Saturday, November 5, 2016

28.

It's almost 3 hours to go for my 28th birthday and it's been such a mixed-up, mish mash of a day...ermm..year!

I didn't want to write a reflective post, and this blog is usually my happy place, but I feel like for once it's time to be a tad reflective.

Or maybe, maybe, it is time to get up onto some rooftops and shout to myself - "Look how far you've come! Look at where you're standing!"

These days I am so very fascinated with the concepts of happiness and sadness. How social construct affects our perceptions of our life. How some people manage to be genuinely, intensely, carelessly happy, inspite of every hardship life throws at them; and how others tend to drown in sadness at every little hitch (or perceived shortcoming) in their path.

I wonder at how difficult it really is to change your inner equilibrium; the one you were born with and/or acquired over the years; to change that and to train yourself into becoming something you're not. We read and know of so many inspiring, amazing success stories. People who have seen and overcome unforeseeable circumstances. All of us know someone like that - either in our personal lives or in the form of persons we've admired; stories we've read about.

People, in general, tend to persevere. People shine. People go on. People triumph. People live.They beat the odds.

How is it then that some of us get caught in the quagmire of life and are just unable to find our shine? The exact frequency we were supposed to be attuned to? Some of us spend our entire lives feeling like we're out of tune with the world. Some of us just can't stop feeling like there's something wrong, somewhere.

Maybe this is what mental illness is. Maybe this is what it looks like.

I'm sure most of us don't understand what goes on in another person's head. Everyone's mind is a beautiful place. Only difference being, some of us get the morning light kind of beauty, and others get the midnight storm kind of one.

I think that's probably what happiness and sadness are all about. Light and storm. And maybe, just maybe, it's possible to graduate from one to another. To find the light in the middle of a storm. To balance all that shine with some rain.

And isn't that what we're all really trying to do?

Let's stop trying to make our lives a competition, for once. A sad rat race of who shines brighter. Let's focus on ourselves, only ourselves, for a change. Let's shine for ourselves. Let's weather storms by ourselves.

Let's love ourselves. 

Let's just BE ourselves.

Halsey once sang - "I hope you make it to the day you're 28 years old."

I officially made it. 

Let's see what happens next, shall we?

Sunday, May 1, 2016

On happiness

I don't think I will ever get over how beautiful Sunday mornings are! The fact is, Sunday is like just any other day, but we value it that much more, because on the rest of the days we wake up, get out of bed, and start running before our feet hit the ground. Sundays, we pause. We breathe. We smile.

This past month, I have been thinking a lot and writing a lot about happiness. Most of you will find it silly, because happiness is natural, right? Well, it is mostly, it's our basic human instinct, we can and do smile and laugh through everything. But some of us are just a little more prone to...ahem...some melodrama and melancholy. And writers, I think, more than anyone else.;)

So I started doing 100 days of happiness, after a friend suggested it to me some time back - when I was whining about how miserable I am (in general). Even though I scoffed at him at the time, I took it up on a whim later on.

It has been a fabulous exercise, keeping me preoccupied with the positive things in life, and has pushed me to do something fun every single day. I am just happy in general, and I remember to be kind to people who are not, and I think this is fast becoming a habit that will last all my life. I've started breaking out of my shell and I've started stepping out of home everyday to collect new experiences and new stories to tell. Happiness is most often found in the simplest of things, and it is your attitude that makes all the difference in the world, this I now know.

More than anything, the challenge has brought out my inner creativity in ways nothing else has in a very long time, and frankly I am enjoying myself too much! This is like falling in love with myself, in the best way possible!

To quote Baloo from Jungle book - "Look for the bare necessities/The simple bare necessities/Forget about your worries and your strife/I mean the bare necessities/Old Mother Nature's recipes/That bring the bare necessities of life" : D

Apart from this, I have been reading a lot of poetry, both online and offline, and that helps one grow and teaches one things nothing else in life can.

I have been writing a lot, but nothing is as simple as coming here and spilling out my ramblings in plain, archaic prose. Here, I don't worry about beauty, it's all just staple fare and thought expression that leaves me feeling extremely satisfied. I'm surprised people still read this stuff, in this era of instancy and microblogging... (I mean, Blogger has become redundant)... but here I am, journaling away to glory, and here you are too, watching me do it!

 Another thing I don't understand is why everything in this world is suddenly and certainly becoming shorter and smaller? Conversations, clothes, food, letters, write-ups, dreams, winters? Stories? I'm sure there's more to that list.

I, for one, am all for very very long text messages and long letters and elaborate poetry and long conversations about nothing. Let's waste our time, because we can. Lets' delve into all the people around us, the stories, discover their quirks. Don't be lazy, share yourself, tell your stories, make people laugh.

Wonder about life's purpose, then stop wondering and start living, like I did, because that's what we're all here for today.

Have a beautiful Sunday, ladies and gentlemen! :)