Everything happens for a Reason

I got this thought today from Karishma and realised how right it vibed with my weekend.

Life is too short to wake up in the morning with regrets. So love the people who treat you right. Forget about the ones who don't, and believe that everything happens for a reason. Know a good thing when you see it, and don't let it slip away. If you get a chance, take it. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said it would be easy, they just said it would be worth it.

''Life may not be the party we expected but we might as well dance while we re here''.

This is for all my friends whose lives are on the verge of changes, for the few who are intending to make a few changes in the coming months and are rigorously planning and to those who have found success only by waiting for the right time. For those that are wondering about taking chances and are still at the precipice of decision making phases, wondering and wondering. All I can say is, if we dont grab life by the horns now, metamorphically speaking, when shall we?

Information Overload

An article on power of writing states that “Life-based writing is one of the most reliable and effective ways to heal, change and grow. ….“Journal therapy -- the purposeful and intentional use of reflective writing to further mental, physical, emotional and spiritual health and wellness -- is an effective means of providing focus and clarity to issues, concerns, conflicts and confusions”

I have realized that if I write down a purpose in life, a wish or a plan, I usually get around to doing it. This is synonymous with a training given to us about harboring a habit of writing down what we intend to do in the next 10 years, a month, a week or in a daily activity chart. The trainer, talked to us about how, when we write something down and intend to give it a timeline of perhaps 7yrs, we are more likely to get it down before 5yrs time frame is up.

Based on this theory, I decided to write down my wish list two days back and organize my life yesterday. I gave myself a week and today I have already crossed off a few things I intended to get around to doing by the end of the week. This included working on the transport issue and to get a healthy, eat healthy plan and more organized work life amongst other things.

But, what I didn’t count on was an eclipse of common observation in the heat of self absorption and directional focused strategical energy. So absorbed was I in my “planned-out- work- load” that I dialed my own number from the land line instead of the client’s number, turned on the speaker button on my desk phone and waited. My mobile phone rang on cue; without a second thought, I reached out, picked up my mobile phone without glancing at the screen as I had my eyes on the land phone. Than, to take the situation one step further into its heights of oblivion, I answered my own mobile phone and heard my own voice speaking out on the speaker phone. And even than, I frowned, wondering why the client sounded like me without instant realization.

A split second later, red with embarrassment, hoping that my neighboring colleague won’t notice, I cut off the phone, pressed a button to remove the speaker tone and dialed my client. This time I managed the right number. I spent the rest of the morning laughing at my state of total absent mindedness.

So, next time any of you are so preoccupied with making things work, remember that the brain can take so much multitasking per minute or per second. Information, planning and organizing overload can take the brain cells on a joyride.

I don't know what others would have done in my situation but I had to make an instant remedy to such a faux pas this morning, I took a tea break and added two entire spoonfuls of sugar to re-adjust my brain cells back into normal functioning level while still chuckling to myself.

Mark Twain: "There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy and a tragedy."

Facing Reality: "Situational Immobility"

I came to work today with a cloud over my head. My finals on Capital budgeting and Net profit value backfired under the showers of deep dark clouds. It rained heavily yesterday and transportation was a bare minimal, not to say, completely scarce.

Security in mobility is a huge factor here. Though transport situation is better than it used to be many years ago, people without a proper personal vehicle is decidedly prone to accidents and mugging and zero security. My friend Imti was mugged a couple of months ago while walking back to his place, bearing on his face, an interesting cut incurred from the spectacles that was punched into his forehead. My sister, who was mugged in an expensive taxi cab and red pepper rubbed into her eyes before her mobile phone and cash was confiscated, is another good example. My brother, also falling prey to local mugging, tried a few of his learnt karate punches without avail on the gang of thieves that hailed him on a rickshaw a few months ago and took his expensive mobile phone which I had given him on his birthday. I never saw him cry ever since he was a baby until that day. My colleague, lost his 7th mobile phone to the muggers’ victory while travelling in a CNG autorickshaw, his stories now are an entertainment in the office. The list could go on. But combine insecurity of public transportation, any form, to that of heavy rain showers accompanied by life threatening hail storms we have independence brought down to a bare minimum in Dhaka city.

