I can't help myself....

Irreverence makes me smile - BIG! :D

I want to be seen as run-of-the-mill....

There are times when I want to be seen as run-of-the-mill. I don't want to be seen as special, as something less or something more, than others. 

These are the times when I'm barely keeping it together or I'm figuring things out and at times like these, I will lie to you about how I'm feeling and what's on my mind. I will smile as I lie... Maybe even chuckle... 

I will lie, because if I don't, you will look at me differently and like I said, I don't want to be seen as special. 

Somehow, you seeing me as run-of-the-mill, helps me pretend my life is all figured out and well put together... just for a while...

I have learnt...

.... we only envy what we can't understand. 

It is Grace...

If it goes your way, it is Grace.

If it doesn't go your way, it is Grace.

It is Grace, every step of the way.

Who graces and with what could have as many as 7 billion answers. What matters is, it is Grace.

But, Grace doesn't have a face or a smell or a shadow. It's a nudge, a whisper, a near miss.

If you recognize it and acknowledge it, you will always live in Grace...

If you fail to sense its presence, you will, still, always live in Grace... 

You see, Grace is cool like that. 

To catch Grace in the act... it's ineffable... That you are the center of the Universe and that it exists for you, only you... this is the closest description I can think of...

Today, I caught Grace in the act... :)

Musings...

THE OPPORTUNITY FOR A HERO'S JOURNEY LIES IN EVERY MOMENT.

Of Ostriches and Wildebeests...

"Look... look, a wildebeest!!" 

A very excited me pointed to this black speck in the distance! 

"No, that's a Maasai Ostrich." 

A calm Yakub corrected me, our guide on the Maasai  Mara game drive.

I disagreed with him and said that it definitely looked like a wildebeest. I had seen so many just a while ago, driving up to Maasai Mara! In fact, wildebeests and zebras were the first set of wild animals I had spotted along the bumpy highway, enroute to Masaai Mara.

He again stated that that indistinguishable black speck was a Maasai Ostrich, a male. 

By now, we were driving up closer to this controversial creature and I could not wait to see what this black speck would morph into. At about 10 feet away, the creature morphed into this big, feathery ostrich. Yakub was right.

Driving through the vast savannahs such episodes happened many times. Till, after 2 days of driving around these massive grasslands and sighting beautiful and magnificent beasts and birds, I caught up with (not exactly!!) Yakub's eight years of game drive experience and expertise and my predictions on sightings became more on the mark (not entirely!!!!) :).

Anyway, what I realised was an old lesson, yet again, what we believe is what we see. At the time I mistook the ostrich to be a wildebeest, I had only just seen these brownish black animals, with humped backs and had no idea of what an ostrich in the wild looked like. So on seeing the black spot, my mind just made the assumption. 

Our brains love patterns. Anytime we are faced with vague or incomplete information, it quickly sorts it into familiar patterns to help us make sense of the world. We see this in action when looking at optical illusions, spilled coffee beans on the floor, clouds floating in a deep blue sky. The faces, the definite shapes that we see are all the brain looking for familiar patterns to help us make sense of the world around us. Clearly an evolutionary requirement. 

Yesterday, I read this in, "Your Everyday Superpower" by Janette Dalgliesh: "In other words, what we experience might be the brain's best guess about the world around us."

Best GUESS???? BEST guess, you say???? I'm forming my "reality" and then living in it basis a GUESS, albeit the BEST??!!! Yikes!!

So evidently, we're looking at people, situations, circumstances based on what might be our brain's best guess, at that point in time. Wow. 

Makes me wonder what am I NOT guessing, what am I assuming and how could that additional information change my view of "reality", and my thoughts and then feelings and hence actions and decisions... How many more poor, unsuspecting ostriches am I labeling as wildebeests?!? 

Interesting, eh? Not so much for the ostrich, I'd say. ;)

(Here's some photographic evidence of that sighting.)

What matters?

Seriousness is made out to be more than it is and facetiousness not enough. 

The colour of love...

Till we learn to love ourselves, love remains an unknown colour. We could be surrounded by it and still not see it or recognise it.

(I wrote this sometime back..)

Owning It...

Sometimes you have to own up to your weirdness. The liberation is EXHILARATING!!  :)

The Answer

Every time I'm grappling with a question, the answer is just not within me, it's jogging alongside, trying desperately to get my attention. All I do is give it an impatient, "Bugger off! Can't you see I'm looking for the answer???"

