I am Change

"You must be the change, you wish to see in the world "

Social or political change starts with one person believing in it. I am neither an activist , nor a political reformer but as a citizen of this world what i am seeing transgressing around me is not how i envisaged the world when i was growing up.

There are so many issue's which we all feel the need to address in this world. Everyone is doing a marvellous job by being an activist sitting at home and writing / putting video's on social media. I want to ask one question : Is any of this helping us? Being aware is one thing, being aware of fake news or half wit news is another. We are training our mind to talk about what's going wrong in this world but how many are effectively making a difference?

When i started writing my blogs, it was to understand my feelings and take journey within me to find out what i really wanted. As days turned into years i too became complacent and wrote about topics which cajoled me. Other than that i did nothing effective about it to change. Do i feel contributing anything back? Do i think i am important? These questions are cajoling me more than the work i have done in my life. Because if i can be honest to myself, i worked on someone else's dream at work. I gave the best years of my life not bringing the change i wanted to see but be the part of a larger wheel as spoke, to make it turn.

We all come at cross roads in our life and sometimes the road chooses us and sometimes we take a leap of faith and choose a road unfamiliar to us but we know our dream to be fulfilled is at the end of that road. No one has a perfect life, we all are given opportunities to make a life for ourselves. Some fight and make it happen to succeed . While most wallow in their misgivings and miss the opportunities which present themselves. I will not call these people losers but people who have stopped believing in themselves.

With the advent of technology, every young adult these days is dreaming of becoming a billionaire by not working. Dreaming is good, but if not put to work, dreams stay dreams. To make it a reality one has to learn to work hard and smartly. I do see a lot of talent around me , but its wasted.

Today is not about this but about a topic which has me really worked up. I am not a feminist or sexist but inside me i feel there is this unrest which is cajoling me to say this without prejudice;
" We need to put Men in their place to save Humanity"

As i said neither an activist nor a political reformer, but i am really very tired and sick of this world which belongs to all of us, to be at the mercy of "Men in power".
It was never a Man's world, yet we learn in school that father ( male member of the family) is the head of the family. Far cry the person does not even know about childbirth and all of a sudden head of family. War, terrorism, corporate warfare all these toys which the so called Man desires are his doing.

Women lost their place in this food chain of power and have been struggling past decades to get a seat on the table. We have double standards for Men and women in every walk of life, yet we choose to call ourselves liberal. Another slap to our free thinking existence. Are we really free and democratic in our way of life?

Look around, see for yourself and ask this one question; Where has EGO and POWER put us? What are we doing with our lives? Will we ever leave a functional, healthy planet for future generations?
Well every human wants to have mini versions of them on this planet. Every couple, or singles after certain age crave to have children. How many more mouths can this planet feed? With our hunger for materialistic comforts and hunger for power are we even thinking of having a sustainable planet for future generations or we want the pyramid to be bottom heavy as it is already. Is poverty and hunger what we want to leave behind as our legacy?

Man created God, and now Man wants to be God. Think.... what exactly we need to do, to undo the damage already in process. Is this how we dreamt of a better world?
Hard hitting questions, no easy solution. Yet if we want to make a change, our first goal needs to be changed education system. It's an uphill task, time is not on our side, yet i do know that human resilience is strong and if we put our mind to make something happen, we all can make a difference. Question is how many would like the change for better tomorrow? It's a comfortable life... to want, to fight, to crib, to go hungry and dream of being rich. It's difficult to make changes which will change many people's lifestyles to save the planet.

We are our choices.... choose to live than to be at the bottom of pyramid someday in future.

You named me What!?

Nicknames are most essential in life, more valuable than names.


Whats life without having a nickname? Sometimes the nickname sticks for life. The person is only called by it through out their life. There are so many instances in our life when we don't remember the real name of the person as we are so used to called the person by a nickname. It creates a bond within people. Nicknames are fond names, we do not give them to people we dislike. Other than in circumstances when friends secretly give nicknames to people, so that only they know who they are talking about.

A philosophical view says: What's in a name? Yet our identity is through our name. A given name at birth is something we have no control on. But a nickname is something we do have a say. Like my given name Anupama, all my friends, family and colleagues call me Anu. Only one who ever called me by full name was my mom and my childhood friend. When they would say my full name meant i had done something for which i was going to be scolded or penalised. Well my nickname is just short form of my given name. Think about a person having Satvinder as her / his name, and nickname is lucky. Now this is something very prevalent in North India. We can have a good laugh but then Satvinder all his/ her life will be called lucky. I have a friend whose name is Harvinder and all my life i have called him Harry. Never knew till the advent of Facebook that his real name was Harry. There are so many instances of this.

