Day 73 : To Be or Not To Be

I am at a very tricky position in life right now. Not entirely sure which way to choose. There are two paths in front of me. Both very good and both exciting. Both may even lead to a relatively awesome outcome. But one is giving it to be easy, while other may/may not be as easy. One is going to a scenic route to paradise; another is going to be a rather drab rocky route there. Both check off some or the other feature that I am looking for. Both are not a hundred percent, both are close. They both have their own virtues, both have their own poisons.

The main thing that scares is this one decision is going to decide the next dozen years of my life. And we are not that equipped to take that sort of decision. If it was your life, I'd have been the best advisor you can hope for. Objective, resourceful and creative. But now that I have a personal stake at the outcome of this one decision. This really does not seem that easy to do. Darn the pressure. I am thinking too much I suppose. I have in past just tossed a coin and decided on things. Left it to luck. But most of those decisions have been inconsequential of course. Their outcome does not show up on your obituary or on the headstone - "Here lies Prem, who chose to have chocolate ice-cream instead of vanilla on August 22, 2015."

I blame this on the internet. It has virtually rendered us handicapped by not letting us make decisions for ourselves. There is Yahoo Answers, Quora, Twitter, StackExchange, WikiHow and a dozen other sites where we post up a question to complete strangers and they bring out their suggestions and solution, however relevant, practical and crazy they may be. And honestly that is a scary world. Giving a complete stranger on the internet, like someone with a handle crzylegz918, the reins of your life is a little haunting. You cannot make crucial decisions on life based on what some guy says online, he could very well be some loner guy sitting on an ancient IBM in his mamma's basement.

We've all become too soft in the taking personal decisions field. We let things happen to us that take a stand and decide things for ourselves. It is a daunting challenge. A challenge at times everybody has to face in life. And hopefully you'd take the right one. Only time can tell...

Day 66 : Eggs In The Basket

I think it was Warren Buffet, who said, 

'Do not put your eggs in many baskets.

Keep all your eggs in one basket, but watch that basket closely.'

I do get what he was talking about now. 

Why you ask? Well let’s just say that I've been graced with an array of a few very exciting eggs for the past couple of months. Few very interesting prospects indeed. Things were looking to get all the more interesting very soon as well. But of late, mostly this month, I've been witnessing them eggs go to rot one by one. Not a pretty sight as you could obviously guess. And not a single thing I can do about it either. 

Don't fret now, this not going to be a depressing post with my whining about stuff. I am not one to spill my shit in the open. At least not on this blog, I have another blog for my thinly veiled autobiographical fiction.

Anyways, back to the eggs. There are a few things in there, I think now, that I could've handled better and sooner. But most of these things were as then kept on a slow flame cooking away, so I'd obviously thought to give it sometime, let it all stew for a while. Thought everything will play out just fine in the end. A very amateur move indeed. When has anything ever come anybody's way by just waiting for it? Woody Allen famously said - 'Eighty percent of success is just showing up.' Well damn, there wasn't even much of a chance of showing up in here. If at all there was, nobody clued me in anything about the location.

My point in all of this is - Mr. Buffet was right. 

You see, when there are a lot of things going around with you. You end up juggling all of them simultaneously and inevitably raising the chances of them fouling up on you pretty soon. One by one all of your chances have gone kaput. When so many things are going on, there is really not much chance for you to concentrate on one specific thing. And you end up giving a lot of the stuff up to chance and luck. These little thing that you over look or just plain think as inconsequential, are the things that come up out of the blue and bite you in the ass. Luck is never a harbinger of success. Luck is just a friend that comes by to meet you once in a blue moon, only to find that he's got the wrong address and gets cozy with the lady staying at the wrong door he knocks. Luck never gets to you when you need it, even when it does come to you a lot if it is plain cross connection.

And how often does that really happen?

Getting your hopes in a bunch of different things will only get you day dreaming a lot more. Start avoiding putting in the extra effort you usually does. Even start being smug with the people around you. I guess it is much practical to hope for one thing at a time, and prime up all your efforts for just that one thing.

This way you are giving this one thing your all, you have the most to say about what the outcome is, you are in CONTROL.

This will also mean that when things get sour, you have nobody else to blame but your damn self. Nobody likes to own up to any of the blame, and just to avoid that there is a good chance that you will start working extra hard for the thing that you desire. You are in CONTROL.

These things have a lot to do with our own sense of purpose I suppose. We cannot just waltz through life thinking that good things would just be dropped into our laps. Wish it were that easy. Some blows in life will take you by surprise; some will take your breath away. But every single blow thrown at you will make you wary of the next. You will be aware if life tries to sucker punch the same way again. And if you let it happen again, you can't really blame anyone for it. You've taken it before, and still were no wiser for it the next time. It is wholly your fault.

