A light in the darkness

I would like to begin this session with a short experience of mine. Recently, I have been attached to a team of members who are highly enthusiastic and goal-oriented. I had a detailed task to finish. Though, with a timeline and proper instructions, I always complete my work on time, this time my work was interrupted by to many uninformed changes frequently. I have been trying to make it look better and better, which has made me invest the most of my time. This overwork has started eating me, and I was losing interest in something I had loved and cherished the whole of my life. I was eagerly waiting for this project to finish, and I had decided that I would not work with this team again because I was not getting time to revive my own worn-out soul. I need time for myself to work well.  Now, when the work is finished, I feel like I am left with no work. Luckily, my friend gave me a few of his pending jobs, which he is not able to manage well with his schedule. My friend is not a chasin

Knock on the door of a poor person; they will wail for all the wrong life has imposed upon them—scarcity of food, space, and money. Stroll and be a part of the congregation of the most affluent and rich crowd, and still you will hear the rumination of missing love and care, ignorance, and even an ample amount of time for family. We all have our own share of misfotunes and wrongs shielding our way to success. None of us are immune to this victim wand. A victim card is a state of being in which one feels constantly oppressed, wronged, and mistreated without having the desire to do anything to counteract said oppression, wrongdoing, and/or mistreatment.  What matters here is how we handle these situations of victimhood. Carl Jung says: "I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become." What happened was my past. It has already been lived. What has to happen has already happened. No element of it can make a difference at this moment. I have to decide: Do I want to dwe

Religion is the guiding light. It isa sett of beliefs, practices, and systems that we have adopted from the belief and worship of a controlling force like God or a supernatural being. We all have our own religions and belief systems.  The world is full of all kinds of people, and understanding them is essential. Religion is something that talks about your personal journey with God. Does this really happen? I have found very few people who really impart the knowledge of religion as it is; the rest just preach their own needs and demands. I will quote a verse from the Bible that points out this: "Be on guard of the yeasts of Pharisees and Sadducees." Bible; Matt 16:6 Here, yeast of pharisees and sadduces means the teaching these people give you. If you see the story of Jesus, the common man had no problem with the teachings of Jesus; rather, it was the pharisees and sadducees (the people at high posts in the temple) who found it wrong and told all not to follow because they di

We all face stress and anxiety. Isn't it? Let me begin with an example. At times I do spend time without thinking, for which I am still being checked. So, one day I went to the mall, and there were those alluring long earrings that were calling me. However I tried to ignore it, it would show me its elegance, and I finally bought it. When I reached home, I quietly slipped in and put my earrings in my wardrobe. After a few months, when no one noticed it, I put it on and elegantly roamed about without getting a scolding.  We all plan and plot such escapes on a daily basis. This is where we have defense  mechanisms . Many of these defense mechanisms we use unconsciously in order to protect our ego and avoid uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, and impulses. Sigmund Freud was the one to discuss them first. He pointed out 10 such mechanisms. One of them is projection, which we will be discussing in this section. These defense mechanisms are not just ten, but many .  Projection means a perso

I planned to write about this topic two days ago, but when I read it, it drew me to a research paper or a book where something was mentioned about happiness a few months ago when I was working on another project. The strength of that argument is very strong, and I think this place is apt to mention it, so I just could not override this urge of mine. I postponed this writing to search for that paper. When I found it this morning, my heart was on cloud nine. You know that gave me so much satisfaction and happiness that my words fail to express, and this makes the purpose of this segment even more meaningful. We should look for this kind of happiness. So without wasting time, let me take you to the research paper: Don't take an X for a U: Why laughter is not the best medicine but being more cheerful has many benefits.  Until I landed on this page, I also used to advocate for everyone to laugh. I have seen old people gather in the parks and intentionally induce laughter, and I thought

When I wrote this topic today, everything talked about imperfection. This mental battle between perfectionism and imperfectionism made me understand that we are at the wrong end. Let me clarify what I really mean by this. When you go to school, does your teacher expect you to master everything on day one? The answer is no. For this reason only, assessments are towards the end of the term. I remember my brother and sister joining the drawing class. They are good artists because they have worked on it for ages, and I never did, so I am still imperfect in it.  I still remember the days when I went to do machine embroidery. My teacher first said to make straight, concentric circles without stopping. The first day was, oh! Nothing was going well. Not even one line was straight. This is where we all are. We begin with imperfection. We were three people there, learning. All were my senior madams, and I was the junior most. We all practiced every alternate day. After a few days, my circles w

