SUCCESS VS HAPPINESS

I am 23. Living in a so-called civilized society , people expect me to have answers to questions like ' what am I going to do in my life?', ' Where would I be 20 years from now in my career?', 'How much would have I saved by then?' , ' when am I going to book an apartment?'( The question is not whether I require an apartment of my own. It is just WHEN.) If I have answers to these questions by now and execute it as planned, I would be considered as someone who has achieved his ultimate goal of life.

  Even if I have achieved it, the irony is that I would have been  just an audience in setting MY OWN GOAL( Isn't it like me not attending my own marriage). So rather than answering the above lesser valued questions, the appropriate question to be answered would be 'WHAT IS THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE OF LIFE?'.  Answering this question might help us to be an active participant rather than being just an audience in setting our own goal.

 The answer that strikes me instantly is ' THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE OF LIFE IS TO BE SUCCESSFUL'. Though this answer sounds a bit generic, I like this answer because it projects me as an ambitious and determined man.( Yes, I am a man now. I no more have the luxury of being a boy.)
But it is much easier to project you as a strong-willed person than to actually be one.

So when I ponder over the question for few more minutes, my answer transforms to ' THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE OF LIFE IS TO BE HAPPY'. This sounds a matured answer. But in the name of becoming mature, people actually become less-ambitious and docile(May be this is the reason why with aging comes complacency.) There can be two answers to a question. But surely one must be better than the other(This is how we have been taught in our schools.) Let me start evaluating the two answers.

Is there a difference between success and happiness(or are they synonymous).I have seen successful people exuberantly rambling about how happy they are in life. So it does look like happiness is a by-product of success.In my very little experience I had with life, I was not all that happy when I was 'what people called success'. Everyone has their own definition of success. What if, my definition of success is 'TO BE HAPPY'( I know I am starting to get ambiguous).

Now that we have evaluated(and given lesser marks)success, let me start with happiness.To me, Happiness is highly deceptive that we can not trust it. What might seem happiness today,might not be the same few years down the line.Few years back, playing cricket was happiness to me.Today, better job with better salary is coveted happiness to me.This might change tomorrow.

So my conclusion(after two useless hours of thinking) is that' THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE OF LIFE IS LIVING'.This might sound too simple a answer to a possibly complex spiritual question.Not always there needs to be a complex answer for a complex quesion.As our innate quality, we tend to ignore simpler things which might well be the solution for bigger problems.

      THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE OF LIFE IS LIVING

PS: If on a friday  afternoon, you are all alone and you dont feel sleepy , this is how insane you could get.

IMPERFECT ENDING

He met her. He acquainted her. He befriended her. And finally he loved her.( Actually, he conceived he loved her). But he didnt know whether she felt the same about him. And he would never know that in the future too.

The moment he saw her for the first time in their class( that was the only moment he saw her. From then on, he totally ogled her). He felt she was the hottest girl in the class, may be in the entire college, may be in the entire world. Because he had never seen a prettier girl than her. Though he didnt believe in love-at -first-sight, he totally believed in lust-at-first-sight.

After a few days he got a chance to speak to her. Whenever he spoke to her he tried to act calm and casual. But inside he was restless and agitated. He felt like all his organs were folk dancing.He has ogled and flirted with infinite number of chicks(sorry, girls), but this feeling was new to him. He wondered may be "this is what people call as LOVE". But as per People's definition of love, it is related to something called heart. So he was convinced and relaxed that this was not love.

As days became weeks, he was truly calm and casual when he spoke to her.He stopped ogling her and started to see her face. Now she looked elegant and beautiful. There seemed to be a bond growing between them gradually but steadily. He liked the way she spoke. He liked the way she carried herself. He admired her.

As weeks became months, their bond had grown vehemently stronger. He loved her brilliance more than her face. Yet at times she was innocent as a child. He couldnt understand how could she be both brilliant and innocent at the same time. When his friends asked what was the relationship between them, he really didnt have an answer.

His feelings towards her kept on changing. For a week, he would think she was the best friend he has got. The next week, he wished he had a sister like her. The next week,  he felt like kissing her.He hated himself for having such feelings for her. The mistake was not only with him. The way she spoke to him was also a cause for his roller-coaster feelings.

