I am not a new year wish, resolution making, partying kind of a person. Usually. Till recently, I would not even understand what the fuss was all about. The need to suddenly  celebrate just because we switched to a new desk calender seemed a tad excessive. My resolutions come in bursts throughout the year and so, there was no urgent need to make one on January, the first!I have zero tolerance for alcohol, so I cannot drink champagne and bring in the new year in style. My brain switches off at ten thirty sharp, so I cannot watch late night tv shows  welcoming in the new year! In short, apart from wishing everyone the next morning, I had pretty much no excitement in the concept.

2015 has been a mixed bag for me. It has been a time of major upheavals both personal and otherwise,  subtly changing the way I think. I like to call myself the idealistic pessimist. I always believe that Utopian ideals work well, but am pessimistic when they do not work out in a realistic material world. Like say, world peace!!:). Therefore, this year and its shenanigans made me more pessimistic than usual. What with intolerance debates, the lynching controversy, multiple bans, the Syrian refugee crisis, Delhi pollution levels,the Nirbhaya convict who got away, the drought…. You get the drift. (I do not want you to sink into depression on new year day).

I was at that point in life where anything good would feel as if it had been rigged to feel so, and anything bad, was meant to happen anyway. And that’s when I saw this video, which someone sent me on whatsapp.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnlULOjUhSQ&gt&gt;

The video is not colorful nor has nothing of surprise value.

It just shows a electron microscopic picture of how one human white blood cell is hell bent upon killing a bacterium which has entered the system.

Watching this video sort of changed something within me. Imagine that everyday, so many such cells within our body and nature keep on doing their work, without actually thinking of the big picture. Just efficient, sincere work with single minded dedication.

With zero appreciation from our end, no bonuses or pay hikes or fancy holidays (or new year parties, for that matter). To top it all, we try our best to harm our system by eating trash, falling sick and generally not taking care of ourselves that well. But , the system still works, with no complaints whatsoever.

My perspective of life shifted ever so little. Whenever someone would tell me that I have been lucky in my life, I usually would have had a long list of complaints to convince them otherwise. I was set upon proving to myself and the world that I was not all lucky.

This year, I think I am. To be alive enough to enjoy this day, to enjoy my health and my family, for my senses which add spice to my world (and spectacles to my eyes(:) for those tiny tiny cells within my body who work with such miraculous perfection, so that I can dream of a future.

Being alive is an opportunity to cause change and be the change.Lets tap into our dreams or make new ones  and work hard on them, like those tiny cells do.

And before I start sounding like a life style guru spouting isms, I wish you all a very happy new year.

I so do want to celebrate it this time!

The proverb “When it rains, it pours” seems apt for this week. From not blogging for the past two months to three posts within the span of one week is overwhelming even for me!The reason for this post is because of a pleasant surprise that I got from a fellow blogger Laura. Actually, cut that. It was really exciting, happening and great surprise. I was humbled to have been nominated for the Liebster Award by Laura from the blog “<http://Riddle from the middle>”.

Thank you so much Laura. This is my first award nomination ever, and I am humbled and happy to have received it.

Going by the rules:

• Write a post thanking and linking the person who nominated you for the Liebster Award.  Include the Liebster Award sticker in your post or on your blog.
• Nominate 5-10 other bloggers for the award and notify them in one of their posts.
• All nominated bloggers are to have less than 200 followers.
• Answer the 10 questions posed by your nominator.
• Create 10 questions for your nominees to answer.
• Copy these rules into your post.

The questions given to me by Laura are:

1.If you could choose to take a college class purely for pleasure, what would it be?

I think it would be history and cryptology. The idea comes from Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code. I have been fascinated by history since when I was a kid, and to decipher scriptures and books written in unknown languages and revealing their deep dark (and may be not so dark)secrets is something which makes it so very happening (to me).

2.Why did you become a blogger?

It gave me the freedom of connecting with people all over and sharing my thoughts with them. And because I love to write and was not sure how people around me would accept my writing. Blogging gave me some anonymity at first. Now, I crave likes and comments!

3.What’s the last guilty pleasure you indulged?

As a working mother of two, getting “me time” is somewhere close to the vicinity of impossible. So last time we went for a holiday, I feigned a headache, handed over charge of my kids to my poor unsuspecting husband and finished off my novel in three hours flat without interruptions. Bliss!!

4.Spring, summer, fall, or winter – which is your favorite and why?