Luckily for me, it's VERY persistent and not above bumping me on the head! :D

Why?

Why do you have to be wrong for me to be right?
Why do you have to be bad for me to be nice?
Why do you have to be shackled for me to be free?
Why do you have to be small for me to be big?
Why do I have to pull you down to fly high?
Why do I make it hard for you to make it easy for me?
Why can't you be you and I be I?

When you and I both know that...

... making you wrong does not make me right
... making you bad does not make me nice
... shackling you, shackles me
... making you small, makes me smaller
... pulling you down, grounds me lower...
... making it hard for you, makes it waaaay harder for me...

When I know I love you and you love me...

Why?

On Kids...

I guess the best things about having kids are: 

1) they make pictures look fun and colourful, just plain fabulous 
2) they keep you honest and true (to what you say and do.)

Say, "Yay!!" :)

When you experience a miracle, you MUST say, "Yay!!" :D

So...
"Yay!!"
"Yay!!"
"Yay!!"
"Yay!!"

Revolution...

Revolution has a different face each time...
Sometimes, it's a rebellion... sometimes, it's an open, honest, unprejudiced conversation...

Satyamev Jayate - My note to Aamir

I rarely ever interact on TV shows. But SMJ doesn't seem like "just any other show". The first episode aired yesterday and I couldn't help but write to the show maker...Aamir Khan.

Dear Aamir,

Today's episode (6th May 2012) was hard hitting, intensely moving and inspiring of hope.

Along with this, the parallel message that needs to be spread /shared is that women need to stop seeing themselves as victims. Our feelings of  victimhood , further attract such heinous crimes towards us. We need to love and respect ourselves before any one else will.

Our love, respect and confidence for ourselves will help such a movement help us even more.

Thank you, SMJ packs the promised and much needed (about time, really) punch. It's also a brilliant example of stardom well used.

Looking forward to the next episode!!

Love,
Parul Bhargava
(Gurgaon)

Vulnerability...

... and then I realized, being courageous meant being scared and sitting with the fear anyway... :)

Underneath Our Nose...

When I look at others, I can clearly see what they’re looking for is underneath their nose.  Hmmmmm… makes me wonder what's underneath mine that I'm not seeing, yet… J

I Love My Nonsense!! :D

It struck me that I put with a lot of nonsense from the world, so I'm going to give myself a break and put up with some more nonsense from myself!!! :)

And so the next time I do something silly, I'll just "Yay!" myself and skip along.... ;)

Eureka!

So, I've been pondering over what next for quite some time now. I even posted it here, on the blog. And so yesterday, it finally came to me that the values that have so far dictated my work-related (and maybe even other) decisions are: Learning, Freedom and Fun; not in  any order of preference.

And this has suddenly given me a great deal of clarity of what to do next... Watch this space for further details!! :)

The only luxury I care about is, "FREEDOM"!

My favorite word has got to be "FREEDOM"!!! And it has sooo many connotations...

Freedom from family
Freedom from children
Freedom from partners/mates
Freedom from friends
Freedom from jobs
Freedom from bosses
Freedom from deadlines
Freedom from debt
Freedom from agenda
Freedom from "shoulds"
Freedom from "have tos"
Freedom from obligations
Freedom of thought
Freedom of speech
Freedom of action
Freedom of "pause"
Freedom of silence
Freedom of non-action
Freedom of "craziness"...
Freedom to love
Freedom of not to love
Freedom to drink
Freedom of not to drink
Freedom to wear
Freedom of not to wear
Freedom of how to look
Freedom of how not to look
And mannnny more... (Phew!! I guess, you get the point!) ;)

I just had an epiphany, "real freedom" is all about:

Freeing yourself from the past and its tenuous hold on your today!
Freeing yourself from pain and it clouding your perspective about your life, today!
Freeing yourself from judgments that make you look at yourself harshly!
Freeing yourself from experiences that make you doubt and second guess your decisions, today!
Freeing yourself from benchmarks that no longer hold true about you in the "now"!
Freeing yourself from guilts of the by gones!
Freeing yourself from self-imposed labels of good and bad; right and wrong; fat and thin; success and failure; ugly and beautiful...

Freedom is all about me accepting and loving myself for all that I have been and have become and am becoming. It means, being free to choose, "freedom over bondage" or "bondage over freedom"; it's about "FEEEEEEELING" free... :)