None of their feelings were shared between them. Though they were the bravest among their peers, wording one's feelings needs a different kind of bravery which they lacked. He knew, the inevitable day would come, when they had to move apart and lead their own life. From that day ,their bond would weaken.She would not be near him to laugh at his silly jokes. They could not watch a movie together. He could not console her for her little failures. He could not lie to her that he liked her art works.He could not do a 1000 more silly but memorable things. And he could not love her.

Yes, that was love.He had heard LOVE HURTS.Just the thought of the inevitable day caused him excruciating pain. If this was not love, what else could be.

But WHAT IF she rejects him.WHAT IF she says " you are nothing more than a friend to me". WHAT IF she says " you are a cheap guy". WHAT IF she says " you are just another guy to me".( Life would be blissful if there were no WHAT IFS)He was afraid of the failure and decided to bury his love. He met the inevitable day not as a guy who loved her but as a friend who supported her.Time heals even the worst of wounds.

PS: This may not be the perfect ending to the story( for many of you, this may not even be a story worth posting), but this is how many of the real life stories end.

A REAL WINNER

        Karthick was a simple 17-year old boy with no big dreams and aspirations. He was a typical Indian student. He loved to spend time with his friends. He was an ardent follower of cricket. He was an atheist. Neither did he love his studies nor did he hate it. He was not a slow learner( though most of them believed he was). He knew he had the ability to be a topper. But he chose not to be one. Because he believed toppers wouldnt have the most creative of minds. He surely was not using this as an excuse to be lazy.


     Just like any other family, his parents had a huge expectations on him. They wanted him to earn a 6-digit salary per month. But Karthick hated his parent's pampering, he hated the melodramas of his mother, he hated the materialistic-thinkings of his father, above all he hated their expectations on him. He believed ONE SHOULD EXPECT SOMETHING FROM ONESELF, NOT FROM OTHERS. Not even from the closest of relations. Inspite of these, he loved his parents. (That is India. Children in India dont have the courage to hate their parents)


     Though he got pretty decent marks in his board exam, he didnt want to do engineering. When his father asked " What else do you want to do?",  he had no answer( Just like many people, he only knew what he didnt want. He didnt know what he wanted). After 4 years, Karthick was an engineer. He was not proud about it because  1) Even the lab assistant who worked in his college was an engineer. 2) He didnt want to be an engineer.


    Even his parents, for whom he did his engineering, were not happy because he didnt have a job. They wanted him to get placed in a MNC- work for a year-go to America- marry a wealthy Indian girl- have kids-work hard to leave huge assets for kids. Karthick could never understand the logic behind their expectations. Whats wrong with India? Whats wrong with a poor girl( if she has good character)? whats wrong if he didnt leave any assets to his children( if he gives them their freedom and allows them to chose what they want in their life)?


    He knew it was not his parents fault. The fault was with the society where father's friend's sister-in-law's uncle's words about him hurt his parents. For his parents, what the society perceives to be a happy life is THE HAPPY LIFE. But Kathick had his own idea of happiness. Just like the adage " Eat to live. Dont live to eat" , he believed in " EARN TO BE HAPPY, DONT BE HAPPY TO EARN". He believed, people could experience real happiness only if they do, what they love to do.


  He knew, the skeptical society would ask " What if you dont find what you love to do?" . Atleast, he would be happy trying to find what he loves, rather than doing things that he doesnt love. If people say " marrying a girl only for her money is immoral" then how come " Doing a job, that you hate, only for money is not immoral". Atleast in the former, we are cheating another human. In the later, we are cheating ourselves.


         Karthick doesnt want to cheat himself. He wants enjoy the real happiness that life has to offer. He is in search of finding what he loves to do. He is hopeful that he would find it. But before that he knew he has to face lot of struggles, he has to be strong, he shouldnt succumb to social and economic pressures. These are the phases of an ideal life.


           Not all who succeed in their career are winners. Some are lucky that they start loving what they do. The rest are good at cheating themselves that they believe they love what they do; which actually they dont. The real winners are people like Karthick who wait and find what they love to do.



