Dreams do come true!

I do not exactly recollect the year when the dream of doing an MBA got into my mind. What was quite interesting was the fact that, it was not just the course, but even the campus where I should get it done was crystal clear like the waters of a pristine lake where you could see tiny pebbles resting on the lakebed.

During my BCom days, I chanced upon a brochure for the MBA programme offered by Christ College, one of the most prestigious campuses in a city that was then called Bangalore. Was it the course structure or the image of the campus, I still am not sure, that attracted me more, to that magical temple of learning. An opportunity to visit the campus during my BCom final year as part of a college tour added more feathers to my dream.

Growing up in the late 90s in Changanacherry, a small town in Kerala meant, limited aspirations and even lesser exposure to career opportunities. A fact that was contributed by not having enough mentors or resources to guide you on your career path and an equally responsible lack of self-driven initiative. All these manifested for me as just two options for higher studies post my graduation. Either get a master’s degree in management (MBA) or delve into the world of technology with a master’s degree in computer application (MCA).

Not wanting to miss out on either, I did apply for both. Those were the times when colleges had separate entrance exams for professional courses. I applied for MBA admission both at my dream college Christ and at Rajagiri college in Kochi as a backup plan. Meanwhile applications for MCA were also given in a couple of good colleges in Coimbatore. As destiny would have its say, I did not clear the entrance exam for Christ. I had to look at the next best options, with my dream shattered. I sat along with my parents at the MCA admission office of PSG College of Arts and Science in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, the day before entrance results were to be announced at Rajagiri. Little did I know that life was to take me on a twisted roller coaster ride that day.

Though I had good marks to get an admission in merit, the rule those days was that if you were a student from a different state, you had to pay a considerable amount as a non-refundable deposit fees. My dad asked me to choose between MCA admission which would be closed that day or take a chance and wait till the next day for Rajagiri MBA results. I did not have a Plan C, a mistake on hindsight. It was one of the most challenging decisions in my life till then. 

I weighed my options and finally opted to join MCA. A hefty amount was paid as fees, and my fate for next three years was sealed that day. You live with the weight of the choices you made through your life. By noon next day, Rajagiri announced the results. I was selected for their MBA programme. But since the fees paid for MCA at PSG was non-refundable, I burned the feathers of my original dream. 

Life in Coimbatore started. By the end of first year, my struggle with C++, Java and the dreaded Data Structures led me to have a heart-to-heart conversation with my dad again. I told him how I did not really see coding as my cup of tea. Full credits to him, the response he gave me, drives me forward even today, though he is no more physically with me. Such are the powers of genuine love of a parent. He addressed me with all the affection a dad has for his son, 'Da mone, you can study whatever you want, as long as I can support you. Do not worry. I will only suggest you complete what you started, especially since it had a considerable investment involved'. 

I listened to my dad. While I skimmed through my MCA days, I started to stick new feathers back to the wings of my original dream I had burned earlier. By that time, individual entrance exams for management institutions were a thing of the past. I had to compete at the national level with exams such as Management Aptitude Test (MAT). While a bit intimidated, I went ahead with the preparation. Dreams have a unique nature to power you forward, while your reservations may try to pull you back. It is absolutely a mind game where the power of your resolve will determine who wins at the end.

I was in Bangalore for my MCA final year project. It was a Saturday, a few days after I had applied for MBA admission at Christ college again based on my MAT score which was not bad for those days. By noon, I met Father Paul, the Director of MBA programme at Christ then, at his office, to check if I got the admission.

Father checked the list and looked at me. Two pairs of eyes met, one which seemed to have absorbed all the peace of oceans across the world and the other owning up all the tempests that raged across the planet! He told me, 'Jerry, there is one last seat left. It is currently assigned to a girl from Punjab who is expected to confirm her willingness to join by 3 PM today. If you want, there is a church behind the college where you can pray till then. Come back to my office after that. If she does not confirm by then, the seat will be yours!' 

I felt like the only man floating in the middle of Atlantic after a shipwreck, clinging on to a tiny life jacket, the last hope of survival, only to realise with horror that it has a hole which can be mended only by a glue called time! I felt the feathers of my dream starting to burn, again.

Those 180 minutes were one of the most intense experiences of prayer in my life. The church was closed, but I knelt outside on the steps and prayed in whatever form of prayer I knew.

By 3 PM I was back at Fr Paul's door. The only thing that was faster than my legs that took me back to the college from church was my heartbeat. The palpitation was quite high, that I literally had to try hard to keep my heart from getting out of my chest!

Father Paul saw me and asked me to come inside his office. He looked at his watch, checked a paper that appeared to be a list of names and wrote something on it. He then looked up and said, 'Welcome to Christ College, Jerry.'

Dreams do come true!

 

Tunnel Riders

Alex and Nisha were at their parents’ place after a long gap of two years since Covid-19 pandemic ripped the world apart. There were many relatives they had to visit and decided to call on one of their uncles. It was a good feeling to catch up after a long time and all of them were quite happy to see each other after what was probably the worst two years in their entire life till date.

Among the conversation, a topic came up about a friend of Alex who works in Shimla, one of the most beautiful mountain regions towards North East of India. He had invited Alex many times to come over to Shimla and appreciate the magnificent mountains. Alex and Nisha discussed the plans with uncle and aunt to take a flight to Delhi and later a short flight to Shimla from there. That’s when uncle intervened and suggested a better option.

Alex’s uncle had done extensive trips pan India and was quite familiar with the geography across this gorgeous nation. He suggested taking a train from Delhi to Shimla as there were more than a hundred tunnels across the picturesque Himalayas. As soon as they heard this, both Alex and Nisha got quite excited and almost immediately started picturing the awesome trip through the mountains and valleys on a meter gauge train.

