Fitting in: "I want to be like you...Different!!"

“Ok, so this looks good”, I think looking at myself in the new dress, “just needs a little tucking in here and there.”  “This behavior is new…” the train of thoughts begins suddenly, as usual, “me… trying to fit my clothes to my body”. Most of the times it is me trying to fit into the clothes I got, thinking constantly about how much I need lose and from where in my body. I bet most of the people now days do the same, trying to fit into clothes that are made on standard scale. Not only clothes and shoes, the type of products we use each day are standardized and we are given a silent message to fit ourselves into them. If you can’t find a foundation that matches your skin tone YOU are at fault. If you can’t fit into a jeans size your friend is easily able to fit into, it is YOUR fault and you need to be embarrassed.

                     I know you all must be thinking that I don’t understand that a company cannot make clothes for every size out there. They need to make what the majority can wear and need not think about everyone. True, I am not blaming them. I just have this one small question for you all. Why are we embarrassed if we can’t fit into the ones made for majority? It’s not like everyone is the same. It’s not like we are all clones walking around. And that is not even my point J. I am here again talking about the twists and turns of life. Trying to understand life just a little better and this time the behavior of trying to FIT IN has held my focus.

                 We all know that human beings are social animals. We just cannot live alone. I have seen people who call themselves loners but then loners also get depressed if they don’t have even a single friend. We all need friends and family around us but why do we need approval of our friends or family. Why do we need them to think we are like them? Why do we need them to think we are not an outcast? Why do we try so hard to fit in? So you think you are not the one trying to fit in? Think about it… Have you ever kept something (it could be as small as a needle and as big as a bomb) a secret from your friends just because you don’t want them to judge you? It may be justified to you but you still think they wouldn’t give you their approval that’s why you didn’t tell them. Or have you ever tried to lose those last 5 pounds? Do five pounds really matter? Really? But everyone around you thinks you are fat.. or worse YOU think you are fat because of all the models and celebrities you see. Isn’t this trying to be like someone else? Is this appreciating what you have and who you are? Is accepting yourself as you are? Why are you trying so hard to fit in when you were born to stand out? It’s a human dilemma, we all want to be different, extraordinary and we all also just want to fit in with everyone around us.

                 We all were made different, even if our physiques match. Even clones tend to have different personalities. But then we are all trying to be the same. We are all trying to follow the same trends and trying to be generic. We're so quick to cut away pieces of ourselves to suit a particular relationship, a job, a circle of friends, incessantly editing who we are until we fit in. Instead of making changes in the society we are changing ourselves to fit into the society. Just like instead of getting a dress tailored for us we are trying to get ourselves tailored for the dress. Society has always mocked people who stood out and did not fit in, be it bullying in high school, friends commenting on your weird dressing or thinking, or people around you getting annoyed by your way of questioning everything. We live inside a box and think that people who don't fit into our box are weird.  Instead of trying to Fit it, let us just be ourselves and Fit out, even when people insist that we have to change. Let’s take up space, not apologize for ourselves, and not agree with those who seek to label us with stereotypes. Legends are not those who always tried to fit in. If I were to write a book about someone I would not see what he did that was exactly like the people around him but I would write about how he was different, how he stood out in the crowd. But then let’s not forget morality. Doing something just to please someone and get his/her approval, is bad but doing something that’ll end up hurting someone is worse. Be different, but don’t just be selfish and irresponsible. There’s a thin line between breaking rules and breaking hearts. Don’t be afraid to break rules to follow your heart but never…and I repeat it… NEVER break hearts and hurt people around you.

                   Every human being is different and special in his own ways and no one needs to judge him for what he is. Everyone should be able to live exactly how he was made and not by losing his true self in trying to fit into millions of things around him.  Life is not about fitting in, it is about standing out!! Let’s not forget, in the end we're all misfits here… because this is called living… because this is called life!!

LOVE Actually....

