From Bombay To Paris With Love

I was back in November 2008.

Terror had stricken Bombay. There were coordinated terrorist attacks at 12 places one after the other in my city. They began around 9 in the evening. I remember being awake the whole night watching one news channel after the other. I couldn't sleep even if I wanted to. 

The attacks went on for 3 days until the police had it in control. My city bled for 3 continuous days along with my soul. 

Yesterday, I woke up in the morning to a nightmare. I read about what had happened in Paris. It's chilling to know the horrifying things which had happened when I was sleeping. I could empathise with the people of Paris. Their home had been attacked. Just like mine had been attacked a few years ago. I know what they must be feeling right now. The city of lights had to face such darkness.

But what was amazing to see was the solidarity among the people of Paris. I know that people all over the world were suppourting them, which was amazing because in times like this we need to be together. But you see, we cry globally but we suffer locally. The sufferings which the city was going through and in that pain to show such power and strength was impeccable. 

Killing innocents does not make anyone powerful. I loved how Paris didn't falter and how the whole world had come together to support the city. I bet those terrorists weren't expecting this. What they don't understand is that you can't kill love. Those people involved with such killings don't have compassion or love. In fact they lack so many things. The only things they posses is hatred and means spread violence. They think they are powerful. But deep down I know we are powerful ones. 

Negativity- A Destructive Disease

Source: Tumblr

Negativity is bad.
It's downright harmful.
If I had it my way, I would label it as a contagious disease in all of the textbooks.

It starts of as a mild cough you catch.
You start believing your friend is just talking bad about people in a not so serious way. I mean we all love to gossip and have done it some time. But it gets worse day after day. You start realizing that the person constantly tries to bring people down.

The cough you thought was mild is starting to turn severe. You realize a very big thing. It's not that your friend sees  negative in people. We all do at times. You come to realize the fact that your friend has stopped seeing positive all together.

Remember how it was supposed to be a mild cough ? Now all of a sudden you have a pounding headache. Sore throat. Mere side effects of coughing all day.
Being around negativity has it's side effects too.
It sucks the energy out of you.

You constantly feel tired. You only see bad. You've stopped seeing good. You feel like you are being sucked into some big hole you don't wanna be in. Your friend goes on talking trash. Doesn't agree on anything. Keeps finding bad in whatever you talk about . You wanna stop talking to this person. But you can't . You wanna be good to your friend. So good that it drains out all the positive and good in you. You're empty now. So hollow. Your friend finds a way to get in and fill it with negativity. You start picking fights with everyone because you've lost the ability to battle with yourself.
Who would have thought the mild cough to turn out so bad ?

Remember to take proper medication next time.
Stay away from negative people. They have a certain negative energy which is bound to affect you one way or the other.

Giving Things Life

Because I love glitter

Last week I lost my pen pouch. No big deal right ? I could totally  go and buy another one. Except the fact that I made a great fuss about losing it in the first place.
I want you think of a thing you lost. It could be anything. A guitar, a necklace, a car, a pen, a book or a mug. Now ask yourself was it replaceable? No. Of course you could go out and buy a new elaborate version of it, but it could never replace the one you had before.
For example, my dad refuses to give up his old car. He has a new one but he won't give up the old one which just sits there in the garage. He claims the car has been with him through thick and thin and is not just a piece of metal for him.
We humans tend to associate our feelings with the things we own. That's why we have favourites.
I mean, sure I could have bought another pouch, but how could I forget the one which I had owned for almost 7 years. I had doodled on it when I was bored, it had way too many coffee stains and a charm with my initials on it. I was pretty bummed to loose it.
It was then I realised how something so simple could make me so sad. From a third person point of view it seems silly to be sad over this, but it was important to me cause I had given it importance.
If we look at it, we give things life. A wedding ring is just a normal ring until  it gets endowed with love. No thing is special unless we believe in it. It's amazing how a meaningless thing can turn out to mean so much for anyone.
In the end, we provide those things power.
I want to know your favourite thing and why you love it so much.

Frustration

Source: Google Images

I am so frustrated today for no apparent reason.

It's just one of those days when you wake up and want to kill every single person crossing your path. It happens to me occasionally. I don't really like people on these days. Socializing is the last thing on my mind. 

My mind searches for the reason behind this frustration and comes up with zero because I've lost all my thinking capacity. I like to believe it's because of the pent up frustration and stress of life. 

