REBEL FOR GOOD

“Sab gussa karte hain, main ghar chod ke jaa raha hun” (everyone scolds me, I am leaving the house) are the lines of an old advertisement where a 4 year old is sitting grumpily in a railway station, with his small bag, but returns home when his postman uncle tells him that his mother has prepared jalebis (a special sweets). We often hear such cute stories of little rebels and let go because they are too small to understand and follow their impulses.

I always preferred to go with the rules until I realised something good can also happen when you break the rules. When I was in Class X, two of our classmates went to play during the transition time, after the bell rang for another period. They came back to the class as soon as the next teacher entered. She got angry, obviously, and punished them. To my surprise, the whole class retaliated and everyone wanted the teacher either to let those two go or punish the whole class. I, along with my best friend failed to agree with our classmates as we felt that those two boys were at fault. However, our teacher got pleased with the unity of our class and withdrew the punishment. That day I realised that it’s perfectly all right if some rules are broken, provided there shouldn’t be any negative implication on anyone. 

During teenage, many times I opposed my parents, fought with them when scolded for being out late with friends after the 8’o clock deadline, for wearing clothes which they felt inappropriate,  for not getting permissions when I needed and for other whole lot of things.

Rebelling against my parents for the love of my life was one of the least things in my mind. I had earlier agreed to their rule of arranged marriage, but the destiny couldn’t find a suitable match for me. Later, when I found my eternal love, my parents opposed. Since I was confident of my choice, I continued to portray my conflicting views in front of their emotional saga, until they agreed for our match. Lo and behold, just after the engagement, they were more than happy with their son-in-law!

There is a ‘rebel’ in everyone of us and standing up against anything, for a good reason should be the mandate. One just has to remember the limits, lest to offend anyone.

BEING REBELLIOUS IS ONLY NATURAL

“As per the definition of rebellious, a rebellious person likes to challenge the authority and break the rules every now and then.”

Teenage is particularly connected with the word Rebellion. However, we need to understand what really happens at that age. Till the age of say 10 or 11, kids are used to being told what is needed to be done and how to conduct themselves in day to day life. Then suddenly around their 12th or 13th birthday, they start questioning everything that is told to them, they talk back, they even get violent and they want to do the exact opposite of what they have been told to do. 

Let us analyze what happens to other species on the planet. Animals, for example, leave the safe haven of their parents quite early; as soon as they have grown up enough to survive themselves. And for the sake of adaptation, it is really important they leave the safe home of their parents and mate with the beings away from them. 

Humans are too build in the same way. Physically, a teenager is grown up enough to survive himself / herself. They can take care of their food, clothing and shelter. To add to it, their hormones also drive them crazy to mate with the opposite gender. Comparing this to our animal kingdom, this is perfectly natural. If we lived like animals, teenagers would quietly leave their parents at the age of 12 or 14 and live their own lives. So, going by our animal instincts, teenagers are supposed to question the authority and step out of their houses so that adaptation can continue. So, what happens with teenagers is biologically ingrained in us for the sole purpose of adaptation and survival of our species. 

Now, what really have we humans messed up this nicely set up natural process. We have setup an adult age of 18 years. And typically a well-educated person starts earning only by 21 or 22 which means they need to depend financially on their parents and still live in that safe haven which they are physically and emotionally yearning to leave. 

One of my coaches once said – “It is absolutely normal for teenagers to think their parents are useless, rather it is important for their own growth. Only by questioning the traditions that their parents follow, will the kids identify with their own beliefs and personality. 

Slamming the doors, shouting at their parents, purposely creating issues for them, getting into addiction issues are all the signs of feeling unheard and misunderstood. Because they really want their parents to acknowledge the fact that they are growing up and can take decisions on their own. However, we parents out of love and fear for our kids – we still want to keep them inside our cocoon that we have built for them so carefully when they are ready and yearning to just fly away. 