                                                                                                                                               by  prem

THE OTHER SIDE

 
     Here is my another post. But this post is going to be a bit different( atleast that is what I intend). The protagonist of this post is one of my very close friend. What makes him special and odd is that he is just not like us( by us- I mean everyone who lives life because we are born. Everyone who doesnt realize the enormity of life). My friend is weird . Not in his appearance or behaviour but in his thoughts. We are so intimate that I can understand his thoughts even without expressing in words.


           He doesnt like to watch television. He doesnt like movies.He hates chit-chatting. All he likes to do is- sit alone and think about something. He always feels that there are lot of things in world that needs to be understood more clearly. For him, life is a complicated puzzle that needs to be solved. He wants to estrange himself  from his peers because he knew human-relationship is not his forte. He even wouldnt approach any girl because -1) he believed the girl wouldnt fathom even a single element of his way of seeing life.
                   
                     2) he also felt LOVE IS HIGHLY OVERRATED IN OUR SOCIETY.


          He is not at all a materialistic person. He doesnt covet for gadgets, bikes, apparels or any other materials for that matter. He believed people would be contented and fulfilled only by leading an austere lifestyle rather than a luxurious one. He is not concerned much about his studies or his career.One of his favourite lines is "CAREER IS ONLY A 19TH CENTURY INVENTION. BEING SUCCESSFUL IN IT ALONE   SHOULDNT BE THE ULTIMATE AIM" .

         
              Above all, the most weird thing about him is that he always tries hard to enjoy pain. Because he felt THE MORE YOU EXPERIENCE PAIN, THE MORE YOU COULD APPRECIATE THE BEAUTY OF LIFE. On the whole, for him life is a damn serious thing.


                        Though I could understand him, I couldnt fully agree with him. For me, life is blissful only when it is taken lightly. Why should we think too much about everything in life??? Just enjoy life as it comes. I like being improper. There is always a twinge of happiness and excitement in making mistakes.

              What I am trying to say is , there is no correct or wrong way to live a life. JUST LIVE LIFE IN THE WAY WHICH MAKES YOU HAPPY.

              By the way, who is he(my so-called friend)???  HE IS NOTHING BUT THE OTHER SIDE OF ME. I didnt intend to plot any twist in the story. The reason is so simple. People who knew me wouldnt have believed that those exotic thoughts were actually mine.


                  There is always an  "OTHER SIDE"  to everyone of us. The side which we hide from our society. We hide it because we are afraid others might ridicule us, others might not understand us and ultimately they may not accept us. We always wanted to fit in our society. So we do everything, not because we wanted to do but because others expect  us to do.


             So why am I revealing THE OTHER SIDE of me all of a sudden??? Atleast now I am relieved that I expressed both my sides fully to others( atleast to the very few readers who read this). I know I have made this post a bit arduous and highly vague. I cant help it. If you want to talk about yourself, you need to bore others.



                                                                                                                                              by  prem

nothing-to-do

           There will be a phase in everyone's life when one has no responsibilities,no expectations on him, no goals, nothing. All we need to do in that phase is just eat-digest-sleep-eat-digest-sleep.......... I am exactly in that phase of my life.


                   If I explain my routine to any person, they would envy me for having such a blissful life.Even I did feel the same for few days but not anymore. I have heard many people saying that final semester of college life would be nothing but full of enjoyment. It is true to an extent. If you are an average student(like me), you would be happy with the company you got placed, unlike some geeks who applies for IIMs and US universities. And you would be more than happy to just clear all your papers( who gives a damn about the grades). The only petty problem would be your project work which can be solved by rs.4000.


                      Life seems beautiful. So what it is that concerns me??????


            After living this nothing-to-do phase of my life for a couple of weeks, I am starting to realize that ENJOYMENT WHEN FELT IN EXCESS, TURNS TO BOREDOM. How much ever movies I watch, what ever books I read, where ever I roam with friends-at the end of the day, there is no excitement. Only a kind of emptiness fills me.


           You would be happy if you know that you do not have any work tomorrow. But, if this becomes the routine, YOU WOULD BE FRUSTRATED. In this phase,there is nothing to think and ponder about.I dont even have anything to worry about to keep my mind engaged.There is no excitement, no liveliness. If you think I am exaggerating, all I could say is, you are wrong.

         So to change the nothing-to-do-phase into a lively-phase, all we need to do is, do things that excites us. Things that make us smile internally. Things that make us proud of ourselves.But the problem is we have never discovered such things in our life. Do we have any specific hobbies? what are our interests ? We dont have any clear answers to these questions. Then how could we discover the things that excites us????