Note: Before starting with the post, I would like to thank my friend Twinkle (name changed), for her story which is the basis of my post this time. Love is a sensitive issue. Whatever I have written here are my own views and that doesn’t necessarily mean everyone has to agree. Just read and let me know of any love story you feel worth mentioning. *******************************************************************************

The past: So she was in love, madly, as we say. She had been with this guy for like four or four and a half years. He was not the best, but for her he was everything. She loved him more than everything and cared for him even more than she cared for herself. And now they had broken up. Reason? He didn’t care. After four years of relationship he didn’t even care if she was alive. All he cared was his life and his career and his friends and even his sleep but not her. He was a perfect case of “single in the head” guy. He used to flirt with other girls and even insulted twinkle every now and then. In short he gave absolutely no respect to Twinkle. He always talked about breaking up but as soon as she tried to breakup with him, he used to start showering his love and care upon her. May be because he knew that no one would ever love him as much as she does, or may be he didn’t want to get blamed for breaking up. Hoping he would change this time she always gave him a last chance and this went on for one long year after which she finally decided to cut the rotten thumb off and accept the sudden pain for a short span of time in order of getting rid of the constant pain for life…

The present: One and a half year has passed since the day she left him. And she seems to be over him. She has dated a few guys since then but as soon as things start to get even a bit serious she stops seeing that guy. I had a chance to talk to her over this thing. Upon asking the reason she said, “I don’t want a future like my past.”

“Love is the irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired”, I read somewhere. True up to some extent. But why does one want to be loved in turn?? The answer to this question is beyond my knowledge. Why does love fade away?? Why do couples break up? “Break up” isn’t it the perfect phrase for the situation. A couple is one single piece and they can’t be separated without breaking. What do we mean when we say the term “True love” Is there any false love?? And if it’s false or pretentious, is it really Love??
Love as I know of, is always true. It’s the purest form of emotion. Love doesn’t mean getting attracted towards the opposite gender. That’s infatuation. Love comes when we start caring and when things happening to other person start to matter to us and have an impact on us. Love happens when we least expect it. But beware; to love is to open your heart to someone and to give her/him the power to change you. She/he might change you for the good or for the bad. To accept this change is to love. Commitment is what Love is. After sometime, when we finally realise that this is the person I want to be with, when I grow old…only then can we say that Love exists. In India there’s a trend of arranged marriages. Although I guess that majority of people reading this post are strong believers of love marriages, still I would like to mention that arranged ones are a big success. Not because of the love and compatibility (that happens in just 10% cases) but because of the compromise each of the partner is willing to make. Accepting the fact that we are going to live with a stranger for the rest of our life is a scary thought and if someone is willing to accept that, I don’t think, unless there’s some major problem in the marriage, it will fall apart… for me and many like me the answer to such thinking is “NO, Thanks”.
Being in love is a wonderful feeling… One smile from a loved one is enough to ease all the pain and tensions. One kiss on the forehead is enough to say I care for you the most. One hug is enough to say you are my life and I missed you. Being in love doesn’t mean that our partner is perfect or we are perfect, it means that we are willing to be the way he/she wants. Love is unconditional. Love is irrational. Love is divine. Yes, I live in a dreamy world where everyone is in love with someone. Where there’s just Love in everyone’s heart so that there’s absolutely no place left for hatred. And I wish we all try to live in the same dreamy world. Hating is not an emotion. It’s just the absence of Love. Just like darkness is the absence of light. Let’s fill our hearts with the light of love. Let’s take this one step in healing the world. Making it just a little better.
Coming back to Twinkle, She knows what love really means. But her experience has scared her. She’s scared to let anyone inside her heart again and to give him power over it. Will she always be like this?? No. Time will heal her. Love will find its way into her heart again. When she finds that one person who really cares for her and who is willing to accept the challenge to make her come out of the walls she has built around her heart, she’ll fall in love again. She’ll again start to trust someone to make him the first priority in her life. She’s waiting and I wish her wait ends soon. I wish she finds Love actually....

I have a dream in my eyes!!

