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 49 : Pain and Sorrow

I have immense respect for sorrow. It is in my opinion the only honest feeling that we as a specie are really capable of feeling. Love. Anger. Hatred. Fear. Those are all just our reaction to the things that happen to us. Sorrow, I feel is something that comes from a more deeper core of our being.

We cannot see or sense sorrow. There is surely no way to measure someone's sorrow. It is not a quantifiable thing. Very much like any other feeling I suppose. But unlike those other feelings. Sorrow is something that can hit you anytime. At any place. For any reason. For love or fear or anger. There mostly has to be something to kick it off. For the pain of this heart-wrenching sorrow - you do not need a catalyst.

You could be out there driving alone in your car. Or by grocery at your local market. Or just innocently commuting to work. Like the hundreds of people around you. But all of a sudden, out of nowhere, comes this sudden feeling somewhere deep within you. You feel like your breath is snatched out of you. This thought comes pounding at your chest like a fifty pound hammer on a anvil, you feel your heart shudder at its each jolt. The thought that you are all alone.

You may have the most adoring family, a big group of fun friends and colleagues, but when you come to think of it. You are really all alone on this planet. And no matter how many people you surround yourself with. You always feel alone. You came alone to this planet, and that is exactly how you will leave.

When this feeling comes nagging at you, you see that your hand automatically goes to your mobile phone. Wonderful thing technology is, one click and one broadcasted 'Hi' later you are suddenly in conversation with fifty different people. Lo and behold, you are not alone anymore. Do not do that.

You should take your finger off of you mobile screens. Put your cellphone back into your pocket. And let the sorrow wash over you. Let it cleanse you. Feel its steely claws squeezing your guts trying to pull you innards out. Feel yourself getting light headed and dizzy with this feeling of emptiness. But you won't, this feeling passes. So will the pain. Soon you will feel your heart beating at a normal rate. And you will be able to get on with whatever it was that you were doing.

You see, pain is not that bad a thing. Pain and sorrow are sort of the only thing that teach us more about the real us than any of those other feelings can even hope to. Bask in the sadness in all of is bleak glory. They will only help you become the stronger, more feeling being that you want to be. It is the only way you can begin to understand and empathize with what the people around you are going through. And that is in turn the only way for you to start feeling a tad less alone for a change.

Because when we are capable to feel more, we welcome more people into our lives. And then only are we capable to be truly happy.

"Pain deserves to be felt"...

Today, don't shy away from yourself. Feel it all.

Day 46 : The Beast of Depression

There is this one thing that I've often wondered about  - that I do wonder a lot.

There are times with a book or a movie or a wall in front of me;  and I just stare blankly at it with my mind somewhere seas apart.

I am sure a lot many people do this. After all it is so comfortable there inside our heads. The world is such a convenient place. We can be as brave as we want. There is no one smarter than us there. We always know all the right words to say. We won’t have to be cautious about anything here, and always will all the battles. This world is so much prettier than the real world. Who wants this 'real' world anyway? A world filled with burden and sorrow and bitter disappointments. Half the time our life is spent making up for lost opportunities, and the rest is spent wallowing over how we’ll never make up for the loss no matter how much we try.

We all have a deep depressing beast inside all of us that we never fully understand, let alone satisfy. This beast is always going to push and prod us and hold something or the other over our head. This beast will always wail and shed rivers of tears over the sadness that we've have brought upon us and the over the people we hold dear. This beast knows just what to say and show us to bring us over to his side. It will always have that power to tantalize us into thinking there is no scope of victory; that there is no chance of any change in the tide of events.

Things were always sad and hopeless for you, and just because you decide to do something to fight it won't mean your future would be any different.

We in our inexplicable way always feed its hunger. This dark beast breeds off of your hopelessness and grows bigger and fiercer by the day, till the time when you are nothing but a hollow shell of the person you were. You lose your battle even before the results are declared.

Our lives are just too confusing and tiring for any of us to hope to keep hold of our sanity for any long duration. Every once in a while you will find yourself that you have started lashing out at the people around you. Or that you are holed up in a room letting nobody in. Or spending more means to try and keep people away from you; letting them see the bags under your eyes due to the lack of sleep. You sulk around, drag your feet, and sigh your sad sighs over every blow you take. Fate has beaten the life-force out of you. And now your existence seems nothing but a sad process to the eventual downfall to mental annihilation.

But you see... sometimes, you also find a little glimmer of light showing at the end of the tunnel. This bleak damp seemingly endless tunnel of despair you’re in has an end!

You slowly bring yourself you move your feet towards the light. It is hard work, your legs are heavy with the weight of all the burdens and sorrow that you have been carrying through all this time. But still slowly but surely they keep moving forward. Even your body knows how much you need to see that light with your eyes. You move forward.

Slowly your shoulder seems to grow weary, the burden seems too tough to bear anymore. And the light is so close now; you can almost feel its warmth. You cannot stop for a break now. You cannot trust yourself to make it this far again. You shrug your shoulders and let the burden slowly slid off of you one by one. It feels so much better now. You almost chuckle wondrously at how it easy it was to let go of the weight. It seemed so fearsome before. You look back and see all of you misfortunes lying there behind you like your many footprints in the sand of time. So small.

Now you are there. Right in front of the end of the tunnel. There is a door there. It is old wood, seems sodden and damp with age. This door has not been used in a long while. But there is warm air through its hinges, and from below it there is sunny yellow light pushing through onto your feet. Your feet look bloody and dirty with you waddling through your dark tunnel. But now in that light, you like the look of it. It seems callous but firm and hard, ready to step confidently through whatever may be in store for you beyond that bright inviting sunshine.

Today, you shall open that door and step into the light.