On these days, I hate my life and myself. I had popped up my screen to write about a topic I've been thinking of lately and surprisingly nothing but the gates of self doubts which are to be locked tightly while writing opened. Then I went on from being pissed at people to being pissed at  myself. 

 Google describes frustration as a feeling of annoyance resulting from the inability to change or achieve something. Mystery solved. I have my answer as to why I am frustrated at the first place. Because I can't get things done. One thing leads to  other and here I am , bawling my eyes out and dissecting my failure on all things in life. I know it's my fault and I should change it but it all gets a bit too much to digest sometimes. 

 It's a chaos; a big mess of feelings, not for someone but for yourself. We are always so busy discovering feelings for someone else that we forget we have to feel for ourselves. 

  I am so close to giving up right now. I would have liked to tell you that writing this post had curbed my frustration.  But the truth is, it didn't.

I think it's good. To have these kinda days. To realize all your bad and good and then make it better. Except it's not. Because no one likes confrontation. Especially with one's own self.....

Everday Mannequin

mannequin
 /'manIkIn,-kwIn/
noun
 a dummy used to display clothes in a shop window.

Writer's Block

The following slam is not written by me.
 It's just something I find myself going back to when I cannot write or when I am not happy with my post.
 It helps.
It's written by Colleen Hoover in the book Slammed. She's a kickass author. I love her.
So here it is :
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Write poorly.

 Suck

 Write awful 

Terribly

 Frightfully

Don’t care 

Turn off the inner editor

 Let yourself write

 Let it flow

 Let yourself fail

Do something crazy

Write fifty thousand words in the month 

of November.

I did it.

It was fun, it was insane it was one 

thousand six hundred and sixty seven words a

day. 

It was possible.

But, you have to turn off your inner critic.

Off completely. 

Just write. 

Quickly. 

In Bursts.

With joy. 

If you can’t write, run away for a few. 

Come back. 

Write again.

Writing is like anything else. 

You won’t get good at it immediately.

It’s a craft you have to keep getting better.

 You don’t get to Julliard, unless you

 practice. 

If you want to get to Carnegie Hall,

 practice, practice, practice

. …or give them a lot of money.

Like anything else it takes ten thousand

 hours to get to mastery.

 Just like Malcolm Gladwell says.

So write.

 Fail.

 Get your thoughts down.

 Let it rest. 

Let it marinate. 

Then edit.

But don’t edit as you type,

 that just slows the brain down.

Find a daily practice,

 for me it’s blogging every day. 

And it’s fun.

The more you write, the easier it gets.

 The more it is a flow, the less a worry. 

It’s not for school, it’s not for a grade, 

it’s just to get your thoughts out there.

You know they want to come out.

So keep at it. 

Make it a practice. And write poorly, 

write awfully, write with abandon

 and it may end up being

really

really

good.

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I have this awesome time imagining the things I would love to write about once I get a hand on my Laptop. But as soon as I touch the keyboards nothing comes into my mind. It's just a blank screen I stare at. When the days are good, I stare at the two lines I've written and be happy with it.

Sometimes I write an entire  post, only to delete it later because I am so not satisfied with it.
But this slam above helps alot. Tells me it's okay. But more importantly, it tells me to write.
Because I guess the only solution to Writer's Block is Writing itself.

SOURCE: GOOGLE IMAGES

Check out  Colleen Hoover here : http://colleenhoover.com/

Confused

Source: Google Images

There are times in your life when you've no idea what you're doing. There's this strong urge to drop everything you're doing and run somewhere far away. Somewhere where you're aware of yourself and what you really want. Somewhere where things are not so confusing. You don't have to live up to any body's expectations. When you start living for someone else's expectations ..you forget your OWN.

 I have no idea as to what am I doing. Some days I dream about success and how I am going to achieve everything that I've dreamt about. Some days I question my own abilities to do so. I feel like I am going to be such a failure to people who have these high expectations of me. And I fear to think what if it comes true and what my next step will be.

 I want to freeze time. Stop the inevitable. But I cannot . I am helpless to my own self. These what ifs  keep running around my head. I have no idea. I hate that I have no idea. My days are spent worrying instead of acting on the problem.

But I can't help it. It feels like I am drowning under things I don't want to do. It's like I am content with drowning but I am forced to come up for air even when I don't want to. It barely feels like I am living. I am just surviving. I feel like I am gonna loose out on everything I have wanted to do. I don't blame anyone for this though. I don't even blame myself. Because I am saving that blame for the future when it's gonna be needed.