          My answer is NEW EXPERIENCES.  THE CORE OF HUMAN SPIRIT IS FELT ONLY BY NEW EXPERIENCES. When we leave our "comfort zone" and go into an "unknown zone"- we might be happy, we might be scared, we might get hurt but we would feel alive.


          There is always a sense of apprehension in doing new things. This apprehension gives us the excitement. But to feel this excitement or to leave the "comfort zone", we need to shred off the laziness that has overtaken us. Ok, what kind of new experiences am I talking about???


        It could be anything simple like learning a new sport, jogging or exercising, trying to cook our own food, meditating, even proposing to the girl who is close to your heart etc.Most of us might be doing such things already, just to pass time. But try to see it as a new experience and excel in whatever you do.


       So what I am trying to say is -an idle man's brain is devil's workshop. Rather than being an idle man, try to be an ideal man. LIFE IS SO BEAUTIFUL TO WASTE EVEN A SINGLE DAY BY NOT FEELING ALIVE.


P.S: SOMEHOW I MANAGED TO PASS 2 HOURS OF POWER-CUT BY GIVING YOU SUCH LAME ADVICES. SORRY FOR BORING YOU IN YOUR ALREADY-BORED-PHASE OF YOUR LIFE.


                                                                                                                                            BY  PREM 

A train journey

I dont know why, but I have developed some kind of aversion towards train from my childhood. So I have always preferred bus to train. But thanks to my state government for showing me how exciting a train journey could be. If they had not raised the bus fare to such an extent, I would have not had that memorable train journey.


     The train to my hometown starts at 1.30pm and reaches around 9pm. So there was no need for berth. Every college student who is new to train journey would think himself as surya and would expect a girl like sameera to sit opposite to him.( only an experienced guy would know that reality is far from expectations). I tried to be practical and prayed for, atleast a girl of my age to sit opposite to me.I eagerly checked the namelist. I realized that god answers reasonable prayers.

                                  Name : Jyothi
                                  Age: 20

But, how about her looks? Simply because a fruit is fresh, we cant enjoy eating it. Taste matters.(dont you think the analogy is a bit rude).I then submitted my next reasonable prayer- Jyothi has to be atleast, decently pretty. After few minutes, came a girl in blue chudidhar and sat opposite to me. Who else it could be? Jyothi was more than decently pretty- fair complexion, neatly tied hair, petite figure, long legs, a small bindhi with streak of viputhi. It was a perfect kollywood heroine entry scene.Then came the villain entry scene- her mother.Her mom was the older version of Jyothi except that Jyothi's amiable look was replaced by a stern and hostile look. There was no difficulty in categorizing them under the typical educated middle-class family.



  It had not even been 40min since the train started. Her mom opened a plastic box and there it was - the tamarind rice. However hard I try, I couldnt find the reason for the strong connection between tamarind rice and journies in our culture. 2 hours had been passed but I hadnt done anything other than ogling her through the corner of my eyes.( reserved and shy guys would generally be an expert oglers because that is the only thing they had been doing since their puberty age). I had to do something to attract her. Then I took my already-read novel and acted as though I was seriously reading it.(If play-boy look doesnt suit you, try the good-boy look. It might work, especially with middle-class girls.)


        To an extent, it did work for me. Some conversation started, though not with the heroine,but with the villain. Her mom asked the usual boring questions like " which college? which department? which year" etc. To any person on this planet,if you say that you are doing your final year engineering, their immediate question would be about your placement. Once she knew that I was placed, Jyothi joined the conversation and started asking about my cgp, project, interviews etc as she was doing her 3rd year engineering.This was the perfect situation to flaunt myself. I responded as though getting placed was not a big deal for me as I was planing to do MS in america.(only god knows the truth)


Since it was a weekday, there wasnt a much of crowd. Hence her mom occupied the entire three-seater and asked Jyothi to sit in the opposite seat,that is, BESIDE ME. How cruel of me to call such a nice lady as a villain? Soon , the nice lady went into a deep slumber.Jyothi and I had conversations on gadgets, movies,friends, exams and on every trivial things.After sometime, she became so flirtatious.( I dont think its that hard to sense, when a girl starts flirting with you because it doesnt happen often). Then we too tried to take a nap. You wont believe if I say that her head slipped to my shoulder during the so-called nap. I dont have any clue on whether it was intentional or unintentional.How should a guy react in these situations? should I take advantage of this or try to act as a good boy. Her mom's snoring made me to choose the latter option.

