When you make others feel important, you make yourself feel important...

Recently I was reading a novel, 'The Magic of Thinking Big' written by David J. Schwartz where I came across a wonderful line that "When you make others feel important, you make yourself feel important too". It is very right in today's business-oriented world wherein people must be felt they are necessary to get good results out of them. It is not the time of 'I-Don't-Care-Who-You-Are' attitude, it is the time for 'You-Are-Best-Person' attitude. And it gives great results when the other person reciprocates. When you start appreciating, your customers will start purchasing from you, your employees will put-in more hard work because they are motivated, your friends will give you more importance, etc. So if we think big about people, we get best out of them.
I remember, in my MBA days, while I was going to my class I saw a junior sitting in a corner and weeping. Since I was bit early, I decided to go to her and ask what is the matter. She told me that nobody in my class likes me because I am not good looking. I said good things about her and appreciated her talents and told her that the moment you feel good about yourself, people will surely like you. Since then I saw remarkable changes in her and also she made new friends. Not only that, whenever I pass-by her she greets me very nicely which in turn makes me feel special about myself.
There are few tips which can help us appreciate others. First and foremost, Start Appreciating others. This does not mean you should forcefully do it everytime, but it should come from our inside. Giving nice comments on small things for example, clothing, attitude, behavior also counts a lot to others and because of this they will also make you feel special and good. Treating every person on same line is one of the best way for appreciation, try appreciating a peon for his excellent cleaning work and see the smile on his face. While making others feel needed, we can also give importance to them. Saying to a person that this work can't be completed without your support gives other person a boost and motivation to do it nicely.
Such gestures are always appreciated, be it personal or work life and appreciating people will make them reciprocate good feelings about you which will ultimately make you feel important and BIG!

Memories are worth cherishing.... Happy Rakhshabandhan!

I remember in January when I was nearly 3 years old
A healthy baby boy was delivered by my mother
about whom I was being told since months
that soon enough I will have my angel brother

My grand-ma dressed me up in pink flair
Made 2 small coconut-tree types pony-tails of my hair
on the way to hospital she told me about the new baby-boy
with whom I could share all of my toy

But, see how stupid I was, that when I saw him with mommy
inspite of being happy about this sweet innocent baby
I cried after seeing mummy with a new child and shredded tears like an open tap
"Who is he and What is he doing on MY mumma's lap"..?

Very softly mumma took me and made me sit near him
and reminded me how anxious I was to see him,
I closely felt his heart looked at him
O yes..yes... That's my brother..that is HIM!

It was a proud moment for me being an elder sis
and a chance to pamper this cute teddy bear
I took an oath near the temple with a bliss
that I woun't let him shred a single drop of tear

As the days went by.. and years passed on
with one another we experienced days being both sweet and bitter
But, each day was a learning and moment to celebrate
the true relationship of a brother and a sister

This rakshabandhan, I promise once again
to be an ever loving and responsible elder sister
and YES...we will celebrate feeling of togetherness
for today, tomorrow and forever..!

Expectationssss...

The famous poet and short story writer, Sylvia Plath quoted once that, "If you expect nothing from anybody, you're never disappointed". Absolute truth!!! Almost all the problems, stress and eagerness in human nature comes from expectations. It is the only thing that tears apart many relationships and is the major reason for disturbance created in mindsets of people in general.
I don't say that expectations are bad, but as it is very well said, "Excess of everything is bad", exceeding expectations from others sows seeds of disappointments, leading to unhappy life. I've come across numerous cases wherein exceeding expectations have lead to unrest to mind-body-soul and believe me it is painful every moment. No peace of mind leads to sadness, imbalance in mind, increase in heart-beat rate, muscular problems and God knows what all....! You can never even think in your wildest imaginations that people loose their balance of mind just because of it. The more you expect, the more you are dependent on others and it becomes inevitable to even think of getting separated from them. And if it goes beyond limits, in psychological terms it is called as DPD or Dependent personality disorder. In DPD, people completely depend on others to meet their emotional and physical needs.
In our day-to-day lives we get to know various people through family, friends, school, work places, etc and we associate with those whose mindsets are kind of like ours. With change of time, place, scenario etc we move on and find new people with whom we continue our life and the line goes like that. So what do we see..? We see that people come, people goes..but what is constant is Me or Myself. I am the best person to see what is right or wrong for myself. But in this context we must never forget people who have made us what we are.. Our Parents, to some extent other family members and close friends. Many minds have come together in the process of making one single mind.. Myself. We all must have experienced this many times that whenever we desperately need someone, people donot turn up, it is you who have to help yourself. Here comes expectations and longingness of someone, and if they do not come to you, you feel like why the hell have we considered him/her my well-wisher when they can not help us in our need. But instead of expecting from others if you do it on your own, things are much easier and comfortable.
It's not that we are doing a sin by not expecting, but it is a very big word to expect something from others in this era of egotism and un-adjustment amongst people. Someone near my place once said that "98% of people are very nice and helpful and we can trust and expect from them"...! Ha!! A person living in a dangerous place like NCR says that...it means either he/she does not go out of their room or else he is an extremely rich person who can shower money and get things done so easily.
Ultimately we and our family are the only ones with whom we can expect and never get depressed because family always stays together no matter what.