And thus we all live here. Trying to make the most out of life and living.

I always relied on my spiritual instincts telling me what I should do and differentiating between what to do and what not to do. So far, my instincts hadn’t failed me. Even though each time life had provided a fork in the road for me, I had happily taken the detour, enjoying the scenery along the way; each detour in life pounced upon with joy and excitement. So, yesterday was really the first time I sighed because something as monumental as attending a final exam on time had made me realize that the absence of a constant "mobility factor" has started bothering me.

As the storm ensued with heavy downpour along with lightening and thunder, I sat resigned, and looked at the sky, which was different than the usual darker pleasant atmosphere during such heavy downpour. The sky was illuminously bright with sunlight shinning through the heavy rain. I wondered if there was a rainbow somewhere. The smell of the earth was not as good as it used to be; increased pollution and open drains replacing the smell of the earth with foul smell. While I tried to enjoy the situation, which was otherwise quite exasperating, I wondered whether I could attend the Capital Budgeting exam on time. In all these years, I was finally a sad victim to the situational condition relating to transportation in Dhaka city, and even if I was, it had not galled me before.

Does this type of situation prevail elsewhere in the world? I lived in Bangalore for five years and never did I have an issue with transport or weather condition causing a transportation problem. Nor did I have to unduly worry about transport and security for that matter. Someone had asked me a few days ago why I wasn’t married when I was 19yrs. Interesting enough, it had never before crossed my mind. Would I have been happy if I had been married before? How am I supposed to know? Looking back at the best proposal that came my way back at that age, I would have been situated in Texas right now, with about a few kids, possibly with or without a career. probably with a loving partner, or probably not. Would secure transport and heavy downpour cause such a frown if I that a result of that pathway? Would there be other issues that would have plagued me, perhaps.

But since I just didn’t tread a different path to my life as the one I am on right now, there is absolutely no possibility of visualising something that could have happened or not happened. I am a realist. I know one thing. I certainly need to do something about this mobility factor; I need to get back on the track of one Capital Budgeting Course of Managerial Finance that I cannot believe I have to re-take. And, I have to definitely get my life more organized. With that thought, coupled with the quote on my calendar made me take a few notes on a few details missing on my previous schedules, one such one will now include, checking on a better transport schedule. And I need to see if a car/ the car/ our car gets fixed before the end of the week, if not, I need to get a temporary one fixed to provide me a better and more secured transport facility during this monsoon season.

“You have limited energy, focus it on the things that matter”.

My list of Phobias

“I am scared of riding on rickshaws” I said to my friend Rozana last night when I was explaining to her how dangerous those flimsy looking entrapments looked on the highway, how I was petrified of having to cross the road in them, and how I felt the rickshaw pullers were inexperienced and failed to use a certain level of common sense to prevent danger. She told me it was ridiculous to be scared and stated how she was never scared of anything except God.

Perhaps she was right. The world really isn’t really full of scary things, fearsome uncertainties, and illusionary ogres just waiting to pounce on people who are scared of them.

But I am only human, I am still terrified of certain things, I may not be amongst those scared of spiders, snakes, heights, etc, but as I sat down today and listed some of the things that do scare me I came up with quite a few.

* Accidents- Dystychiphobia.

* Crowds or mobs- Enochlophobia, Demophobia or Ochlophobia.

* Death or dying- Thanatophobia.

* Flying- Aviophobia

* Ghosts or specters- Spectrophobia.

* Spirits- Pneumatiphobia.

* Burglars or being harmed by wicked persons- Scelerophobia.

* Operation, surgical- Tomophobia.

* Speed- Tachophobia.

* Streets, crossing streets- Dromophobia.

* Storm, thunder- Brontophobia.

I didn’t find the real term for “fear of exams” on the site so if any of you find the term I would love to know what it’s called.

I have learnt that a certain level of being scared is by not knowing. The other level is by knowing how it feels, like the accident I once had when I was young, I wasn’t hurt much but the traumatic experience had instilled a fear of automobiles in general for me.