When I was 17 years and just completed my 12th grade, I was super sure that I do not want to live with my parents at any cost. I wanted to leave them and live in the hostel and that was probably a very strong motivation to study really hard and get into an Engineering college. My dad was overprotective when it came to boys in my life. And since I was passing out of a convent girls school, I was eager to meet boys and experience that side of life. All hell broke loose, when after 1st year of my engineering – my dad discovered that I was happily enjoying all the attention I was getting from boys in college and was even interested in having a boyfriend. For a very long time, I felt extremely guilty about causing disappointment to my dad, it went away only when I realized that what I did was natural. I was about 18 and ready to experiment and experience life. 

What worries me is that when I hear pre-teens being rebellious. 9-10 year old cross questioning their parents, telling lies and getting into big problems. That needs to be understood. Why are kids growing up so early now? Why is the next generation maturing so early of their age? These are some of the pondering questions that trouble the parents today. 

As far as rebellious nature of teenagers is concerned, I think it is the duty of parents to be aware of what comes to them naturally and be a support for them instead of being control freaks. 

IS THE SEED OF REBELLION GERMINATING DEEP WITHIN ME?

Rebellion according to Wikipedia is – “A rebellion originates from a sentiment of indignation and disapproval of a situation and then manifests itself by the refusal to submit or to obey the authority responsible for this situation.”

Rebellion can be individual or collective, peaceful or violent, for a good cause or bad as well. But usually, the word rebellion termed as negative and bad which we are going to discuss about this week.

When God created this world and created human being, He taught the world either directly or through the nature that this universe has a chain of command which we human can’t just breach it or go against it. The consequence of which is deadly when we go against it. We humans may be the crown of His creation, but we are not the gods of it even though we try to play ‘god’ like the kids play teacher-teacher or mommy-mommy game. When we go against God’s direct instruction and try to substitute it with our own ideas then we rebel.

Let me give you an example to make things clear…

In our office, our boss called for a meeting and delegated the responsibilities to all for an upcoming one-day event. The event was on a Sunday and one of the colleagues said, “Sir, I won’t be coming as I have some other work”. We all laughed as we knew how my boss will react. He replied, “Have I given you any option to decide? It is an official event and if you won’t be partaking it then you may leave the work”. And we all agreed to him when he said that. The hesitating colleague had nothing to say afterwards but to take up responsibility which was assigned to him.

Was he happy with the boss? Yes, definitely, because he understood his fault of rebelling against his boss’s decision.

Did he enjoy the event on that Sunday? Yes, wholeheartedly, because he acknowledged the chain of command laid down in an office set up, instead of opposing it any further.

Rebellion always begins in the heart. And in the beginning, it is never violent or active that can be seen, but it remains unexpressed. When the fire smolders, it spreads everywhere to create havoc.

Children and teenagers’ rebel against their parents and teachers which has smaller effects on everyone’s life connected to them. Sometimes, this small sparks of rebellion of college students were flared by the politicians to cause devastation.

“This is my life; I want to live it as I want”

“I can marry anyone as I wish”

“I don’t care what others think”

“It is about my rights”

“I want it this way”

“Why should I listen to him”

All the above are the statements which depict nothing but pride and rebellion in a human heart which is the first sin we commit in our hearts against our parents, teachers, elders, superiors, authorities and against the author of this life, GOD. Our sinful natures do not allow us to bend down and bow to the authority of another or God. We want to be our own bosses, and that rebellion in the human heart is the root of all sin.

It is true that we have freedom to choose according to our own wishes. But can we allow full liberty to someone who has bad temper, who is on the verge of destroying self and all around him? No, right? Then how can we cry about certain prohibitions as curbing our rights? Isn’t that cry, a cry of rebellion or trespassing?

“Rebellion is trespassing”
(Image Credit: Google Inc.)

Every human heart has the seed of rebellion germinating deep within. So I can’t justify that by saying, “I am not revolting“. My heart knows, I am already revolting against something deep within myself. But remember, whenever it happens, we need to let it pass through a scanner before working on it or trying to fan it further. A scanner might be your best friend who is wiser than you, an elder who is more experienced than you, your teacher who understands the right and wrong better than you… Or look to God by just saying a few words of prayer like this – “Oh true God! Help me to understand whether my desire is right or wrong… Give me the right direction and let me know how to go about it”. Trust me, I have been doing this for last 44 years in my life and was never disappointed even though sometimes things are bleak and dark for me. Though I refer, ‘the Bible’ for the clarity of my mind and conscience.