Spring and monsoons. Though out of these, I am partial to the “rainy season” as we call it. I love the way the world looks then, all wet, glistening, fresh and green.

5.You unexpectedly get five hours of downtime, no strings attached.  What do you do with it?

Sleep. Or maybe watch  one whole season of“Sherlock” back to back.Or read. Or maybe go out cycling.Or…..

6.What was your first paying job?  Were you good at it?

I joined my current job two months after I finished my post grad and have been here since. So, hopefully,as I have not been asked to leave, I think I may be a teeny weeny bit good at it!

7.You have one million dollars you must donate but you can only give it to a single organization.  What cause do you choose to support?  Why?

This one is a bit difficult to answer. There are so many of them doing such a good job and so much need of funds. I think it would be to a fledgling organization which works for a girl child’s education. Or maybe I’ll start one with the same ideology!

8.What made you self-conscious as a child?

Being the center of attention. The same still holds good.

9.Do you enjoy traveling?  Why or why not?

I so love travelling. Not only the reaching the destination and exploring part, but the actual looking out on to the road for hours and still not getting bored part too. Therefore, I am very bad travel companion. I am too busy romancing the view outside (yes, even at night and even from airplane windows).

10.What’s your morning routine?  What is the one part of that routine you could never give up?

Get up. Brush. Go for a jog. Make breakfast. Cook.Wake the kids. Get them ready.Hurry. Hurry. Hurry. Then get dressed and run for work. I would not miss the brushing part. I am too obsessive for that!

Thanks again for the nomination Laura.

The blogs that I have immensely enjoyed reading and hence nominate are:

1. “http://owlishwriter.com”
2. “http://travelwellflysafe.com”
3. “http://vintage-obsession.com
4. http://noledinmyzeppelin.wordpress.com>
5. http://indiadestinationsblog.wordpress.com>

I really love reading these blogs and hope you do too. The participation of these bloggers in the process is entirely voluntary.

My questions to you are:

1. Which is your all time favorite book and why?
2. Which is the one meal that you will remember all your life and why?
3. If given a chance, whom would you like to swap places with in this world and why?
4. Name one destination that you want an expense paid trip to, and of course, why?
5. When did you realize that you wanted to blog and how fast did you act on it?
6. Have you faced writer’s block and how do you deal with it?
7. Reading, writing or traveling. Pick one.
8. Which is the first book that you remember reading?
9. If you were stuck on a island, what are the five things that you would want with you?
10. What does spiritual mean to you?

Bye for now.

Growing up in the eighties and the nineties meant watching the world change at its fastest. We were whisked from a lazy, calm, slightly meandering time and plopped right into the middle of a whirl of activity. Especially so, after the discovery of the internet, mobile phones and the social network. At the risk of sounding like a dinosaur, I know that my children will not recognize the milieu of my childhood with their own. Now, it feels as if the whole world is constantly buzzing with an information overload, things to do, opportunities popping up every corner, new careers to delve into, and new methods of entertainment! Whew! Where and how do you even relax? There is always something to do or somewhere to go.

Exciting though things are at present, there are times when I miss the old world vibe of my growing up years. With most of my friends  and  cousins living far away or being busy, I rarely get the opportunity to get into the “those were the days “ mould, and therefore unload the charms of my lesser privileged but more fun kind of childhood on to my son, who looks confused and surprised  at a few of the things which I mention! (And when he does that, I feel really really old!).

I know that the world will keep changing and there is no way to stop it. I have lived through many of those changes, in my childhood and teens and adapted. But sometimes I wonder how life would have been if some of the things had remained the same. So that I could experience it again through my children. There were things which made my childhood exciting, and fulfilling and those that probably only children of that decade would understand.

Like owning a tape recorder and buying/borrowing coveted audio casettes.

 was part owner of a really old, origin unknown, sony tape recorder, which was schizophrenic by nature. It would play scratched tapes to perfection, but unspool brand new tapes for no reason at all. It was almost alive, and I swear, I was top one on its hate list. My tapes, no problem. But borrowed tapes from cousin, friend or new… definite unspool, which would require me to sit for ages with a nataraj pencil and rewind the tape carefully back into the cassette. Despite these problems, the pleasure of listening to Alka Yagnik in Qayamat se qayamat tak, Lata mangeshkar croon Dil deewana and ABBA on the old contraption was something I’ll never forget.