"Do you wana play table tennis?", asked my friend as we were returning from the institute. "Sure", i gave a quick reply. As we started playing my friend said,"We enjoy playing so much. How great it would have been if we were in some sports institute. We would have been so much better at grades". I chuckled at the amusing thought. But then the train of thoughts began and i couldn't concentrate on the game anymore.Its funny but true that we can run from speaking, we can run from listening but we can't run from thoughts. They come to us like an uninvited guest and captivate our mind like a hijacker and stay in it till the time they want. There's no way out of thinking espl for me. As much as i was enjoying playing i kept thinking about the thing my friend said. "Quick question", I said,"What did you wana become when you were a kid? ". "A dancer or a sports person may be". But what she became is an Engineer. we kept talking..
"Why didn't you try to become one?"...
"I couldnt...i neither had the resources nor the support"...
"But you have it now.."
"Its too late now.. ", she said.
This is what my post is about. And what i call it is 'PASSION'. As a kid i always wanted to become a doctor..and i used to say "i'll become a muft doctor"..(one who wouldn't charge for treatment..)..cos i thought helping people was the best job one could get into...As i grew up i knew it was certainly my interest but not my passion.My passion was hidden in the antakshari's and group song games I used to play with friends. And one day i realised that all i wanted to do was to sing..I started singing in events..i joined the college band and was proud to be known by the other students as the lead singer of the band. I performed in front of hundreds of people not only in my institute but outside as well but my hunger to sing wasnt satisfied.Today, I am an engineer by degree but i have a dream...i have a dream that some day i will be singing in front of not hundreds but thousands of people.My passion is to sing..and stage is where i belong...
As a kid we all had thought of a future. some of us were able to realise their dreams and some of us werent. The question to ask is, how many of us are still trying to live for their passion?? Some people might say we have already lived so much of this life, we just cant leave this all just like that. True, but if you really have a passion isnt it worth giving a shot?? just dont let the dream in you die cos you couldn't do anything for it in the past. How can it be too late when all we have got is one life. How can we be happy doing something when we know our life is bound with something else. There's always a way to turn things right. Its never too late...I read somewhere, "God has sent us all with gifts..but some never open the pckages".. All i want to say is, open yours. Let the world know your talent. Let your heart be satisfied.
I am working on my passion..i might be moving slowly.. but i know i will be there.... soon. I won't let my passion die just like that..I owe it to myself..I will make my dream come true..will you ???

Dear Diary

Here I was surfing net as usual and listening to some of my favourite songs when this song “Dear Diary” by Britney reminded me of my own diary. Yes, I am a diary person… I don’t jot down every second of my life every day (thinking that would be published as my biography after I m dead…that would be so lame!!) , but yes, I do write when I feel like communicating with myself for a change. I will surely write sometime on why I write a diary or why it’s a healthy habit that everyone should follow. But for now, let’s just focus on the thing that I am here to write about.

So I was listening to this song and I thought of reading my old diary which I wrote some four years ago and as I had never imagined, every single page I read made me laugh even more than the previous one. The first thing that came into my mind was, “I can’t believe I was so immature”. Yes, I surely was very immature. I had written about small small things that hurt me and how immature my behaviour to such scenarios was and now these things didn’t even make any difference to me or my life anymore. I didn’t care about that stuff anymore. Isn’t it funny how unpredictable our life is. One day we are crying out our eyes for something and the a few months later we don’t even care a little bit about it. There I was writing about things in my diary that obviously were important to me at that point of time and now I don’t even remember them.

I thought, “Is this just me or does everyone feel like this when we read old stuff? ” I did a little research on the topic from net and bang!! I was right. Every single person had felt the same thing after reading an old diary.Everyone thought that they were immature and stupid back then. The point I am trying to make is that we all face problems and bad phases in life. And it seems like the bad things will make our life miserable. We tend to think that these things will leave their mark. But to our relief the truth is that we have a very week memory and a very strong heart. We grow with time both mentally and physically. And over time these things become so small that our brain erases the pain away. Of course there are things that are too strong for the brain to erase but then, that’s where sanity makes the decision. So let’s just stop worrying about small things like when someone hurt you or something that made you feel terrible. Just concentrate on the good things because these will be there with you forever. So why think about stuff that won't matter a few days later and waste the precious time of our life when we can enjoy being alive and stay happy.

Life is what we want it to be…we are what we want to be… this is the ultimate truth…and all we need to do in order to be happy is to ‘stay happy’…just smile your pains and troubles away…because this is the ultimate way of living…because this is called life!!!

getting over my past!!

Have you ever thought about your life and realized that it isnt working the way it is supposed to work?? you go to college/office, work hard, return home and sleep and repeat the process. you work as hard as you can, you have sleepless nights and even 24 hours seem less to you but still there's something missing. you feel like time is running out and you havnt even started the "real" thing you wnt to do. lately i have been facing the same feeling...
today i wasnt well..was on bed the whole day and apart from sleeping i kept thinking.. looking back at my past years and thinking what went wrong.. my life isnt really what i wanted it to be.. this isnt really how i had pictured myself. It seemed as if i wasted a lot of years doing something which didnt even add to anything. and thus i have decided to work up hard to gather my life together and live like i wanted to. there are phases in lfe which make you think that you have nothing earned as compred to what others have.. be it in relatonships, money, career or whatever. but sometimes you need just to take a break and think. we all know that life doesnt work according to our plans..but then we cant stop making them..in the same manner as we cant stop living just cos we are going to die may be tommrrow.. so here i am making another plan for my life.. picturing myself again in the future.. trying to live the way i should have some 4 years ago.. still its never too late to start over again.. wish me luck!!!