But you know the irony? These exact thoughts make me want to work hard. Prove to myself that I can achieve whatever I want. If I have dared to dream then I need to act it out too. Work Hard to stand up in my own eyes. The girl who refused to prove herself  to anyone except herself. I am my self's biggest competition.
Competition to be better than I was yesterday. 

Words

I need to talk to you
They are talking behind my back.
If only she would talk to me.
I stopped talking to her.
He hates talking.
Everyone talks about her.

These are sentences we may have come across a lot of times in our lives. Some we say to someone , some we've heard from someone. The common thing in the above sentences is talking.

Now, I love talking. I enjoy conversation, I wasn't built for small talk. 
We don't just talk gibberish. We have language- a tool no other organism on this planet has.  Yet sometimes it feels as though we do, right? We humans take talking for granted.


I was hanging out with this girl who I had just become friends with. She was telling me stuff about herself when a girl went by us. I didn't know her but this friend of mine immediately started talking crude things about her. Now, I am not the one who believes rumours easily. I was appalled to find out the girl was nothing as she had described her to be. I love talking but not trash talking about someone and needless to say she stopped being friends with me when I told her how wrong she was.

I love talking about current affairs. I watch a lot of news and love debating. There this guy who holds the same interest in subjects that I do and I love talking to him. It's heaven and I enjoy it thoroughly.

Then there this friend of mine, who I have stopped talking to. I am not going to tell you why because it's the same old story. Some misunderstandings and neither of us wants to talk to each other.


That's a lot of talking. But in each of the above, there's a different meaning behind each talk. Now I am a firm believer of this statement
 " If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all"
I have a hard time understanding why people can't grasp this. Talking holds a lot of power. But it's up to you to decide what kind of talk you prefer. And the kind of talks you have with everyone makes up your personality. Choose yours words wisely. The way you communicate, says a lot about you.

Hitler was a gifted orator. He had this spell bound effect on the audience. Though the topics of his speech were immoral, people agreed with him and he built a very strong army to lead the nation.
Now imagine him speaking about different countries helping each other. What if these talks were about unification of the world and togetherness? Imagine the kind of army he would have built then.

Now I am not focusing on only talking good. There's a lot of bad in this world. Talk against it. Spread awareness about it. Use your tongue for a good reason. And see the change.

Choose what you say carefully. Whether it is in front the person or behind that person's back. Talk Beautiful. Say nice things. Bring a smile on a person's face while you talk.
Also talk against things you don't approve. Stand up against your bully. Make sure your voice is heard. Out loud. Inspire a change in someone when you talk.
Don't let your talks demean someone or kill someone's hope.
Encourage someone to talk with you if they're feeling low. Help them. Words play a big role in healing all wounds.




Source: Quotesfrenzy.com



Tell someone random they are beautiful. The joy when they hear these words will bring a wave of happiness to you too.
After all talking is all it takes to solve all problems.

Now go and spread some happy words while I talk and clear out my misunderstandings.

Shoes

"We must understand before we judge."

We all are humans with our own individual lives. We go through ups and downs and yearn for someone to understand us. But sometimes we know exactly what the person in front of us is going through. A stranger on a flat screen or a pal you are close with. No matter who it is.

We empathize with them.

Empathy shouldn't be confused with sympathy. Sympathy is when you feel sorrow for the person wearing miss-matched pair of shoes. Empathy is when you are standing in the other person's shoes. And they don't fit you. They neither fit that other person and you go through the mutual pain of wearing the wrong sized shoes. The pain makes you empathize with that person.

In this fast-paced 21st century, keep aside empathy, we don't even have time for sympathy. The idea of dealing with other problems leaving our own doesn't seem like a good idea. And we expect others to understand us.

Let's be honest. Now imagine if you are in some serious bad situation. You've shared your problem with someone. Would you like a " I feel so bad for you" OR " I understand you "  reply from them?

I would always go for the latter one. I don't want someone feeling bad for me. I rather want someone to understand me. I want a person who is ready to share my pain with themselves.  It's like having a more personal and specific bond with them.

Only if we empathize with the people who truly need it. We start respecting the person going through that hurdle of their life. We look at the world with a new perspective after we ourselves go through that mutual hurdle with them.  And then we take actions that are needed to be taken. Happiness and joy can bring us close but not as close as the pain and sorrow we share with someone. It's like having a person accepting you with every imperfection in your life.

So whoever is reading this. I ask you to truly empathize with at least one person. Put yourself in their shoes. Look from a different perspective. Feel what they feel.

And take the necessary actions.

Source: Google Images