Happened for a Reason or Destiny?

Michael was on his pleasure walk. It’s his regular evening exercise with the purpose of enjoying scenic beauty around the route. On that particular evening, everything was as usual, except a kid playing with a cute puppy on the roadside.

The puppy was very small, probably couple of weeks older. The boy chained puppy as the symbol of ownership. Even though the boy seemed from a poor family; he was feeding biscuits to the puppy. One can see the love and attachment for the pup in his eyes, but at his age, he was unable to make out the fact that the puppy is too small to be chained. Michael decided to talk to the boy and to explain him the risk of choking the puppy.

Michael paused to interact with the kid. After few minutes of confab, the kid, Stuart, gelled with him. Stuart pointed finger to a roadside shack to show his home to Michael. He started sharing the story of this doggy. The mother doggy delivered five puppies near his school. Within a week, the dam died due to some unknown reason and the puppies were all by themselves. They were at the risk of starving. School kids provided some milk from their pocket money to save them. Later on, the boys realized another risk to puppies' life; being killed by other street dogs. To save them, each of Stu’s friends took one puppy as pet. He got this one and named it as Billy.

What a great thought by group of small kids!! They actually saved 5 lives. Michael praised Stuart and his friends for their good work. He also offered some money for the milk and biscuits. With all the affection in his words, he drew Stuart’s attention to the chain and explained the risk of choking off Billy. Stuart happily agreed and immediately unchained the whelp. In just couple of weeks Billy’s life was saved third time! It must have solid lifeline! 

Michael continued on his path with the satisfaction of absolving a soul from chains. The next evening, Michael spotted Stuart at the same place, alone and deeply saddened. After talking to him, Michael learned about the accident. Last night, unchained Billy hit the road and was crushed by the garbage truck! 

Without saying a word, with numbed Michael started walking.

***

What went wrong? How could Billy die? It had been saved thrice from death like situations, or was it a destiny for Billy? Living as street dog, Billy might have survived through starvation. It might have been accepted by other dogs, but being Stuart’s pet it got chains. With the chain, Billy might have endured from choking, but unchaining definitely killed it. 

On every decision point, aim was to help Billy. Helping him to survive was actually leading to the certain death. Life is full of uncertainty, isn't it?

There is a supreme force, driving the universe. Every event or incident happens, happens for a reason. Certain events are destined to happen. We may interfere to make things better, or we think we are making it better. The fated may get delayed, may choose different path, but will happen. Happen for sure! 

Whenever we loose some valuables, or we are at the bad phase of relationship, or one of our near ones leaves us... accept it as destiny. It was bound to happens, it was scripted by the universal force. Many times, we see someone suffering, we try hard to help, but that help doesn't suffice to end the trouble... try to be positive. We shouldn't stop adding efforts for helping, we shouldn't give up. But we shouldn't lose our hearts, if things doesn't go our way. Once we reach at the end of logical reasoning, after adequate efforts, accept the situation as the chosen by fate. At this stage, we may unable to understand the rationale or are futile to connect the dots, but it is part of some bigger picture. The best thing about destiny is, it is invisible. We have to try, try harder until we are out of pointers.

All the life events that happen, always lead to a next event and the cycle goes on and on. If someone lost the job, feeling sad and shattered; it can be the ground for getting better opportunities in life. May be it is the almighty's way of inspiring the person to do something better, something he would have never dared to do.

May be I am writing this for some reason and as reader you are hear for some reason!

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What Would You Do If You Weren’t Afraid?

In a school, students of 3rd standard were busy with their current class. It was raining outside. The class was engrossed into leaning with the teacher; all of a sudden, a tiny frog broke into the class with its small but powerful jumps. Frog entered from the door approaching girls’ section and announced the present by its signature tune.  

Girls welcomed the frog with loud screams. Frog started its journey towards the first bench. Jenny, the girl on the first bench looked at it and climbed over the bench. With panicked face and trembling voice, she started jumping and gesturing the frog to go away. It resulted into the chain reaction; few boys and half of the girls were on benches. The noise level of the class was at the Everest and the situation was going out of control. 