Waiting for a trip to Bangalore

Mainly to fulfill all longings to last till the next visit. In my case, books from good old Higginbothams and Gangarams on M.G Road. Vegetable  sizzlers from Sanman. Ice cream from Corner House or Lake View. A visit to Kids Kemp, more for their free welcome drink than to actually buy anything ( most stuff seemed exorbitant anyway!). Meeting up with my favorite cousin and exchanging books. Visiting her circulating library. Every single time, a repetition of the same, but still excited about the trip. Because there was no amazon or home delivery to send all this and more to my doorstep. And the only face book we had was a face of a friend and a book.

The lack of choice.

I’m serious. I recently read somewhere that the brain goes into over drive and chooses wrong when given a multitude of choices. Apparently, the brain is always trying to give you the best choice, but unfortunately, there is no one choice that fulfils all your demands or wishes. There is a great post on a blog, Peas and cougars regarding the same. Hence, life was bliss before ‘too much’ came along. Orange kissan marmalade was exotic, when we had only kissan mixed fruit jam. Maruti was hep, when the rest were cranky ambassadors. Till the third option came, the interest held on between the first two! Shift to now, with big bazaars and hyper marts, nothing is either exciting or exotic after the first time. There is always a craving for something new and something more, which never seems to quell.

Brands that are obsolete now.

Lekhak notebooks, hero pens, bril ink, bata school bags,plastic rain coats with colourful hoods,dayanara tvs with doordarshan playing on all channels, halo shampoo, angry fire arrows of mahabharat and HMV casettes.

Writing letters.

I recently discovered an old box of letters which my parents and friends had written to me when I first went to hostel. It was nice to read actual personal, hand written letters after a long time of reading short text  messages. I do not know whether they still teach letter writing in primary schools. It sure was an important part of our curriculum… leave letters, letter to your friend about your holiday, write to your granny about your school.. etc.etc..This was something I really loved because I could write whatever I wanted, there was no intense preparation required and one could get full marks for this in the exams! Learning how to make money orders, telegrams, or  registered post were important skills in our childhood, the acquisition of which would make us feel a little bit superior to the rest!

The happiness of owning a cycle.

This was one prized possession all of us craved for. The sight of a brand new BSA SLR which at that time cost my parents eight hundred bucks seemed more luxurious than any Mercedes Benz. Learning the art of cycling was done on loaned bicycles so that I would not scratch the paint when I fell off it!

Most of the things described here almost just vanished or faded away in the last decade. Life now is easier, and much more comfortable, but just the thought of these, make me nostalgic. What things of your childhood make you wish for a time machine?

It’s a confusing life- that of a parent. As a mother, I have experienced a multitude of emotions I did not even know that I possessed in the recesses of my heart. After managing in hostel, strictly keeping off tv and books during exams, keeping jobs, getting and staying married, and keeping house, I thought I knew what responsibility was all about. But becoming a mother put a different spin on things altogether. The fact that there are living breathing humans whom you are solely responsible for, and can make decisions about, make it slightly overwhelming. Once a mother, you sort of develop an unexplainable personality change (or disorder?). Let me explain.

I love planning. Every single move of mine, every thought and its corresponding action is planned. The first thing that I do when I wake up is to make a time table for the day. And relish the feeling of ticking off stuff, once it gets done ( I know, I know, I have a personality disorder already!). This is the only routine of mine which has not changed for the past twenty odd years. Or so. Till I became a mother. And realized that the number of unticked items on my list seemed to be growing and things I got done also were haphazardly so. It took me a while to digest this and plan again. So, over the years, now I have started making a plan B and plan C timetables, in case the first one does not work out. Needless to say, my diary now looks like a station master’s at a busy train junction!

I have been through situations where I experience conflicting emotions about the same situation. Like, when my daughter suddenly throws a huge tantrum that I should not leave for work, but spend time with her, I am torn between despair, irritation and some weird sort of happiness. The despair is because the tantrum usually happens with people around, so I worry whether they will judge my parenting. Irritation because, I do love my work and like things neatly sorted – time for work, time for home and time for kids, and do not like it smudged (notice, notice… that there is no ‘time for me’ – which gets written in fine print of the parenting manual and hence you do not read till you are already a parent) And a weird sort of happiness, because there is someone who loves me so much that they do not mind making a big spectacle of it! I’ve never been loved that bad!

I crib about the lack of ‘me time’ and look back nostalgically at those times when reading a book meant sleeping only when it was done, when I could huddle under the razai on cold winter mornings to wake up only when I felt like, travel alone with a backpack on a whim and go out with friends for dinner on weekdays. But when I actually do get some time off like this now, and my kids are not around, I start missing them real bad. I get an urge to read out the nice part of my book to my son, cuddle with my daughter under the razai, crave for my son’s banter on a journey and prefer eating take away noodles from a shared bowl instead of going out. In short, I am not content this way or that!

