Thursday, December 17, 2015

Of kindness and courage

There are certain things I have come to realize over the past few months I have spent at home. First, it's difficult to care and love. It takes effort but if you can do that it makes you happy and improves your life. So, even when everything around seems hazy and uncertain, if you can have good intentions and keep doing things, you will be fine. Just believe in yourself and that you are capable of loving and worthy of love and connection. As Gary Zukav says in his book, it's not possible for anything in the universe to be unloved and unconnected. This also reminds me of what Cinderella's mom says to her in the Disney movie on her death bed - be kind and courageous. And the first step is to start with being kind to yourself.

Thursday, August 27, 2015

Pause and observe

The last I appeared here, I was planning a party and cooking meals for 20-30 people. It was a good time. It was a good time. I loved my work, was really making progress with my running (6 miles a day....not bad....ehhh) and had good friends. I was also starting to realize things about myself. What makes me happy, what are my insecurities and complexes and so on. Then, in the month of July, it all came to a break and I had to shift base for reasons outside my control. I have a hypothesis that when I refuse to learn a lesson that life tries to teach me the first time, I get another opportunity to learn it again.

Last year during the summer, I was frustrated because I couldn't join work for a long time. I didn't focus on the beautiful city around me. So, this year I had to take a break from work and move back home. I guess this is the opportunity to learn myself and try to become what I have always aspired for. There are small things that I always aspired for but never really did them because I was lazy.  Now is the perfect opportunity to get those straight.

I also will be making travel plans for when I go back. The plan is to go backpacking through Europe. Yaay!

Monday, February 23, 2015

Men vs Women as party guests

Before I start writing the blogpost, I just want to send out the disclaimer that I am not a big fan of the Sheryl Sandberg school of Lean-In feminism. I do believe that women don't need to start behaving like men to make a mark for themselves. Or may be they do. May be all SS says is that IF you want to break the glass ceiling, watch out for these things that might be keeping you from attaining your goals. No matter, what the suggestion course of action for women is, I do believe that there is a marked difference in the way men and women perceive the world around them. No I am going in the broad sweeping generalization territory but men seem to come from a position of entitlement in most situations.

Now, coming back to the real point. I recently had a party and invited a bunch of my friends- men and women. It was a pretty homogeneous mix of MBA graduates working for big firms in their late twenties or early thirties. Most of them had were related to me by a shared workplace or grad school. So, I send out this invite announcing that I will be cooking. I heard from most women I invited asking whether I need any help from them. I heard from very few men and the only thing they asked about was whether I will have the live streaming for India vs South Africa world cup cricket match. You see the difference. Women felt grateful that someone was going to spend a day preparing for a party for them. Men took it as a given and wanted to know if they can enjoy the match or not. I do understand that men are more ardent fans of sports. But these guys didn't suggest the TV streaming as a solution they can help with. They didn't ask whether I would have a TV that accepted HDMI inputs. They just wanted to know if they can watch their match or why else would they waste their time. I know I am being a little harsh here but if you boil the reality to bare bones, harsh is what it sounds like.