Magnificent Taj...through my eyes.... enhancing my photography skills

 

Whatsapp or Stressapp!!!

In today's fast moving world, the most common word amongst people is "Hey! Wassup?" The advent of technology has shrinked the world so much that a person sitting in one part of the world can instantly communicate with the other person sitting in another part of the world. Technology has grown like a virus and due to which many social networking devices has taken birth. The surprising thing is we are so used to the internet and working online that we are using almost all of the social networking applications like facebook, twitter, whatsapp, viber, Skype, we-chat, line.....and never ending.... Oh my God..! And even more surprising fact is, it's almost impossible to live without these now cuz we check status every day...every hour...every minute! Updating different status messages in each of these applications...lol.. sometimes I think are we psycho...? Har ek app pe 1 hi bande ka alag status... its stupid but hey...this is the new era! Samay ke saath kadam se kadam milaake chalo....arreyy but samay hi bhaaga ja raha hai...kadam nahi ab to ungliyaan chalti hai...haha :P.
Its the new techno-freak generation....time of "Connecting People". Guess we have taken this word very seriously..ehh... Now-a-days we have less patience...less time...So what we desire is instant messaging or talks, be it for personal or professional purpose within a second... My!! We could never have imagined this few decades back. I mean my mother still has lot of problems in using internet but we help her do it because 'ab letters aur telegrams ka zamaana nahi raha.'

This, in great extent, has led to many problems physically and mentally. Since the advent of smart phones, tablets, etc, we are connected to our friends and colleagues all the time and need not even move from our seats.. This does create a lot of backache problems and strain to eyes and a big reason for people using specs. But what's worse is more and more of mental stress due to it. It becomes a bit stressful for us when the other person does not reply to the messages or calls, tough to handle it in that situation. For example:
In facebook, the tick mark and seen (with time) is a big stress monster, makes people think..."Ohh, he has read my message but has not replied yet, What's the matter?...Why, How come"... and all...
In whatsapp, worst still, single tick...double tick...status online, last seen...UGHH... 'Why has he/she not replied... its really very stressful in some point of situation.., and has lead to great mental torture for some people.. I mean I have seen few relationships surviving only on whatsapp and facebook.. it's really tough for them to handle it.
"Technology is a facilitator, not the master of our life", we need to understand this
to a larger extent. It is ultimately us who has to act maturely to such incidents and control on self because we love ourselves...don't we..??