Some nicknames can make you smile, while some can scandalise you. There are times we keep nicknames for our loved one's on our phone, while we do not call them by this name. I recently had a shock moment when one of my friends husband has put her name in his phone as " Hitleerrr" now this was a complete shocker to me, as my friend is an easy going person. This made me think about why such a name for her!! Love has no reasoning and i guess their fun moment is this. Even though in europe people will look down at the name given to her by her spouse.
While we were at this conversation of what her name is on his phone, another friend told us that she knows someone who has put "Do not answer" as name for his wife. Yet when she calls he picks up. This got me seriously baffled and in splits of laughter. I would love to go through all my friends / strangers anyone who would let me see what name they have given to their spouses / partners.

I love the idea of a nickname. It's so personal and affectionate. There is fun and lightness when people are talking ; what's life without a few laughs ? But on a serious note it makes me think about where are we going with this fast moving world. Our ideas and way of life has evolved and even our love nicknames some rather old and some very creative stick out at times like sore thumbs.

Is their a direct connection about our relationship / feelings with the names we give to our loved one's? Especially in the smart phone age, many people give nicknames to their loved one's. This has seriously made me think about our mindset to how we perceive our relation.

We say that jokingly we have put this name ; Jokes are good and fun, but then there is a an underlying subconscious message which we are also projecting. Have we come in an age where we have to Rethink about how we give nicknames?

Relationships are like bubbles, handle them with care.

Out of Control

"Your urge to control life, Controls you"

Are we all crazy? Or are we Geniuses? 

No one knows , but we all have certain traits which can be deemed either. 

Too much clutter and noise is what we have in our life and ultimately we give in to whatever is pushing us over the edge. Some become great artists,  while some wither their life away. Circumstances, choices, oppurtunities, lady luck … what ever one wants to call it … somewhere we push our own boundaries.

Watch people and one realizes , how fragile we all are. We play the game of involving people in our decisions, this way whatever the circumstances we feel we have people along with us. Once someone has approved our decision , the game begins. Our vulnerability ensures we hide behind our stories.  We create memories by fabricating stories, we start living in these fabricated stories which we then call a fulfilled life or sometimes we say life has been unfair to us. Either way we create these illusions and then we have someone else to blame.

When did all this happen? When did we start imagining our lives, and started living a lie? Imagination the milestone of our evolution, we created, stories that have made us who we are today. When did we spiral out of control with our stories?

Every person has a unique signature, we are all different, yet our society wants us all to be same for a common objective. Our conditioning over millennia has been to blend in. We have been trained to be social animals, yet one finds peace when one comes to terms by being alone. Truth is,  we come alone in this world and we go alone from this world. The moments we are alive is what we have been trained not for our betterment, but to blend in and be social animals. 

"Animals", in the end we are just animals as per our society. We started teaching control your mind, let the mind not control you. We were taught desires are bad, we are taught to be forgiving, loving , compassionate , helpful to others... list goes on. Why are individuals targeted with these messages all their life? Why did we form governments? What role does a government vs individual plays in society ? So many lies and false hopes which have been given in name of being in control. We crib about bad governances, yet if we are asked to follow rules we are first to jump the boat to find our own way.

Survival of the Fittest has been our mantra. We have been trained with this ideology, yet we have conflicting ideologies all our life. Our ever expanding population, spiralling out of control is raising enough issues for us to rethink about our ideologies and way of life. Equal treatment, equal rights, equality as a whole is what the world has been chanting, yet the gap between haves and haves not is widening. We say few individuals for their own gains are exploiting the world resources. My question: Are we all not responsible? We all have numerous needs, desires and we collectively are using the resources with our new purchasing power. So if few are exploiting for their business purpose is due to the spiralling population and more humans needs to be met. 

Why should a capitalist give away his wealth to the poor? Why do we propagate to give alms to needy? Why are we not teaching people to work and earn a living? Why are we not holding the so called elected governments to work on this? 

We have spiralled out of control in every aspect of our lives. This is just the tip, as more populated this planet becomes, more out of control we will become. We cannot control anything other than pave the way of our destiny. Hard work and updating our skills will help us to have a good life. We are not animals, and we need to Rethink and Unlearn to let go of our conditioning. 

Don't feed fish , teach people how to fish. This is the only way to survive and have a quality of life for everyone.

As rightly said by Ratan Tata, " All of us do not have equal talents , yet all of us have equal opportunity to develop our talent".

Life is fun, if you let go of controlling it.

Educate to free your mind!

