcome of your insecurity.
A child fears nothing while trying something new…and enjoys the whole process and the outcome. An adult thinks ten times before attempting something new….and lives with constant fear throughout the process. Have a child’s attitude always!
Life is like that; when you thought all is set and nothing can go wrong now…you get hit the hardest! Similarly, when you thought all is finished and nothing can be done now…blessings happen and you hit a fortune!
Two things that make you RICH are good health and peace of mind. No matter what all you accumulate throughout your life, if you are not healthy enough to enjoy it or if it does not provide you any peace, you remain POOR.
Too much!….too less!
When things are going on well, we all perform well. It’s only in crisis that our real potential is tested… as to how well we can perform in the adversity. Be the real performer!
We get engaged in our daily fire fighting mode, busy making stop gap arrangements, putting stuff under the carpet… and life goes on. Take a break! Think about the person you want to be and put your efforts in that direction.
Excerpts from my upcoming book Fireflies of Gulab Bagh and other Short Stories:-
Udaipur, the city of lakes is situated in the state of Rajasthan, India. It is a beautiful city with a rich heritage of the legendary warrior- Maharana Pratap, the erstwhile king of Mewar. It is also the city where many iconic movies were shot like the Bollywood movie Guide and the Hollywood James bond movie Octopussy.
The city is really beautiful or was beautiful during the seventies and earlier periods. It has beautiful lakes; all filled with water and could touch the brim during the rainy season. The city also has lots of mesmerising forts and palaces which speak about the royal grandeur that this city once enjoyed. And then there are the beautiful green parks all across the city. There is the ‘Sahalion ki Baadi’, the Nehru garden, the Town Hall Park and many more. But the biggest of them is the Gulab Bagh – the Rose Garden. It is situated at the north corner of the city. It is a huge public park and had a special garden only for Rose plants. This rose garden had a variety of roses in terms of colour and breed. Legend has it that at one point in time it even had Rose plants producing black roses!
The entrance has a huge green coloured iron gates. There are two lion statues carved out of stone atop both the pillars supporting the huge gates. The lions are painted yellow and their tongue painted red. This magnificent rose garden was built by Maharaja Sajjan Singh and is situated near the royal palace and on the east side of the lake known as Lake Pichhola. Within this garden, there is also a zoo which at one time had lions, tigers, leopards, bears, and many other wild animals including various kinds of bird species. The most spectacular part of Gulab Bagh was a public library in the middle of it with collections of ancient manuscripts and other books. This library was situated in the high ceiling building which was of Mewar style architecture and was painted in lemon yellow colour. It also had a reading room where newspapers, journals, and various magazines were kept.
The year was 1977. Just outside of the Gulab Bagh, there was the Garden Hotel. This place or the building belonged to the royal family who was known among the locals as ‘Durbar’. They now run this place as a tourist hotel. There was a small paan shop attached to the outer walls of the ‘Garden Hotel’ just adjacent to the main entrance of the hotel. A straight road ran in front of the GulabBagh gate with either side of the road having a housing colony. One was known as ‘Radha Niwas’ and the other one as ‘Kamla Badi’. These were middle-class localities where most of the households were engaged in services, either government or private, and some managing their small business or shops.
The Kamla Badi was bigger in terms of having more houses. Most of them were single-story, small to medium size bungalows except for a few which were of two stories. In terms of the overall area, Kamla Badi was more or less similar to Radha Niwas except that Radha Niwas was differently laid out. The entire area (land) of Radha Niwas belonged to four brothers, the Agarwals. The land was divided among the four brothers and each one got one portion also known locally as ‘Khet’(in local language land for ploughing or agriculture). They had built independent bungalows on the periphery of these four khets. They had a palatial three-story bungalow in one corner of these khets and rest of the houses, eight in all with two bungalows to each brother were all rented out. The khets were given on contract to a farmer annually. Among these eight bungalows of the Agarwals, two adjacent bungalows were rented out to the Mukherjee family and the Hopkins family respectively.