The fear of crowds originated from another childhood experience. I was about 5yrs old, traveling with my parents to a distant village in South Nigeria to visit a Bengali doctor, a friend of my dad's, who was situated in a place called Ikare Akoko. On entering the remote town, suddenly, our car was surrounded by a tribal group of dancers attired in leaves, body painted in bright colors, celebrating a local festival. They all looked happy but I was so terrified that I had cowered in the car, certain we were all going to be killed and eaten up like it's done in the movies.

The clinical cure to phobias is apparently exposure treatment, so called because the patient is exposed to the phobic stimulus as part of the therapeutic process. Another form of cure is used is called counter-conditioning (Watson, 1924). In this form, one is trained to substitute a relaxation response for the fear response in the presence of the phobic stimulus

Check out your list of phobias here.

A Mood Chart

Life is very simple; we just tend to make it complicated. My mom always says “take everything easily, like a grain of sand”. I remember those days back in school, when I would be up all night studying and my mom would get up every hour checking to see if I was alright or if I needed a glass of milk to keep up the energy. After a certain time, she would tell me “Go to bed, whatever you have read will come in the exam, the rest won’t, I can feel it”. I always believed her, not because I didn’t want to study but because she always said it with such conviction.

I have seen her using the same treatment with dad. Whenever dad would get too worried, she would say, “stop thinking, everything will be fine, I can feel it” and instantly I would see my dad’s features relax and that smile pop on his face that probably meant “I know things wont be fine but I am glad for the support”.

Moods and personality traits are a result of a lot of things. A study I had done on myself two years back for a month has proved that. In my flash of creative inspiration I decided to chart my mood for a month on an excel sheet which I felt was an easier way out from writing journals. The results were interesting.

Though I could not continue my mood charting for long, I now know that oversleeping is bad for me, there are certain times of the day, when I am at the top of my form in energy and mood. I was happy to know that I was happy person during that month. The only time I got angry was when it was a culmination of bad mood that continued for a while.

Newsflash: This chart only takes just a minute to fill up every night. Though my mood chart originated from failure to write my usual journals which took up more time each day, I found out later that mood charting is actually a good way to record events chronologically and will help to report mood and symptoms to clinician more efficiently. After a few months, the mood chart can be a useful tool for looking to the future.

A proper clinical mood chart would look like this or this.

Miss You: Babies and All

Here is a picture of me on a tiny temporary island formed in the middle of the Jamuna river taken two weeks ago. The calm atmosphere captured in the picture had instilled in me a feeling of extreme harmony and peace and had assisted me to overcome the stressful workload this forthnight.

But suddenly today, amidst the rush of daily life, I missed having my old and dear friends from school around me, especially the ones who live so far away from this place and city.

The thought was triggered when I received four baby pictures today. One from each of my close friends and relatives. And suddenly, I missed them all. The young ones who have turned out looking just like their parents, the parents who want me to go and visit them and the relatives who assume I dont have enough time to miss them.

So, here's a note. No matter how busy my life might get, there will always be a time when a void will be felt and I will reminisce those good old school days and those good old school friends. So now, no matter where they are, in my mind's eye, they are the same as ever, a walk through memory lane will always bring them in tune with my thoughts. After all, no one knows what tomorrow will bring. “Que Sera, Sera” (“What will be, will be” ).

A Thought

When I was a kid I used to say, "When I grow up I want to be." Then while I wasn't paying attention, one day, childhood snuck away from me and suddenly I found myself up. I wasn't as prepared as I would like to have been. Who am I kidding? I wasn't prepared at all. I looked out into the world and for the first time I took notice of the pressures that lay before me. They're everywhere. Pressure to act, pressure to try, pressure to follow, pressure to become. The list is too long. Even though no one ever has to really say a word because we have enough criticism within ourselves to pressure us for a lifetime. It's true we are the hardest on ourselves than anyone else.

It's hard enough trying to be still for five minutes when drive-thru's and microwaves aren't fast enough anymore. Suddenly life has become a race and we've fallen into the trap of comparing. But to who's standard? And are standards supposed to change? Because every time I turn around the world has a new set. Loose morals. That's what they are. It's whatever feels comfortable; whatever feels good. It's being spread across the entire earth like a sick disease, and the killer? Conformity.