Power of Storytelling

People like to socialize a lot, but more than that they love to tell their own incidences to others which maybe true, or combined with some silly lies...or in other words Storytelling. Since ages people have been sharing stories in every part of the world as means of knowledge spreading, entertainment, to inculcate moral and cultural values, etc in their own way. In earlier days, when writing was not prominent, people used oral communication and by drawing pictures in woods or walls and sharing stories to express their views or feelings. Now that the world is modernized and new technology is being used, storytelling has become more interactive and creative.
 Storytelling is an art in itself. It takes a lot of expressions, creativity, maturity and also immaturity to a great extent...Sometimes a child-like thinking makes the story so innocent and close to reality that it catches the listener's attention.
Narrating a story has a lot of power..we can easily make people understand exactly what we want to say through a simple live or self-made example. It made me realize that day when few years ago, I remember, I was very tired so I decided to sleep early say around 9.30pm. But by chance I decided to listen to some random songs in the radio before I sleep... I randomly tuned into Big92.7fm where a very soft calm voice of a man was saying something and in few minutes an old song was played just after he finished a part of that narration. It took my attention... It was a show "Yaad Sheher with Neelesh Misra", wherein this man, Neelesh used to narrate a story in such a beautiful way and connected to that was a song to enhance the particular situation running in the story... For example, there was a scene in the story where a guy was dreaming...and suddenly the song 'O hansini' was being played... Oh my God..!, it took my breath away... I mean such a thing can also be done... Again few days later, there was a narration of separation of a brother and sister...and then the song 'ek hazaaro me meri behna hai' was played...really enchanting... and believe me I almost regularly listen to it now...
Even there are different styles of telling a story for different ages, this attracts the people whom you want should listen to, this brings a boost to the script and to everybody. The listeners enjoy it and the speaker enjoys that people are interested to know, 'What's Next'? You can make people happy, or cry, or whine, or scared... Isn't it a beautiful art. It can be narrated by any person be it a child, adults or old-aged! Also when you see people are not taking interest you can suddenly change the climax and take it to an altogether different road..hehe..
That is the magic...how to get people like you and your style. Storytelling is not an easy task, but it is one way of improving your skills on each aspect because for telling stories you should know a lot about anything and everything :)

Life is simple and beautiful...appreciate it!

Humans are the most beautiful creations of God... and then God let us choose our own path by our own way...called LIFE....and with life comes 'Aesthetics'.
Life is a roller-coaster throughout ! Full of new hurdles, challenges, opportunities! People say Zindagi, kesi hai paheli haaye.... Well, I say... Zindagi ek safar hai suhaana...! Life is too simple to lead...it is we, who make it complicated all the time... fizul kharchte hai mann aur dimaag ko jiski koi zarurat hi nahi... Life is all about how you wanna make it not what and how it makes you!
Human nature by default is made such that no need can ever satisfy us.. we want a bunglow if we have a small house, we want money n fame even if we can afford our living, the funny part is, we like those things owned by others rather than appreciating what we have..! We have so many desires and wants and for fulfilling those, we strive to achieve them by different means...But why do we react to things around us what makes us happy or sad...what makes us reason...
Well....with life, many other things comes along which makes us emotional and ability to think or reason and react to situations in our daily life... The primary feeling and mental status of a person is described beautifully in our Hindu Sanskriti as "RASA" or aesthetics. Rasas describe the way we show our emotions and reaction to our senses. It was earlier used in different Indian forms of art e.g. Dance, Music, Dramatics and so on... In total there are 9 rasas or what we call is Navarasa which are as follows:

• Śṛngāram (शृङ्गारं) Love, Attractiveness. Presiding deity: Vishnu. Colour: light green.
• Hāsyam (हास्यं) Laughter, Mirth, Comedy. Presiding deity: Pramata. Colour: white.
• Raudram (रौद्रं) Fury. Presiding deity: Rudra. Colour: red.
• Kāruṇyam (कारुण्यं) Compassion, Tragedy. Presiding deity: Yama. Colour: grey.
• Bībhatsam (बीभत्सं) Disgust, Aversion. Presiding deity: Shiva. Colour: blue
• Bhayānakam (भयानकं) Horror, Terror. Presiding deity: Kala. Colour: black
• Vīram (वीरं) Heroic mood. Presiding deity: Indra. Colour: yellowish
• Adbhutam (अद्भुतं) Wonder, Amazement. Presiding deity: Brahma. Colour: yellow
• Śāntam Peace or tranquility. deity: Vishnu. Colour: blue

Each rasa has its original and distinctive feature and it is believed that each person living in this earth possesses all of these aesthetics and uses these emotions almost every day! It is so beautiful that those expressions are well defined and that every bit of mental status counts in our life because without these we are as good as animals. Why are we different from other species made by God is because we know how to express, think and feel and most importantly sometimes using only gestures to communicate! That is the most sophisticated and wonderful gift to the mankind.
And so this is how we are happy seeing nice things, annoyed seeing bad things and evoke feelings for such worldly things which occupies mind throughout. Life is all about us and only us because we only are the ultimate decision maker of our life...and therefore nothing is good or bad, it is we who perceive it as good or bad!
                                          Life is a beautiful and rare gift...appreciate it..!