Peter, a warrior from boy’s section rose to rescue. With calm face, he bravely walked towards the frog. As if he is picking a stone, he culled frog with his hand and threw it out of the class. Teacher and the class felt the sigh of relief. Class clapped and cheered to appreciate his breviary. That day onward, Peter became the undisputed hero of the class and Jenny declared as a yellow-bellied girl.  

*** 

After a few months Jenny’s parents hosted her birthday party. The class was invited at her place to be a part of the celebration. 10-15 students in a group were early birds to reach Jenny’s home. Peter, as a proven leader, was ahead of his friends and first to enter the compound. Just after moving 2 steps towards the main door, he saw a dog approaching him. He started hollering and making the hardest efforts to find a safe place. Rests of the friends were still out of the compound, so they fled.  

“Beware of dogs!!” Peter read the sign board only after climbing over the compound wall. For the moment, he was safe but still shivering with fear. He yelled for help. After spending a year lasting one minute over the wall, he finally saw Jenny approaching the dog. With her commanding voice, Jenny called her dog. Calmly and comfortably she lifted the dog in her arms and started pampering. After kissing and babying the dog for a while, she chained and kenneled it. 

Finally with the pale face, Peter got off the wall; still catching his breath. As the risk ceased, other friends started gathering into the compound. They witnessed this unbelievable scene. After the second incident of facing fear, mindset had changed drastically. Peter and Jenny both lost their respective titles, Brave boy and Yellow-bellied girl! 

                                                            *****

What is scarier? A frog or a dog or something else? How could Jenny handle a dog, but a small frog made her uncomfortable. What made a brave Peter stumbled to a dog?

For Peter, he must had felt fear on the first encounter with the frogs. He sustained during that period and over the time learned how to deal with it. Jenny, on the other hand had experience to be with the dog from its puppy days. The dog had always been lovely to her and she didn't find a reason to fear.

Fear is a state of mind. It comes from the unawareness of handling the person or situation. First presentation, first time driving, first time cooking, first time swimming and many other firsts gave us perspiration.  Can I do it? How to do it? How to do it better? What if I fail? There is a very thin line between anxiety and fear. If we sustain through the anxiety and fearful times with keeping eye on learning; the fear is gone! After practicing any of those situation multiple times, the way of looking at it changed.The most difficult things in the past are now a cakewalk!

I am enjoying comfort zone; I don’t know what is out there for me? In the effort of getting that new thing, what if I loose my current comfort? The fear of failure is the biggest barricade. Fear is the most potent weapon. It keeps our mind busy in imagination of some never happening scenarios. If we allow fear to live in our mind, it will pull us back and will always show the situation worse than actual. Fear can nurture stress and at times it can convert into anger. 

That point, far from our comfort zone, is a success point. It holds lot of potential. To achieve it we have to extend our comfort zone to it. Basic human nature is to infix self to comfort zone as soon as possible. Very quickly we put away our running shoes and put on the slippers.

The best way to hit the fear is, confront it. It may push us to the limits, but that’s the opportunity to learn. New set of challenges provide the new way of looking at things. If we fear of something, we should find the opportunity to practice it. Rehearsing something in controlled or actual environment helps a lot. That’s the specific reason we see soldiers spend most of their time in practicing war. 

List the fear we want to curb, analyze the real reason behind it. Is it a fear of going to unexplored path? Is it a failure from the past? Ask a question to self, what am I afraid of? What would I do, if I am not afraid? When we surpass our fear, we feel free. There is practically no limit to what we can achieve.

Title credit: Who Moved My Cheese (Dr. Spencer Johnson)

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The glass is just double sized!

Parents of Jack and Jill were working at an apple farm as fruit pickers. In the harvesting season, one evening they returned with two baskets full of apples for their kids. Each basket had twenty good quality apples in it. Jack and Jill were delighted and decided to share the apples with their classmates.