And then there's disappointment. It likes to walk by your side when you hit that age when you're not where you pictured yourself to be twenty, ten, or five years ago. That's when you have to learn to ease up on yourself and make contentment your friend because no matter how many years we live, we still have a while to go. And no matter how many struggles, sufferings or mistakes we go through we still have a lot more of those coming our way too. So after all is thought through you reach a point where you realize that "In me I Trust" really wasn't just a nice quote to decorate our memory.

Yesterday someone asked me, in all seriousness, what I want to be when I grow up. At first I laughed at the feeling I got of being a kid again. I haven't been asked that question for about fifteen years. It got me thinking though. No matter how many times I didn't meet my expectations there's always been room for another chance. I've just recently come to realize that age is not the issue. The issue is we can be whatever we want to be, and we can start today by working towards it, never conforming to what we don't believe in.

“"You are today where your thoughts have brought you, you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you." James Allen, author

The House of 1000 Mirrors

I have always believed that the world is always a beautiful place when you feel you are beautiful. When I am happy, I love everyone and everything around me but when I am upset, I feel others are too. Once discovered such a theory, I have decided that one day, I shall and I want to be one of those old women with laugh lines and twinkling crinkles beneath a pair of sparkling eyes.

Today, someone sent me this forward and I thought I would add it to my blog.

Long ago in a small, far away village, there was place known as the House of 1000 Mirrors. A small, happy little dog learned of this place and decided to visit. When he arrived, he bounced happily up the stairs to the doorway of the house.

He looked through the doorway with his ears lifted high and his tail wagging as fast as it could. To his great surprise, he found himself staring at 1000 other happy little dogs with their tails wagging just as fast as his. He smiled a great smile, and was answered with 1000 great smiles just as warm and friendly. As he left the House, he thought to himself, "This is a wonderful place. I will come back and visit it often."

In this same village, another little dog, who was not quite as happy as the first one, decided to visit the house. He slowly climbed the stairs and hung his head low as he looked into the door.When he saw the 1000 unfriendly looking dogs staring back at him, he growled at them and was horrified to see 1000 little dogs growling back at him. As he left, he thought to himself, "That is a horrible place, and I will never go back there again."

All the faces in the world are mirrors. What kind of reflections do you see in the faces of the people you meet?

Bengali New Year in Red

Bengali New Year 1414, marks the beginning of cheer, happiness, friendship and joyous moments with colleagues, friends and bengali sweets.

Bengali New Year 1414: A personal glimpse

Motto: Never give up!

Memorable Moments: Best new year in the last five years! Woke up late, gave up trying to wear a sari and visit a parlor to have a Bengali new year hairstyle. Was late for a corporate lunch. Taxi cab broke down in the middle of the road, forgot to carry a hair brush along, so I had my hair flying like a flag all over the place. Ran across the road to hail a rickshaw which had a sliding seat so I had to really hang on tight to a frail hood.

That was the bad part, than came the good part.

* Attended the wonderful free corporate lunch with my close friend Imti on the occasion of Boishaki at Lake Shore hotel. A complete four course meal consisting of at least 20 "barthas". I have to watch my weight again!

* Wore bright red to commemorate this auspicious day. I guess the red shalwar propelled the sales manager at the hotel to "pass on" the bouquet of flowers to wish me a bengali new year.

* Met up with Sabiha and Munta along with Imti and celebrated this day over sumptious coffee mocha at Bon Cafe.

* Came to office to work on a project, which I could not have done at home otherwise.

Still Have to:

* Have dinner with my troupe Rica and Co.

* Complete office work so that I can have free time to have fun at the office New Year celebrations to be held at the office tomorrow where I do have to wear a sari.

* Spend some time with my parents tonight and perhaps share a little daily gossip.

* Complete my project work and study for an exam and a final project presentation tomorrow right after work.

Life is short, so with just a little time-management and priority based schedule, I am trying to adjust this Happy Bengali New Year day with memories to treasure. Lets hope I can sleep off the 'burn out effect' after a day!

Bengali Novo Borsho Wish: "Noboborsho apnader shundor jibone boe anuk anabil sukh ar sommriddhi. Shundor hok agamir dingulo, ei shuvo kamonai".