When I thought of writing about the game of materialism that plays in our lives, I was immediately drawn to one of the English stories I read, ' The umbrella man ' by Roald Dhal. For all who have forgotten this story, I will give a quick recap. This story talks about a girl and her mother who visited a dentist. While they were returning, it was raining, and they were waiting for a cab when they were approached by an old man. This man asked for a favor by requesting $20 as a taxi fare in lieu of the silk umbrella he had. The mother was usually suspicious of strangers. So she used her first golden rule: "The nicer the man seems to be, the more suspicious you must become." This old man was really nice because he was polite, well-spoken, and well-dressed. He was really a gentle man. She knew this because her mother used her second golden rule to access it: "You can always spot a gentleman by the shoes he wears." (This is the reason I picked this story.) The stor

Why am I talking about masks and labels? I do not wear one.  Let us explore. Sociology studies man in his social environment. It says that man has many roles to play when he is inhabiting this earth. He acts like a father, son, husband, manager, leader, etc. He is not just one person but many in one. What is this?  Let me introduce you to Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung and his take on the various roles we play. He says that we are not born as a blank slate where we can write anything. He introduced the concept of archetypes . Archetypes are a universal, inborn eidolon of a person, their behaviors and personalities that ultimately influence their behavior. In short, it is the innate human knowledge that is transferred from our ancestors. One such archetype is  "persona," which means mask. He elaborates, saying that persona is the way we present ourselves to the world, i.e., the innumerable social masks we don among various groups and situations. Over time, we get so stuck in th

We are all quite well versed in the benefits of information technology in our lives. Isn't it? So I will directly jump into how we hide from ourselves using information technology.  Planning to write about this topic drew me to one of the most famous practices I have heard: "When you get up in the morning, we should  see our palms first. " This had been our ritual for ages. Do you all remember this? I can hear a faint no.  Around fifteen years ago, when I had a dumb phone, my usual ritual was to get up, pray, meditate, reflect on the day, get energized, and begin the day. This practice has helped me a lot to keep myself calm and composed, and at the same time, it has always helped me to connect to myself. Without fail, I used to do this every day, but now my day begins with WhatsApp, Google, and Youtube. Even after checking messages, I do sit for prayer and meditation; my eyes are always on the phone, and just one popup and my heart beating, 'What's the message?&#

Today, I will open my conversation with Noel Fielding's quote:  "Reality depresses me, and I need to find fantasy worlds to escape them." We are all in this one or the other day. The real thing makes us mad and overwhelms us. Many times, we find it hard to take and feel we are on the verge of breaking down. Am I right or not? Let me emphasize this with an example. I remember my school days when we had to read a whole book for exams. It was really tiring and stressful. At times, I used to feel that the lives of dogs and cats were much better than mine because they did not have to study. I used to wish I was born like them during my exams. This was my way of running away from reality by fantasizing about my world. So, all the while, I was dreaming of being a dog, which gave me much relaxation over the overwhelming stress that was pressing on me. The main illusion of all these voluntary fantasies is that we are in control of the external event. I think Richard Ricks words ca

We are all aware of what it means to be a failure. Right. When we fail, we all feel low, dejected, and even incapable for a while, but after this initial phase of failure, we try to find out ways to encourage ourselves to fight this failure and fathom it. For example, I still remember my first day when I pricked my friend to draw blood. It did not come, and she was feeling so much pain. Fear struck me about whether I would do it or not. A small corner in my brain has woven beautiful stories of failures and is saying to me constantly: "You cannot do it.  You are not capable of it.  See, your syringe failed to prick the nerve, so there was no blood.  Leave it. It is not your cup of tea.  First, learn better, then focus on the practical. You are useless." Later on, my friend, who herself was good at these, taught me how to find veins and then prick and collect blood. I could do it myself as well. This only happened because I did not submit to the lies that were rumbling in my he

 We are all familiar with forgetting.  The fight that you had with your friend ruined your friendship. You just want to erase it from your memory. The guilt of not being able to take good care of your parents sucks you up, and so you don't want to remember. War veterans often face PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and find it difficult to live a normal life. They earnestly seek a delete button to put an end to all raging and haunting memories. There are many such small, yet painful, memories that we do not want to remember. So, we find that forgetting has a pretty good track record of maintaining peace and harmony in our lives. These reminds me of Fredrich Nietzsche words: "Without forgetting it is quite impossible to live at all." School days are another example. Sitting in the examination hall and stressing a lot to remember what I studied on that page to grab 10 marks. In the cultural evening, "I forgot my dialogue seeing the big crowd" is not uncommon.