Freedom is being you without asking for permission.
We are always standing on crossroads and the decision to choose is always with us. Yet we are delusional in believing that the choice remains with us.
Recently the world has seen major technology changes.
With advancement of technology and social media we have seen many couch activists voicing their opinion on how to run the country, or social activist talking about human or animal rights.
What once used to be a secret among few trusted friends is now posted on net for all to read and comment. What one had for breakfast, current relationship status or where one is travelling to or having a surgery or falling sick... everything about our mundane boring life is posted to make it interesting. All of a sudden Freedom has a different meaning. Once a repressed society has taken on the social media with a different objective.
Many fake news are circulated as they excite and entice our senses. We have lost the perspective of what is real and reel in this.
Is it our beliefs which are changing? or is it our way of thinking? Which ever way one see's this, very soon we will be meandering the path of what the moral police, activists, government would want us to project on this platform.
Freedom is every living beings right. It's not just for humans, but for the whole species living on this planet. Unfortunately animals, plants and nature cannot voice their opinion on social media and for that we have self appointed human's who feel its their job to bash, push or comment on other person's viewpoint. What is the authenticity of animal abuse video's which do the rounds on this platform? No one has ever checked the source of any such news but for sure some people are meeting there objectives without spending a dime on the cause.
I feel pity for all big corporates who spend millions of dollars on their marketing and research to ensure their product becomes aspirational and useful for the human race. In today's world with so much information being available and everyone being a google doctor or expert in anything it's difficult to make a decent campaign without the backlash from the google experts.
Can someone tell me what is Organic? How long does it take for the soil to turn completely organic for the first produce to come out? Are all ingredients put in this product organic? I don't think anyone asks this question but any product which has a label of organic we run to buy it.
I often wonder what price we will pay for this freedom to be restricted? We are all evolving, we all do know that freedom is what we all desire and want. But are we equipped to handle this freedom?
In our normal day to day life, we are forced to follow rules or we are punished. But on social media i feel we all let go of our basic moral responsibility and act more like humans who have just escaped from cages.
I feel it's not us to blame but our archaic education system which is not teaching us to evolve. We are stuck in this time zone where our education and current life does not match. With freedom comes great responsibility and if we do not educate children and adults about responsibility then how is any one going to evolve?
Artificial Intelligence / technology is here ... our future depends on whether we let old institutions which are scared of mass freedom being distributed freely and their reign getting restricted or shall we say hold on common people getting smaller. Do we want restrictions being imposed on us on social media ; our one source of expressing freely or de we as a race educate ourselves and others to be responsible?
The change starts with me, i cannot change anyone other than myself. Expressing an opinion , voicing a social cause, being emotional, connecting with people, getting my 10 seconds of fame or creating a content which goes viral is what we all do on social platforms. The world is very small and we are all disconnected with our real lives when we come on the social platform. But without knowledge believing a rumour or fake new is one thing , uploading, forwarding or sharing the same is another. Mass hysteria is caused by such fake news and clippings. One can have a laugh at a joke made on a politician but think again is the Politician a joke or you who is the voter? Indirectly if one looks at this we are making a joke of ourselves at expense of others.
Being aware of what's happening in this world is one thing, authenticating the information and then forwarding is another. We all have got used to juicy news, therefore real social issues if they are not juicy or violent don't get a share or forward.
We are living on the edge with technology, this is just the tip of what is to come. If today we don't act responsibly, we are endangering our freedom of speech, freedom to live to government and tech giants of this world.
Think... educate and be responsible.

Freedom is a state of mind.

Journey Within: What's life without a little madness!

Journey Within: What's life without a little madness!: "There is no great genius  without  some touch of  madness . ... There are two great days in a person's  life  - the day we are b...

What's life without a little madness!

"There is no great genius without some touch of madness. ... There are two great days in a person's life - the day we are born and the day we discover why. ... It serves as blinders to what may be just a few steps down the road for you. (as said by Aristotle)