It’s like I’m not myself anymore. And I do not know what I want.

But after two children, I have made peace with the fact that I will never be the same again. I’m changing with my kids and probably growing into a mom. And, that being a mom entails developing a new kind of personality. In my case, confused, frazzled at times, but absolutely loving it!

Today, I am feeling nice. And also have a serious case of writing diarrhea (like the verbal kind)! I have wanted to blog for so long, that now I just cant seem to stop writing! It was a hectic week at work, and now the long awaited weekend. So just a light hearted post for the weekend.

All of us have favorites in life. A favorite in my definition is someone or something which has a highly reliable index to get you out of a funk almost always.  This morning, I was humming the famous song from the movie “The Sound of Music”, where the governess to the seven children sings a song about how raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens happen to be her favorites. Out of nowhere, I had an inexplicable urge to put down a list of things which constituted my favorites(at least to check out whether they were as poetic as hers were!).

The list of ten was difficult to make because I am notoriously undecided. I feel like including a zilllion things which would probably be irrelevant. So I have cut it down to things which I define as giving me a feeling close to euphoria, some things which calm me down and invigorate me at the same time and do not lose their charm even after being repeatedly used as my favorites. So here goes…

The smell of wet earth after the first shower of monsoon.. wish I could capture that fragrance and store it for a time when I want to feel nice! Wonder why no one has ever thought of a perfume of such a kind!

1. Drinking cold water after long hours of work/coming back from the market/after exercising.The burst of cold air that cools my face when I open the fridge, and the anticipation of my thirst ending..I feel like Katrina Kaif in the slice ad.. ecstatic!
2. The smell of wet earth after the first shower of monsoon.. wish I could capture that fragrance and store it for a time when I want to feel nice! Wonder why no one has ever thought of a perfume of such a kind!

3. Palak paneer, rice and coke with a nice mystery read!

4. The first bite of dairy milk silk….yum!

5.The feeling I get when I get to speak to my close friend after a long long time

6. Unexpected but well deserved (I think)praise

7.A particular note of some songs…it may be a line with some lovely lyrics, or the way             the singer has worked the words with her voice or a particular line of music which                 sticks in my mind and remains a favorite. (I have a lot of these,and have a habit of                digressing, hence will not elaborate)

8.The smell of a book and bookshops- always!

9.When my children smile in their sleep—I take a lot of pics of these, so I can look at                them and feel soppy!

10. When I get lot of traffic on my blog..he, he just kidding… the last one but not the                   least is when I see nature in its unspoiled state. I would rate this the best. I just love             to sit and stare for hours when its rains hard or when I am travelling through                         jungles. The sense of calm that it gives me is enormous.My troubles just fade away              and I get clear headed.

The best part about making the list was that, just remembering all these things have made me slip into a great mood. Therefore thought I will share this with you… do let me know about your favorites too…have a great weekend!

One of the dictionary meanings of pride is “consciousness of one’s own dignity”. Of prejudice is “preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience”. Well, I am not thinking of reviewing Jane Austen’s famous book by the same name. Nor am I turning to English grammar lessons to fill in my blog posts. The reason why I thought this caption for my post is based on  a very relevant experience which I want to share with you.

Recently, we had been to a very hip and hep flea market.The place was filled with people casually strutting in designer clothes, designer shoes, designer sunglasses and selling other forms of designer stuff! After roaming around for quite some time, we sat down in the dining tents. The table next to us had a group of young women close to my age, who, needless to say were one among the designer wear group( not that I have anything against this, but what I wanted to stress upon is the fact that these were definitely people who had basic education,access to social media, television, newspapers and books). One among these had a small child of say about four years, sitting in a pram. Also a part of the entourage were two young servant girls, one to push the pram and one to hold on to all the shopping bags.

The women ordered a large amount of food and started to eat. The mother of the child (rather rudely) called on to the hired help(somehow I find the word “servant”, extremely creepy) to feed her son. As any child of four, the boy was restless in his pram and fussy due to the heat. The girl tried in vain to feed him, but was largely unsuccessful. The mother then asked the girl to chuck all the uneaten food in the waste bin. I cringed, but kept looking. Both the girls looked longingly at the food but did as was instructed. Then the mother gave some money to the girl. I was a little pacified that she was feeding them, but then I realised that she had sent them to buy a bottle of cola. Till everyone finished, both the girls stood next to the table. No one offered them a seat. (There were plenty of chairs around). The girls also did not think of it as out of place.They kept standing till the very end, when the mother and her friends finished, got up and took the child. Then, both the girls sat down on the lawn, opened their small tiffins and ate from them.