So, friends! I know it is a preachy article, but not a lie. Do not flare up the flames of rebellion in your heart. Pray for guidance.

Stay Blessed!

HOW TO HANDLE EMOTIONS AT WORK

By nature, I am an extremely vulnerable person who can feel the emotions a little more in depth than required. I have often ended up in emotional mess because of this sensitivity. When I was you I couldn’t reason why some thing could hurt me so deep or why some small things make me happy. But as I started growing up a little self retrospection helped me understand.

It’s very easy for people like me to build relationships. What is difficult is to recover from the hurt if these relationships don’t work. I can quote plenty examples.

My first love, some of the friendships and some professional relationships too. We talk and hear a lot about heartbreaks and how to come out of it. Hence today I am going to talk about feelings and emotions at work.

In a corporate environment we often get overwhelmed about how to maintain relationships with peers and superiors. From my professional experience so far, I have learnt a lot about professional relationships and I have made some rules for myself. Sharing the same, it may be useful to you too.

1. No romantic relationships at work. A STRICT NO.

2. No friendships at work. Well, friendships do happen but not the ones that I may want to keep life long. Most of the friendships are need based. They are over when the need is over. I have suffered a lot with this before when I was a novice in this big bad corporate world. Slowly I learnt the tricks of the trade. But to be honest, my workplace has given me 2 beautiful friendships which are an exception to this rule.

3. No sharing personal life details in depth neither asking them to others. Often times, we speak volumes about our personal life with the person whom we trust at workplace but I have had experience when it turned a boomerang for me. I can do an entire separate post of this point 😎

4. No feelings towards anybody at workplace. When I say no feelings, I literally mean NO Feelings at all.. no jealousy, no anger, no attachment, no love, no hate. The only two feelings that I allow are respect and empathy. Lot of times, you may not respect a person, but you must respect the designation. This situation is a hard nut to crack. But not getting emotionally entangled often makes lot of things easier.

5. Just fix it in mind that you cannot take along all your relationships along with you till the end of your life. A person is surrounded by circles of relationships. Closer the circle to you, more important is the relationship. Now just imagine how difficult it will be to accommodate all the relationships in the inner most circle. Similarly, accept the fact that you can’t stand in the inner most circle of many. This point is difficult to accept and that’s exactly what causes emotional stress.

Hope these tips are useful. How do you deal with emotions and feelings? What challenging situations you have encountered and how did you deal with them? I would love to hear from you.

WAKE UP

Wake up dear

this world doesn’t stay the same always

Get up smell the roses and get on with your work

make the best use of your resources or they may just dry up one day..

Humans are generally very wasteful. We have successfully wasted the resources bestowed upon us by Nature. Air, water, wood, oil, wind energy, natural gas, mineral, and coal we have managed to misuse and waste all of them. 

When early humans discovered the use of these resources they thought that the earth is so plentiful that whatever we do we will have an unending supply of all these resources. Our processes didn’t take the environmental toll into consideration and the results are very visible now.

The hazards that we only studied about have become a stark reality these days. Be it the flooding of our cities during monsoon, or the famines our farmers are facing, or the air quality being so poor that we need masks to breathe. All these things are actually happening in the present and they are all a direct consequence of our callous approach towards our natural resources. 

What is surprising though is the fact that even though we all know that pollution is an issue (and one that we will continue to face with mounting urgency in the future), few of us have changed a lot of our simple habits to be more environmentally friendly. Why because we value convenience more. 

It’s time to wake up and take some really concrete steps. Small changes in our life style can help save a lot of water, energy etc. We all know what is to be done but right now we are not bothered enough. Guys time has come act now before it’s too late for our next generation.

One more definition of resources is “a stock or supply of money, materials, staff, and other assets that can be drawn on by a person or organization in order to function effectively.”