If i take risks, if i am bold in my decisions, if i don't want to follow but make my own path... people term this as being Mad. But why? There is a thin line between mad and genius. Maybe the fine line which is there tells us that being Mad is not in fashion but being genius is definitely what everyone would love to be.
To me if i am willing to take risk, take a leap of faith with my ideas and bring my dreams to life is what a person would do logically. Sometimes logic takes a back seat when one is pursuing a dream project.
Maybe when one makes too many repetitive mistakes is what we call being Mad to follow a dream which has no results. Or is it we have not looked at other options? Sometimes to get the answer we want from a situation, we look at the solution from all angles to come to same conclusion again and again. Thats when our logic has taken a backseat and insanity has taken its roots.
We see many people pursing their dreams and when they don't get desired results either they get frustrated and leave it or become obsessed and follow it like a mad person. Either way there is no definite fine line drawn.
Its a standard perception that all creative people are mad / crazy. They live in their own world. the same goes for workaholics. But hard work pays, whatever we say about being resilient in our thoughts or our way of life. We all agree that the "Universe loves the stubborn heart". If i believe i can do it, then i will definitely make it happen. Thats the resilience which only a stubborn heart has.
I love to watch people immersed in their dreams and working towards making them a reality. There is a certain positive and passionate aura around these people. They are charged with energy and they make everything around them seem possible. What the outcome will be they are not bothered about, it a the passion which drives them for one specific goal ..." Make it happen".
Do we call them Mad or Genius?
If some one can define either of the two words it will actually help us all to come to terms with how we deal with life. Its not the above average IQ or answering all questions on MENSA which makes one genius in today's world. Tough i said something which might hurt many people's sentiments. But having a high IQ will get you to work for a large company or government on secret projects which actually many feel great in beginning to work on and then realise that they are just spokes in wheel like others to make someone else dream to become reality .
Today's genius is someone who can create his/ her own dream into reality. Common sense and hard work with above average IQ and maverick genes might just make a normal human a genius to bring a change in this world. Then this genius can go hire many high IQ geniuses to work for him/ her. Simple management lesson, hire people more educated than you to make your dream come to reality.
One cannot be always good, we do need to be bad too. Its like one cannot always stay in shadow, neither can one always stay in light. Balance is necessary to live and with this balance one can explore different traits and personalities which we all harbour within us.
We cannot move forward till we don't accept our mistakes and folly which we all make. We can keep blaming the system, people, life , work etc etc... but in the end if we cannot accept simple mistakes which we make, then there is no future to ever find balance.
Maybe we all are borderline mad, i don't know but i do know that we do have streaks of being a genius too. So maybe we are both with a balance which we can create with discipline over the years.
I am both eccentric and forgetful but i have accepted my personality traits and now use them to my advantage. There was a time this was my disadvantage. How to turn a disadvantage to our advantage is what acceptance teaches us.
Mad or Genius is not for us to decide. We are a sum total of all the madness we create in our life to find balance in end. We follow our dreams with resilience, we believe in something even if we have doubts about it, we follow people who we feel are speaking what we are seeking, we do things differently yet we are all working towards the same dreams. We want to desperately make it happen some way or other. We want results, we want instant gratification, we will break all rules if we have to, we will follow rules if we have to. Above all we are human.

We are built from every mistake we have made.

Third side of the coin

Like the two sides of a coin, one without the other just won't make any sense. And if the coin ever has a third side, it will never be 'Emotions' or 'Sentiments' because they both have zero IQ.” “Happiness and sadness are the two sides of the coin of our life.

As the saying goes two negatives don't make a positive, but two positive or one positive and other being negative (having a chance of being positive in future) makes perfect two sides of a coin. The combination of fear and ignorance ( two sides of the same coin) can be paralysing.

Similarly both Men and Women as gender are two sides of the coin, they have same feelings but they react differently to a situation. Mars and Venus sounds very exotic for personality traits and we love a good story. But in reality we are all same, we choose to react the way we feel at present moment. Our conditioning and upbringing makes us who we are. If we remove the society norms and bring both genders up with no biased or pre disposed conditions, one will see them both behaving same to any situation. Equal opportunity changes the way we think and react.

There is also a saying opposite attract when it comes to relationship. We have also abused and used the term "Good cop - bad cop" in our work environment / family or friendship . 
And with pride we gloat .... "That's what makes them so perfect, they are two different sides of the same coin". 

What surprises me is that we talk about change all the time, yet we go in circles when it comes to our pre defined perceptions and way of life. 
The list goes on: Peace and justice, Madness and Genius, Creativity and Freedom, Good and Bad, Shadow and light, Love and Hate...... they all have a common denominator -  Us and our thinking and reaction to situation.
No matter what your situation, one needs to understand that your current circumstance is simply one side of the two sided coin.

We have all heard oppurtunity knocks slowly or once. Then we also came up with a wise one - if one door closes other opens. The glass is half full or empty. We created a profession Psychology / Psychiatry for making an outsider understand this dilemma which we all face. Did someone not use common sense to understand that door has a handle and if it closes one can open it again, or the glass can always be filled. Yes we have been using paradigm to motivate people, but then don't feed them but teach them to be motivated always.

Humans are selfish by nature, we choose to help those who will in future be of use to us. We choose always for our betterment. These days on social media to be cool one can voice any opinion but the truth is far more complicated than what one chooses to show as.
Which side of coin is our ever hungry selfishness? Question which always arises is " Two sides of the same coin but which is which ?"
One can be anything and anyone , one chooses to be. Our masks cannot hide our true self (this is debatable ) , as we never know what is our true self. We all want to be successful without realising success comes to those who have seen failure.

Success and failure are two sides of the coin. So my dear friends "Flip the coin and enjoy the game."