I consider myself very just and therefore was suitably upset at this gross injustice. I was fuming when I mentioned this to my husband. He just told me that I was an equal party to the injustice. The least I could do was to get up, take a chair and offer it to the girls.This took me aback. And made me sad. And question my sense of ‘just’ness.

It seemed to me that he was right. We have such deeply ingrained notions of how our domestic help should behave, that even despite all our understanding and education, we subconsciously consider ourselves somehow superior to them. There are small things which almost all of us practice.. eg. Not allowing the domestic help to sit on the sofas, expecting them to wait for us to serve them food which they have cooked for us in the first place, feeding them leftovers which we do not eat ourselves, not giving them a room in the house ( most end up sleeping in halls and corridors or kitchens), and expecting them to wait on our every whim!

And worse, most of our help even believe that this is what they deserve!None of them rebel. Even though we know it is wrong, we allow such things to continue. We excuse ourselves saying that we continue on with this practice because we cannot afford to upset everyone in the extended family(labelled in laws, parents, grannies and the like)  or that the maid does not mind or that we have never asked the maid not to sit on the sofa. (But we didn’t ask her to sit on it either!) In the process, we become party to an important human rights violation!

Recent International labour organiztion(ILO) estimates based on national surveys and census in 117 countries, place the number of domestic workers at around 53 million. But experts say that due to the fact that this kind of work is often hidden and unregistered, the total number of domestic workers could be as high as 100 million. The ILO also states that 83% of domestic workers are women and many are migrant workers.In India itself, there are approximately 4.2 million domestic workers.To put things in perspective, this is the population of the whole of Bangalore!

There are no laws to protect their rights, no minimum wages, no minimum or maximum age limit, no freedom to express anger, frustration or any other emotion and no actual definition of what their work does not include!

Even people whom we have chosen to represent our country internationally, have been offenders this way. Though there was a huge hue and cry when IFS officer and doctor Devyani Khobragade was strip searched by the US officials, not many went into the fact that she had in fact committed a fraud by taking a servant disguised as family, probably so she could pay a lesser wage (the excuse being that anything she earns here would be more than what she earned in India), and made her to work really abnormal hours without respite even during times when she was ill! But there were only few protests in Sangeeta Richards favor(that is the maid-I bet not many knew her name either). So getting an education really makes no difference.

This took me back to Arvind Adiga’s “The white tiger” which tells a rags to riches story of a small town boy who works as a hired help. He ends up becoming a goon and exploiting people whom he had served, in spite! In short,he got turned from an decent person into a sociopath!

There is a concept in psychology called “learned helplessness”, which says that when someone is made to face trouble constantly without the sight of an end, over a period of time, the person learns to accept that problem without rebelling or trying to find a solution to it. In short, he becomes a zombie!

Sometimes, I feel that we are responsible for turning our household help into either sociopaths or zombies, just because of our pride and prejudice. No law can help unless the change come from within our hearts to accept them as our equals(sometimes superiors- my help can make better dosa batter than I can ever expect to!)and to give them the dignity that they deserve.

This post was because in my sense of misplaced pride that I, could not interfere in someone else’s affairs, I did gross injustice. If I can reduce the prejudice any one mind, I think I can consider it my repentance!

Inspiration is essential to all of us. When we get up each day to the same old routine of living, we need someone or something to make us enthusiastic, happy and wanting. To me, inspiration always came when I read about women who have braved the odds to make a mark in life. When I would feel  low and  dejected, reading inspirational life stories worked well as antidepressants. Reading articles on facebook of women who made it big past the age of 35 made me even happier! No, I would not call that feeling happy exactly. But, it was a mixture of anxiety, happiness and hope that maybe I could do more. On talking with a few friends, I realized that a lot of them used the same tactic to go through the drill of a busy working mother life.

So, stories of Malala Yousafzai, J.K.Rowling,Laxmi (the acid attack victim), Sunitha Krishnan(the activist working against child traffiking) and the like were a part of my staple diet.

Lately, I have been realizing that though there are many women who have been celebrated and awarded for their great achievements, there were many more whom we met in our everyday life who do not even realize that they are worthy of such honors.