We have seen huge conglomerates falling because they were not able to efficiently use their resources. The bigger the company the more the leaks. And more the wastage of their resources. We should realise that everything we consume comes at a price and is limited. The raw material, the  machinery and the staff should be taken care of and used optimally. Only then would a factory be called efficient. 

Look at an even bigger picture. Even humans are a resource. A country’s progress depends on how well they train and take care or their human resource. People tend to move out of a place where they are not valued or don’t have enough opportunities. Brain Drain aren’t all familiar with that… 

Stop being wasteful. Be it the resources endowed upon us by nature or the things created by humans or even the emotions. Believe me if this is the way we keep going these resources won’t be around for long. Preserve this beautiful world don’t help destroy it. 

Wake up…

“PROMISE” – IS IT JUST A WORD?

It is said, “PROMISE is a big word. It either makes something or breaks everything.”

Well, one of our Indian movies has intensified it to higher ground, “It is easier to win someone’s trust and it is more easier to break it. But TOUGH is, ‘to sustain that trust’.” 

In the mid of this year, I was invited to join a National Conference at Shillong in October. Wow, Shillong! Who gonna miss it! Of course, ‘YES’ I replied. But after a couple of months, I received my University exam time table and somehow a 3 days gap between a couple of my papers offered me a break. As opportunities costs, I was asked to pay for the cancellation of my one-way train ticket and buy an air ticket. Penny-pinching and after a week-long thought-through I convinced myself to block the deal. Finally the day dawn, as likely my plan, I took the second-half break from the office and went to write the paper. Soon after, I called a cab for the airport to take the evening flight for Guwahati after 2 hours and then en route to Shillong by road. But as always, “human plans greatly whereas he has no idea what’s going to happen in next hour”, exactly so my cab took the U-turn and was stranded in the traffic for an hour. By the time, my cab driver gets space to sneak out for another route (of course, only possible on Indian roads:)) to the airport, I crossed my check-in time. One side, I was cursing my driver and another side blaming God, “how can you be so rude to me? Being an Almighty God, can’t you somehow give me a free road?”  Exhaust and down emotion, I reached the airport 15 minutes late to the scheduled departure of my flight. But to my surprise, my flight was flying 40 minutes late, as I stepped into the airport, my flight touched the ground and was taxing towards the terminal. With ‘let’s try’ thinking, I went for boarding pass and asked the executive, ‘I know I’m late to board your aircraft but I come to know your aircraft to Guwahati is flying late. And he slapping me with his words said, Sir, you are late than our delayed flight, YOU CANNOT BOARD THE FLIGHT. On my second request, he said, let me try Sir if it works! Again to surprise he handover the boarding pass and said, Sir, run to terminal 19, the gate is about to open. Hold on, the story doesn’t end there, there’s something for life-risk as well. By the time I land, Guwahati was raining like cats and dogs. Still praying, I got a brand new cab to Shillong, hungry and tired around 11 P.M I asked the driver, Sir, how long it will take to Shillong and can we stop somewhere for dinner. He replied, sure sir, around 1AM we will reach the Dhaba but Sir we must pray that there should not be any landslide. The way it is raining, I’m sure there will be landslide somewhere. After an hour, that skillful driver was good enough to turn the steering just in a few inches away from landslide. At 3 AM, I reached Shillong but again surprising my host was out of reach and I was in a drug-paddlers locality. With a bit more struggle, I got the connection of my other contact and finally, I got shelter.

Yes, as you think, my parents suggested me to cancel the trip and in fact, while facing each of the challenges I thought to withdraw from my “YES” to the conference organizers. But each time, one verse from the Bible went strong enough to convince me –

Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ 

Anything more comes from the evil one.

Promises are always made at the present time and mostly it is made about its future implications but the uncertainty of the future always appears as a challenge. As the future becomes present, at the most time it enfolds an awful lot of challenges. Logically, promises might be expressed with the help of word-formation but it isn’t just a word. The sustainability of our promise words shapes our identity – our character – our strengths – our understanding and majorly the other person’s TRUST. 

