Monday 22 June 2015

Beauty of life lies in diversity

Rainbow Enclosing the Aircraft Shadow 

Ever wondered why reflections cannot be the exact same realities of life?

Recently, I came across this interesting picture shown above, shared by my college friend. While on her way back home, to USA from India, she saw a pretty rainbow in the sky. With excitement, she took out her camera to capture that beautiful moment, just when she noticed another smaller aircraft, flying parallel to the one she was travelling in. It took her only a few seconds; to realize that it wasn’t another aircraft, but the shadow of the same aircraft she was travelling in!

Similar to her perception which lasted only a few seconds; don’t we all want to see a part of us in others; in our friends, relatives, co-workers or our children? Or isn’t this how we perceive our shadow in other people to be a reality? Even when we are building new relationships or trying to be in sync with the existing ones, we are constantly trying to find a piece of ourselves in the other. Quite often, we try to identify their traits, habits, choices and approach etc. with that of ours.

Unfortunately, most often the people who fall prey to such perceptions are our children. Just because our children are with us for the initial part of their life, (like a shadow) they really can't be driven by our choices and habits. If we fail to accept the differences in their opinions choices, likes and capabilities then we definitely have chosen to invite frictions in our relationship. This friction starts seeping in, when our kids get into ‘teenage’ and it gets really rough if we still do not identify their differences and give them the freedom of choice to ‘be’ just ‘who’ they are. A recent example, of this failure by a parent was reported in the Times of  India Newspaper last week(TOI - June, 2015), where an engineering third year student committed suicide by jumping from top floor of his residence building because he wanted to study sociology and he was forced to study engineering by his  parents.

This doesn't mean we do not discipline our children for what is ‘right’, but at the same time we need to agree to disagree sometimes and understand that each and every soul on this earth is unique and has a unique part to play on this world stage, in this eternal drama called, life. To have a strong, healthy and a lasting relationship, we need to realize that every individual is as different as his/her finger prints or retina impressions and; so are the soul impressions (traits, karmic accounts) of each actor on this world stage different. 

If we accept people without any resistance for "who" they are and enjoy the diverse human nature, having diverse habits, traits, capabilities  and choices, then we surely can excel in our interpersonal skills at work and at home. After all, we all love colors in the rainbow, don't you?

Hence, the beauty of life lies in diversity.

Monday 15 June 2015

I Believe I Can Fly…

Why do we all have attachments with "My Firsts" in our life?

Quite often we hear out people connecting in the middle of a talk with their "firsts" like my first job, my first car, my first house, my first pet etc. etc. 

Why do people adore their firsts more than what they have now which is much better over the antique pieces that they used to have?

I still remember how my first job gave me a boost of being somebody and how my first car gave me loads of joy of being independent on the wheels. The firsts are always special in our lives no matter how tiny or obsolete they may look now or even then. But we always keep our firsts in our fondest of memories. :)

While doing a retrospect on the reasons of this fondness of people over firsts, I reconcile here as some of the reasons that came out for my attachments towards my firsts is firstly, the feeling of “self-worth” or fulfillment that the firsts gave are much more at an index level than the next ones in our life. Secondly, the effort that went into making it happen is much more than the next ones, this effort quotient is most definitely directly proportionate to how we value something that we get in our life. Lastly and most importantly it’s the desire or the passion to get there as a milestone is what is making it hold a very special place in our life’s journey.

So, if we want to collect more such fond memories similar to our firsts then we continuously need to challenge and break our own limits that we set for ourselves in whatever that we are doing and keep on flying to explore the new and direct our efforts towards it that makes it worthwhile to achieve and this is how we reach our peak potential i.e. self-actualization and hence, I Believe I can Fly.