Next day, Jack took his fruit box to school to share apples with his friends. He started with choosing the smallest one and gave it to first friend. After that, Jack picked another smallest one from the remaining 19 apples. He continued picking the smallest apple for his friends from the remaining lot and finally, as expected, he left with the biggest apple for self. Out of 20 selecting opportunities, Jack preferred the smallest 19 times; finally had the biggest apple left. 

Similarly, Jill took her basket to school to share apples with her friends. She picked the biggest one for herself. Now for her first friend, she picked the biggest one from the lot. For each next friend, she continued preferring the biggest apple from the remaining lot. Only the last smaller apple was given to the last friend. Out of 20 selecting opportunities, Jill chose the biggest on 19 instances. 

If we observe, apples in both the baskets were of good quality and almost similar sizes. Jack chose 19 smallest apples and Jill picked 19 biggest apples from each basket. How did that happen? Can you please help me to decide who is looking at half empty glass instead of half full? Who between Jack and Jill is optimistic? 

I think Jack’s thought process is pessimistic. Each of his friends felt that they are receiving the smallest apple, they saw him finding smallest from the lot. Jill thought more optimistically, each of her friends was happy to see that they are getting the biggest apple from the lot.

How many of you agree with my view point? If you also agree with me, then I was able to imprint you ;) 

Even though Jack’s friends felt they were getting the smallest apple, still the apple was bigger than the previous friend. Jack could see more smiling faces than Jill as he ensured that each friend acquired bigger apple than previous one. And after spreading so many smiles, he deserved the biggest apple from the pack!

On the other hand Jill chose different course and initially picked the biggest one for her. Later on, for each receiving friend, she yielded smaller apple than the previous friend. What's your view now? What if the previous person sees the apple for the next person?

I personally think Jack and Jill just had different view points, to the similar scenario. Ultimate goal for both is to share apples among friends!!

***

The world is full of diversity. It is really great to have different views and perspectives. That’s the only reason why life is more enjoyable. Imagine a scenario where everyone likes mangoes, and nobody wants to eat pineapples. Life is all black and white with no varieties to choose from. Many times, I see a car in odd colors and think who would buy such creepy car, and to my surprise someone is liking it, enjoying!

Perspectives are viewpoints that capture the truth as perceived by the spectator. Any single perspective is likely to be limited, partial, biased and perhaps even distorted picture of any situation. Sometimes perspectives are reconcilable and sometimes they are not.  Two persons may continue to disagree about the correctness of a given situation. 

At times we think few people do not understand the simplest thing. They are unable to see the obvious facts. Whenever we see someone with different perspective, have patience! We should try to put ourselves into their shoes. It is possible that the person is looking from different angle, may be the wider one.

Before putting down the contrary view, we should at least wait and check the perspective the person is referring to. Be open to discussion, avoid stubbornness. At the end of healthy discussions, we will have more matured view towards the issue. We may still go ahead with our original view, but now we have more trust on the chosen path; more facts to support the decision. Healthy discussions will help us to gain more trust and respect within people around us. 

If we start respecting other people’s view, life would be much easier. It may help us to perceive correct or probably full picture of the reality. Ignorance and arrogance guarantees difficult life. Respect to different views is the key to peaceful coexistence. Polarization is dangerous for any society and it leads to extinct.

If people would have ignored Newton’s perspective to falling apple, we would have never observed the gravity!

Looking forward to hear your viewpoints :)

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Thanks for your biased opinion!

A man and his teenage son were once going with their donkey to market. As they were walking along by his side a man saw them and said, "You fools, what is a donkey for but to ride upon?" So the man put his son on the donkey, and they continued.

Further down the road, they saw men with a disgust look at them, "See that lazy youngster; he lets his father walk while he rides."

Father and son looked at each other, the man asked his boy to get off, and got on himself. But they hadn't gone far when they passed two women, one of whom said to the other, "Shame on that lazy lout to let his poor little son trudge along."

Well, the man didn't know what to do, but at last he took his boy up before him on the donkey. By this time they had come to the town, and the passersby began to jeer and point at them. The man stopped and asked what they were scoffing at.

The men said, "Aren't you ashamed of yourself for overloading that poor donkey of yours -- you and your hulking son?"