The well-known and well-uttered flamboyant phrase of our time is, “Heaven and earth may pass by but I will be with you at all times. You were meant for me”. But alas, since we tend to jettison our primary promises in most of our affairs we are experiencing more shattered relationships rather than the previous decades put together. Ironically, the British author Dr. John R. W Stott in one of his book on civilized society and its problems with morals and civility said,

“Many of the happenings of our civilized society would not exist if it were not for human sin. A promise is not enough, we need a contract. Doors are not enough, we need to lock and bolt them. The payments of fairs are not enough, we need to be with tickets that are punched, inspected and collected. Laws are not enough, we need the Police to enforce them. All these things and many others to which we have grown as a custom than we have taken them for granted are due to our sin. WE CANNOT TRUST EACH OTHER, WE NEED PROTECTION FROM ONE ANOTHER. It is a sorry state of affairs.”

SACRIFICING LIFE – CHOOSE WISELY

What exactly means sacrificing one’s life?

“It simply means giving up something we dearly want for the sake of others’ happiness.”

In this selfish world, does it really happen?

Yes, it does. If you look around we can find an uncountable number of people who sacrifice every moment of their life for others. It is not the poor or just the rich, not just a man or a woman, everyone around you sacrifice their precious peace for someone else’s smile.

A daily wager, walks kilometers breaking their bones working hard to earn enough to feed their family. A maid works cleaning the filthier plates, clothes, and homes without any taking any, just to keep their family has enough income to teach their kids to help them be successful in their life. An IT employee works 24/7 sacrificing food, pleasure, family, friends and much more just to earn and save for the future.

If you look out there are many who does these mundane things sacrificing their precious life. But what do they gain?

Do they gain happiness?

Do they gain relations?

Do they gain health?

No. Ultimately they lose all these in the long run. They forget to live in the moment. Their sacrifices are never valued. They sacrifice themselves for the sake of others and finally, they are not rewarded for their efforts.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Motherhood is yet another sacrifice

Women are again embodiments of sacrifice. They sacrifice much more than needed for their children.

All this is out of Love – the only emotion that helps anyone let go of anything.

Photo by RUN 4 FFWPU on Pexels.com

Winner’s Sacrifice

Most hardworking people, sacrifice their free time and devote themselves to tasks that make them ultimate winners.

It is said that when you say ‘yes’ to one opportunity, it means you are saying ‘no’ to many other things in life. 

The true side of sacrifice

The real fact which leads us to sacrifice is that we tend not to prioritize many things in our life.  And if we affirm that we are sacrificing something, then we are not enjoying what we do.

A mother never sacrifices her sleep, hunger, emotions, just like that for a baby. It is because she loves her child to the core. Similarly, everyone sacrifices only when they love doing it.

But there are some exceptions too.

Some merely hide their sorrows, sacrifices their emotions and then finally surrender themselves to the wicked world. But yet again, it is not the end of the world. There is always a  brighter side of life.

No sacrifice goes wasted. 

If you look in our Indian Society, mainly, there are thousands of women who being highly educated, get stuck indoors doing mere mundane tasks. Their dreams, their aspirations all go wasted in those four walls.

But why do they do it?

No women are weaker. They are stronger than they are assumed to be. The moment any woman decides to set themselves free from all these, they can just walk away.

But here again, they sacrifice for the sake of others’ happiness. All they do is expect a miracle to happen one fine day, where their loved ones see their immeasurable sacrifice and appreciate them.

Yet, again their sacrifices are so used to by others, that they never escape from them. Some sacrifices become compromises in life and it is hard to escape them.

Certain Sacrifices are worth taking

It is important to sacrifice certain habits, that really put us in trouble. Certain things like improper meals, unhealthy habits, lack of exercise, overdoing certain things for others, etc. can be sacrificed for your betterment.

To wrap Up

Choose wisely, before you do something for someone. Some sacrifices are to be well-considered choices while some others are better to be avoided for your peace of mind. Life is just one, a gift of breathing that you get. A time that cannot be captured back, hence living for yourself is a priority to be considered amidst living for others.