It was 8.55pm and our station had arrived. We just exchanged a formal " bye, see you" and started taking our own separate paths.But something within me said that it was not just a train-acquaintance and it couldnt end there like that.It was one of the moments where you know that you could strongly believe in your hunch.Just like any happy-ending, when I turned back, she came running towards me.She was panting and asked for my mobile mumber, in the pretext of some clarifications about placements.
I was more than happy to give my number and was expecting some thing romantic from her. She finally said " thanks ANNA. bye".   WTF.............



P.S:  Hopefully, this would be my last train journey.



                                                                                                                                 by  prem

FAILURE

                Two months ago I read a book called  ' EAT PRAY LOVE'.  It was so good a book that I couldnt refrain myself from being inspired by this book. In one chapter, the author said about her experiences as a beginner in meditation and what meditation had done to her, once she had made it a habit to practice daily. suddenly I got so curious and resolved myself to meditate atleast for 10-20min a day.( This is the problem with me. I get inspired so easily. Whenever I see sherlock, I start observing things rather than just seeing. Whenever I read Robin Sharma's words, I think myself as a philosopher. Whenever I see American pie, you know.........)

                       
          When I started to meditate, thoughts of everything and anything flooded to my mind.It seemed like my mind was scattered everywhere.After practicing it for a week( without any improvement), I was a bit frustrated and gave up meditation, consoling myself thinking that this is only for the so called highly-balance-minded-people.Though, from the next day, I started to spend some time in solitude in a nice tranquil environment. You could call it as contemplation though not meditation.( First of all, why am I trying all these and being such a lunatic?Because I want to improve myself in some way and since I dont know the exact way, I do all these crazy things. Why do I want to improve myself? Because, BEING JUST AN AVERAGE REALLY SUCKZ)


         During those contemplation hours, a lot of questions arose in my mind. Questions which I thought would occur only to philosophers, occurred to me too. Questions like " What is my role as a human in this world?  what theology should I follow? Is there something called destiny? Why dont people around me think broadly? et cetera" If you dont believe these questions occurred to me, then just try contemplating.( does these behaviours of me show that I am maturing as a person or its high time that I meet a good psychiatrist???)


             Another question that occurred to me was " what is failure?" and this is my favourite one because when I tried finding answers for other questions, I ended up getting much more complex questions and falling into a limbo. But, with failure, I feel I am somewhere near the answer.So let me write something about failure.First, try answering the question " HAVE I EVER FACED FAILURE IN MY LIFE?" Ofcourse, the answer would be a YES.Who wouldnt have faced failure in 21years.


      Now, let me try to define failure. Failure, as far I am considered, is WHEN ONE BADLY WANTS SOMETHING AND WORKS DILIGENTLY TOWARDS IT AND EVEN THEN COULD NOT ATTAIN IT.Having said this, if I go to the previous question, my answer surprisingly seems to be a NO. The problem is that we really dont know what we actually want in life. Even if we know, we are too lazy to diligently work towards it. So we never fail at all. But, is not the WORST OF FAILURE IS FAILING TO FAIL?


          We never try to succeed at all. We work just to survive in this world rather than work to thrive. We dont have the mindset to explore our hidden talents. All we want is a life with no obstacles.Another important reason for not facing failure is we all,  in one way or other, are afraid of failure. That is why most of us dont set goals that are challenging to us.( maybe this is the reason why we are happy with 3+lakh companies and dont try hard enough for 10+lakh companies). There is actually nothing to be afraid of failures. As all of our self-help books would say " failures are good teachers."I think, I sound as if I have seen enough of this world that I am entitled to give free advices. Actually, all these adcivces are more to myself than anyone else.(And here goes my final advice)


                Being an audience is easy.But, only a player is revered and celebrated, though he fails at times. So even to fail, you need to be committed to what you do.Hence FAILING, IN A WAY, IS A SMALL SUCCESS.

             


                                                                                                                                            by prem