Aesop's fable continues from this point and duo ends up loosing their donkey. The reason? Being driven by the opinions of judgmental society...

We are living in the sea of opinions. Everyone has opinions about everything and ready to impose on us. They will try all possible ways to prove their opinions are true. It may or may not be any bankable to them, but still if we follow their opinions, their ego is nurtured. Without knowing about our life journey, life hackers will put their nose and try to make it like theirs. Phew!

Opinions are always coming from life stories and experience. They are slanted by the color glasses the person wears. Whenever we hear an opinion, let's look at the life journey of a person delivering it. Is it coming out of experience or from the land of unknowns? Is the person qualified to provide opinions on this? In human life, most of the notions are to stop others achieving new heights. Don't let other people's insecurities and fears riding on us. If we stop and listen to everyone, we are going nowhere.

We can't make everyone happy. In fact, we are not here to make everyone happy. Let's focus on the goal and milestones; don't care about what people say about it. Some people are negative and always try to put everyone down with their extra sharp tongue. Find them and kick them out of your decision making periphery. 

Have confidence, that's our life and we are allowed to make mistakes. We have all the rights to be experimental about our life decisions. We may end up in failure, but the chances of winning are equally bright. Even in case of mess, we failed by our own mistakes. Take the invaluable experience out of it and start working towards the next experiment. Of course, we should listen to critics and opinions; analyse them, apply common sense and take a decision based on the available information. 

Always talk to self before taking any decisions. Be it a smallest decision or the matter of life and death. Talk to the inner voice. The only person who knows us in and out is, the self! Before every decision, let's ascertain its impact over the life. Check all the visible aspects of the problem, be prepared about the obscures and start moving.

“You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with”. - Jim Rohn

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Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week!

An ambitious young man was doing job in a small company. He was doing well in his job, but was dissatisfied about the lifestyle he had. He always dreamed about doing a business and earning so much of money. He observed people around him and looked for the opportunities and business ideas.

On each occasion of meeting successful friend or relatives, he inquired about their businesses. After such meetings, he inspired and determined to fly. He convinced about some of the business ideas.  

He prayed to god for helping him. The god was convinced about his abilities and determination. The god decided to bless him with great success in his first endeavor, whatever he will take up.

Every time he researched on the opted business and actions to perform; at the time of execution, he was reluctant to take first step. Somehow after exploring for a while, he was facing road blocks and stuck to one or the other issues. Every time he could find some excuses, few of them very silly.

In reality, he never intended to leave his job to pursue the business. His efforts were not the serious ones. He had all the fuel and favorable wind, but the spark was missing. He wanted to do so many things at once, but was waiting for best time. At some level, he was fearful about failure. His comfort zone was killing him, like a slow poison.

The god waited and waited for the man to take first step, but the man never came out of his comfort zone and end up living dissatisfied life. 

I want to start waking up early, but will do it after winter. Want to learn new language, but will do it in vacation time. Want to visit my relatives, will do around festivals. Want to learn music, but don't have time. I want to plan for my retirement, but will do after the next increment. It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end. 

Normally my first reaction to anything is, "I will do it later!". I have hundreds of things to do in my mind and I am assured about the better life after achieving them. From the smallest tasks to the biggest life decisions, I am procrastinating things. Why?

If you observe, for each item I want to achieve, I have found stopping 'but'. I am not acting on the things to perform for my own benefit. The human mind is programmed to resist the change. Always fearful about unknown. Procrastination is the biggest enemy of achievement.

We are not foolish, but failing to prioritize. We unknowingly living life, as it comes to us. We all have enough tools with us, but lacking the focused efforts. If we closely observe the successful people, they have done something different. They have come over the initial resistance or fear of the moving out of comfort zone. By adding efforts, they have converted odds to favorable.

With my little experience, I have come up with few points, I would like to share with you. Current blog is one the item came from my to-do list. 

1. Make a smart To-Do list
2. Add priorities to each item
3. Make a decision, any decision
4. Move out of comfort zone, be ready for discomfort 
5. Stop thinking and start acting
6. Start with a baby step
7. Set the realistic goal and traceable milestones
8. Ask for help
9. Publish your intentions to your friends, they will add cheers to it
10. Finish it!