I suppose we all could be more unidirectional with our progress through life. You cannot go to sleep wishing to be an astronaut one day and dream of being a musician the next. Things have to happen gradually and over a long strenuous period of time. And all through that long duration, you have to bust you ass working on whatever it is you desire. That ONE thing you desire.

Get all of the eggs that you want for yourself. Club them into this one big dream basket.

Work. Your. Ass. Off.

Make sure that basket doesn’t come down torn on top of you, with egg yolk and egg shells all over your head, and you looking like a darn fool.

Day 61 : Mister Right and Miss Cool Girl

I’d just gotten off the phone with a serious headache and resonating 'eeeeee' noise in my ears. Well, you try get off an hour long call with a hyperactive girl trying to explain how frigging awesome her new boyfriend is. Let me save you the hassle, it is torture. Especially, if you've been having a nascent crush on this girl for some time. Why don't I do anything you ask? Well she's an old school mate, and one of my best friends in school dated her for a while. And you do not mess with the Bro-Code. But damn man, how was I to know she’d grow up to be such a hottie. Shame.

Anyways, now after a round of some aspirin-like pill and a drink of cold water, here I am sitting in front of my machine trying to work. And there is this one thing about our conversation that keeps coming back to me. Every other sentence she'd say 'and you know what just feels so RIGHT about him...' then she'd proceed to tell me just what mind-numbingly cheesy thing this dork did to get her to make out with him. (No! Of course I am not jealous at all. I promise.)

She is one of those girls who thinks that the guy who quits a bunch of his favorite things just to please her. Or does cute things for her, even if he doesn't realize he is. Is the one for her. Let me just tell one thing to all the women out there, we completely realize what we are doing! Do you think any one of us dumbasses is capable of being Mr. Right just by divine fate? Hell no! A lot of meticulous planning and a history of messed-up experience/research goes into creating your version of Mr. Right. So if you think you have found your Mr. Right, who simply just seems to get you, take my word for it this guy, this wonderful guy, has had a lot of practice being a dick with other girls till he got around to priming his game to as you know it now.

We men are not perfect, not even by a long shot. We are dirty, stinky, lazy dumbasses who like doing dumb shit just 'cause. We hate doing those girly things that you love so much. And we definitely hate that cute flowery bed sheet you bought into our bedrooms last month! We do not enjoy haircuts; we get them because growing greasy dreadlocks with occasional Cheetos in it is frowned upon at work. I mean, we would all be sitting there on our couches in the same set of clothes (or not at all) and watch TV all day if society didn't make it a mandate to pay for stuff. If men had their way the world would be a much shabbier (albeit awesome) place than it is now.

And don't get me wrong, you women are no walk in the park either. Hypocrites. You will walk about in high heels, spend like a thousand bucks on cosmetics a week and then turn around and say how misogynous today’s society is. I mean, come on, you are the one who is portraying yourself as the prepped up doll each week to score points with the leering crowd. I am hell sure that you don't buy those thongs and them underwire bras just cause of the heavenly comfort of them. I know society's dealt you with a shitty hand, but with all these fake stuff all over you are only playing right into their trap. Heck, even mother nature seems to have given you enough of bother with all that childbirth and PMS and whatnots.

You women are not perfect. You are complex, too needy, too kind, too generous, too naive, too sick, too angry, too mellow, too silent, too bold, and too shy. And that is just during the first half of your day. By the end of your lunch break you turn into something different altogether. And people around you have to start from scratch again to try making sense of any of it.

Men will never understand women. And women are forever destined to crave for a guy who just 'gets them'. Both are forever destined for disappointment.

We are all programmed by the media, and the books, and the songs about the kind of people we need to look for as suitable mates. Or the kind of things our spouses have to do to earn any of our affection. I am one of those people who just think all that is BULLSHIT!

There is no one method to find somebody that you'd want to spend the rest of your life with. Nor is there any one specific test that this person has to pass to make it into your good graces. Love has to just happen, I suppose. Affection does not come out of a do-it-yourself box. You cannot do this, this, and this, and the - 'Voila! The girl is in love with you'.

There is no Mister Right and there is no Miss Cool Girl. Get over that dream, ladies and beeps.

None of us is perfect. We are all just bunch of ugly, complex, pieces of messed up baggage walking around in search for some companionship. The best we can do is find somebody with whom we can be completely honest, and pray to Lord Almighty that this person doesn't turn chicken out of the blue and get his scared ass out of there before you can say 'noodle soup'.