Long struggling wives of alcoholic patients who suffer domestic abuse, manage work and educate their children, mothers of mentally challenged children who harbor part guilt and part hope that their children may be part of a miracle cure, women who go in for reversal of tubectomies at their families’ behest because one child died ( the trauma of surgery as well as the loss of the child with them to bear), wives of men who live in the middle east  who have to live separate from their husbands within days of marriage only to stay with and care for their in laws and children without a thought for their dreams, and so the list goes on.

Early on in my married life, any activity apart from my routine which I undertook  would make me crave for attention, a small pat on the back and a golden star to be given by my husband or the benefactor of that deed for the extra effort that I put in. I would put on my martyr act (as though I had sacrificed my all important time without anyone appreciating it)with a long face and all if it were not forthcoming.

In comparison, an average Indian middle class working woman, who apart from working hard in her office or workplace, also manages to take care of a household full of elders and children, cook for them, micro manage finances, socialize, make sure that her children are studying well, perform ritualistic poojas, and manage to balance herself on a two wheeler in a sari with vegetable bags in front and two kids pillion. All this, without feeling that it deserves accolades. It’s all in days work!

This, despite the injustices meted out to them in multiple ways. A household of archaic orthodox rules, a husband who does not speak one loving word, postpartum periods when they have to leave their children with mothers who stay in far off villages to report back to work,handle pestering mothers in law, battling bad vibes from relatives if it happens to be a love marriage(strangely these vibes do not apply to the boy in concern, though he is very much a part of this marriage!) etc, etc..

Hence, nowadays, my inspiration has changed. Every morning I see inspiring faces around me.. from the road sweeping municipality worker to the maid in my house to the women staff in our hospital to the vegetable seller and to all the fantastic women I am related to. All of them seem special and worthy of the highest acclaim in the world. Each has battled their own odds and come out successful and smiling!Now, I don’t have to look far for my daily fix of enthusiasm. Thanks to all the super women around me!

It is called thought diffusion in psychiatric lingo. It is that weird feeling you get when what you thought was already there in the world as a part of someone else’s thoughts. It was as if there was a doppelganger who was living your life and suddenly, you got to know about him/her.

Recently, I was in a phase where I was utterly disappointed in how I was handling my life. Life seemed regular, mundane and so very average. I craved for newness, was always cribbing about how life was not what I expected.If someone told me to be thankful for the blessings that life had given me, I would have gladly snapped their head off. In short, I was having a mid life crisis. Or what I thought was midlife crisis. In my twenties, I had thought about a life of social service, idealism and  simplicity. And here I was now, not even close to what my dreams were. Yes, I  have a very comfortable life, a great job, lovely children and am not in dire need of money. So logically, I should have been happier, more comfortable and appreciate what life had given me. Instead, I was cranky, irritable and not sleeping well at night. Whenever I read things about how people had followed their dreams and now were ecstatically  happy about it,my mood would worsen.

It was then, that I chanced upon this book “The happiness project”. Bingo! The first few lines of the book echoed what I was feeling exactly. The book, written by Gretchen Rubin, a lawyer by profession and a full time writer now, has chronicled how she went through life’s motions dysthymic, till she started on a happiness project for a year. Things which she could not change were left the same, but there were a million things which could be worked on in small tiny steps which gave a her happy feeling.

There were many things in the book which sort of did not apply to my setting. But the book and its concept held great appeal. The fog in my head seemed to clear and I was left with new enthusiasm where I knew that I was not alone and yes, there was a way to get out of this self made rut.

For those who have felt this discomfort and inertia in life, I would now think a happiness project of your own is a great idea. First of all, all that you have to do is to make a list of twelve important things that you mean to change in yourself to become happier ( well, yes, this project does not include bringing about change in others’ behavior unless you change yours first)and break it down to small directives that you ritualistically follow until it becomes a habit. For example, if you always wanted to be a clean, organized person, ten minutes of cleaning everyday with a goal in sight may make you feel  jubilant as soon as the goal is reached.

The idea is definitely not new. Psychotherapy, cognitive behavior therapy, zen, and a million other religions have sure theorized on this, but to apply it to today time and social structure, that is the key.

Most of us keep materialistic goals like buying a car or a house or going on a holiday as a source of gaining happiness. This is true to an extent, but to keep happiness as an end goal and personally work for it with sincerity that you would put for say a job or a deadline, that is something new.

I am beginning my happiness project now on, let me know about yours.