As described in above story, the god is always ready to help us; we have to take first step. The success is waiting, we have to walk to reach to it. Start with the smallest thing, like, cleaning up the room, reading a book, visiting a friend or just have a walk.

Achieving the intended is always helpful in reducing the stress. If we plan and act, life is in our control. Feeling of accomplishment creates positive vibrations and leads to pleasant mind. 

We have taken a correct step for living positive life!

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Stop Comparing, Start Living...

A crow was living on a tree near a pond. He was spending most of his time in finding food. Even after trying for the entire day, he was hardly getting small creatures and some grain to feed self. 

Few Herons were also living around the same pond. To feed the tribe, they were mostly dependent on fishes from the pond. They were standing still in the water and were taking dips to catch the fish. The crow used to observe Herons while hounding from the pond. The crow was envious about the food Herons were getting. Many times, he has envisaged self getting best of the fishes while fishing like a heron.

One fine day, he jumped into the pond and stood like a Heron. He was unsure about the timing to take a dip, but decided to have one. The moment, he hit the water, got stuck in mud. All his efforts to come out of mud went into vain and he ended up loosing his life.

It took his life to learn the important lesson, “Never compare yourself to others, you have no idea what their journey is all about.”

The grass is always greener on the other side – this saying expresses the vicious circle of life. We always try to compare ourselves with others. We always like to be someone else, may be the more successful than us! That’s our way of thinking, that’s our view to the issue. We don’t know all the aspects of THE successful person’s life. 

We are probably comparing their best with our worst. Reason? We know all the shortcomings of ourselves, and only focus on the brighter side of the idol. They may also have a darker side of life, hidden to us.

Why do we think they are successful? Do they have more money? Luxurious bungalow? Big car? But, have we checked on their efforts to achieve that? Do we know the life struggles they have been through?

We are probably comparing our beginning with their peak of the life. This only results into stress in our life. This steals the joy of life. Instead of enjoying what we have, we are always worried about what we are missing in the life. We miss to appreciate what we have in our life. 

If we are obsessed with comparison, we should compare ourselves with us from yesterday. Today, have we made any positive move in our life? To grow, focus on quality, stress on self satisfaction. Live the value-based life and try to get better with each passing day. Let’s accept that nobody is perfect.

Be original, all other personalities have been already taken!

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Play is the only Way!

Spend time with children. Find any and every occasion to interact with kids. Adjoining with nestlings is the opportunity to have direct dialing with god. While having a word with children, instead of focusing on words, read innocence in eyes. Experience the purest feeling on the earth.

Let them command us for a while. It will get us to the different level of puerility. Play outdoor games with them; watch their favorite TV shows; draw meaningless pictures. Give them a ride on back, natural therapy to backache! Let’s create our own fairy tales for them; it will get us to the land of imaginations, far away from real life problems. Be patience while playing with kids, let them win few games. 

Being loved by a kid is the biggest blessings to our soul and as I already mentioned, direct dialing to god. Get engaged, before it goes out of reach! J

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Be Honest, Trust Everyone!

To live a positive life, start trusting people around you. This helps us to earn the peace of mind.

Let me share a very popular story...

A boy and his younger sister were playing together. The boy had a collection of colorful marbles. The girl had some chocolates with her. The boy told his sister that he will give her all his marbles in exchange for her chocolates. The girl agreed, happily.

The boy kept the biggest and the most beautiful marble aside and gave the rest to the girl. The girl gave him all her chocolates as she promised. 

That night, the girl slept peacefully. But the boy couldn't sleep as he kept wondering if the girl had hidden some chocolates from him the way he had hidden his best marble.

Even if the boy was on gaining side, he was a real looser. He earned the most beautiful marble, but lost the sleep! 

Trusting people around us will bring out the best behavior of them. We will soon start receiving positive vibrations from the person. If we are not honest, our mind will constantly pinch us with the doubts. Our energy will redirect in finding the possible ways where the next person could have been dishonest to us. That's a real misuse of our energy. If we start trusting the person and we are honest to the relation, peace of mind is ensured. We can redirect our energy to achieve more with the help of the person.

Don't choose the distrust path, unless we have bad experience from the past. I am not suggesting to go for blind trust to anyone, but using commonsense helps. Read the eyes , use your heart.

Today, give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day!!

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Make Peace With Your Past!

Given a chance, what part of your life you would like to alter? I believe everyone would like to take this opportunity to make the things straight. Only the pure-hearted kids are exception to this J

Embarrassment, regret, guilt, sorrow and anger are the visitors from the past, which indicate that we have unsettled business. Unfortunately, we can’t time travel to get them settled. The only thing we can take from it is life lesson. Time has the power of healing all the wounds!!

Wandering in the past mostly gives pain, anger and sadness. We may find some cherishing moments from those yellow calendar pages! 

I personally recommend listing the events and attached feeling on a piece of paper. Categories them, take some action and move ahead in life!

• Feeling happy – Remember those sweet memories, feel proud about it!
• Regret – Ok, that’s the opportunity where we can learn something from experience and use it on future situations
• Guilt on something – Did we have better way of doing it? Can we correct it? Let’ go ahead and resolve it, else move on. Share your learning with your dear ones.
• Ashamed of – Confess about it and forgive yourself. In the vast universe, we are just a small dot. There are many more important things than this.
• Anger - Have sour feeling about someone, give it some time, little more. Go ahead and say sorry, let people know that we are valuing the relation.

Clean up your mind; fill it with fresh thoughts and positive feeling of relation. Fix the mistakes you can; forgive and forget! No one is the reason of your happiness except you yourself. There is nothing more valuable than our peace of mind.

Enjoy the present and be prepared for the future with priceless lessons from past!

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Sometimes you need to Walk Alone, Just to show that You Can!!

                   

Walk! Even if you don’t need to go anywhere; even if you have a car, walk whenever and wherever possible. Walk around your place; take a long walk into nature. Even if you feel tired, walk daily. Walking is the symbol of fitness, sign of liveliness . If you can walk, you are not very far from the positive life.

Go for brisk walking or sometimes just take a leisure walk. Music is you best companion while walking. Wear a smile on your face during entire walking session. Take a stop or two during the trip. Look around; observe the faces around. Look at the greenery around you; observe the birds; try to hear their chirpings; smell the flowers on your way. Enjoy the cool breeze; it’s a god gift when you are sweating.

This will strengthen your body as well as heart. It will help you to remain fit. It puts check on your weight and helps you to tone legs and tummy. A long walk at sunrise boosts the Vitamin D level in your body. Walking gives you energy, self-confidence and the most important things, it makes you happy!!

Healthy body is the very first step towards living happy and positive life.

Let’s walk!!

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Don't Worry, be Happy!!

                                      

The very important step towards being happy is stop worrying. Worry kills, indeed!!

Worry stops us from thinking positive. In most of the cases we start assuming the worst case scenario, that's never gonna happen!!

If you have a problem, take a deep breath. Start thinking about the things you can do to resolve the problem. List out your actions according to different situations. That's it!!

If there is nothing you can do to tackle the problem in advance, worry won't help!

Most of the times the impact of the problem is much lower than what you had imagined. In fewer cases, the problem doesn't occur at all. 

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About this Blog!!

"Be the change, you want to see in the world"

The author of this blog is a common man. You pick any random face from the bunch of people around you, you may find me :)

I am neither a meditation practitioner nor the yoga guru. Not even 1% closer to life consultants. By professional I am a software engineer. I am not a qualified person to give any life related advise. 

But still, here is my small step to share my thoughts with you. The day to day thoughts, events, faces help me to deal with life struggles and I believe this can do similar miracles to anyone. I will continue sharing my idea of being happy. 

Feel free to share feedback, suggestions, life stories, questions. By any means, if at all, it is useful to anyone, I will take it as reward of the efforts! 

Staying positive is easy!!

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