While Alex, Nisha and their uncle were soaking themselves in the lovely landscapes in their minds, their aunt who was listening to all the conversation spoke for the first time. She said, ‘What is the big deal in going through so many tunnels. It will be all dark and gloomy’.

The expression on the faces of other three souls present in the room could only be described with one word, ‘priceless’!

The above story is only a cross section of what we see in our daily lives. There are numerous such ‘aunts’ among us, be it in our family or among friends. These poor souls can almost never see the light at the end of the tunnel. Their minds are perennially stuck in the pitch darkness of the tunnels they cross during their lives.

People like these are always lost in the gloominess and in fact miss to appreciate the beauty as the train of life exits the tunnel into the wilderness and the heavenly panorama of lush green mountains and valleys. Instead they only see the train moving from one tunnel to the next and around them they will befriend only darkness and despair.

It indeed is a mindset. We may think that the worst pandemic in the recent history of mankind might have changed people. Even the most negative of people around us who survived the pandemic might have developed an appreciation towards life. Then again, experiences like this promptly corrects us by citing fantastic examples of perpetually negative human beings. These are personalities who could never think of anything positive in life.

Rain or shine, these people live and breathe negative. Imagine you successfully wrap up an extremely strenuous event for which you prepared relentlessly for a month. Everything went well and while you are beaming with joy, one of the above kind will come to you and cite the least of the imperfection and highlight it as the worst thing to have happened in the whole world. They will religiously fail to appreciate you or your efforts. This is a mental makeup in its deepest and darkest of shades.

So what do we do about this? Where possible help these individuals realize that they are treading the valleys of misery and in fact there is a highland of happiness that awaits them if they are ready to change a bit. More importantly when it comes to us, we need to be aware of the fact that human mind could be like a sponge where it could absorb all these negativity. Do not let it happen. But in the likelihood of that happening, ensure that you squeeze them out with an overdose of friendly positivity.

I am quite sure we can work together to bring in the much needed positive vibes and make the world a better place to live!

Being Positive

 Flying around like a beautiful butterfly

With a riot of colours and happiness galore.

The world was on my fingertips

And dreams were all that I adore.

Sky is the limit, was the mantra

Chanting I did, lying on my dewan.

Out from the blue came a bolt of shock

On it was written, Made in Wuhan!

Holed up in the house, feeling arrested

Fun, outing and everything else busted

Even a rare chance of getting out

Was a lost cause with cops all out!

When all hopes seem to be lost

A ray of light shined like a ghost.

All what my heart did was yearning

And the answer to that was E-learning!

Life bounced back with verve

Colours of hope was shining again.

Yes we still felt arrested, but

Happiness was what we did regain.

Lucky indeed am I, to be alive

Luckier in fact is my guessing

A thing my books could never teach

That survival is nothing but a blessing!

Positive Batteries

The first time he heard about the assignment, Alex thought it was mission impossible! After some deliberation he decided to take up the challenge. The next few weeks were one of the most harrowing in his career. Numerous meetings and discussions, lot of new faces, heated arguments and finally at the end of the third week he had a feeling that he conquered the Everest. The project report was ready, sitting in a beautiful blue office file smiling at him.

Alex was confidence personified when he presented the report to the top management. He was more than sure about the decision in his favour to award him the work and was all set to start immediately. He even had a plan of action charted on how to execute this project over a period of next six months. The conference room was filled with positive vibes.

It didn’t take too long for the picture to turn gloomy. The management soon found reasons not to approve the financials proposed for the project. They asked Alex to rework on the whole proposal and submit it again. All what it took to water down the tireless effort of many weeks was just fifteen minutes. Devastated was an understatement to describe his mental state.

Alex couldn’t believe what just happened. To him, it was one of the most fool proof project plans he ever worked on. He signed the report in his blood! Yet…

Derailed with the thoughts he returned to his seat as a lost warrior. It was a sore sight to those who knew him. None of them had seen him in a state like that. Nisha, one of his colleagues, was the first one to approach. She had seen him work on the project and in fact helped him many times to get some contacts and data required. Alex had shown her a draft version of his report and she was equally confident that he’ll come out of the meeting in flying colours.

She convinced him to go down to the office café for a coffee. Neither of them spoke a word. She ordered his favourite latte and waited till he opened up. And when it happened it was nothing short of a downpour. Nisha acted very well the part of being a good listener. Alex appeared quite relieved at the end of his rambling.

She then convinced him that not everything was lost and asked him to look at the brighter side of things. With the work done, he now has direct access to at least ten new people in the organization and a couple of them at CXO level. In addition, he delved into an area which he always wanted to learn, but never got an opportunity and this is exactly what happened this time. On top of all this he got a slot to present an innovative idea to the top executives. The best part was, they didn’t reject his idea which happened for many and was the end of journey for most of them. On the contrary they wanted Alex to review the proposal from a different angle and present again. The door was still open!

He looked up from the latte cup. Nisha could see the sparkle on the coffee foam reflecting in his eyes. The energy that seemed to have lost started making its way back and with a stronger conviction this time.

Soon enough, Alex was back at his desk and in a matter of days he presented the revised proposal to a larger group, the Board of Directors. This time, there was no turning back. The Board unanimously approved his plan. The project was launched and was completed in record time. The return on investment was unprecedented in the history of the company that Alex soon found his name in the list of Chairman Award winners that year!

Standing on the podium, after receiving the award, Alex just made one statement, “Thank you Nisha, for being a positive battery in my career!”

No Vs Know

We recently went on a vacation to a beach destination. The place we stayed was a lovely house situated right on top of a steep hill overlooking the lovely blue-green waters of Indian Ocean. After getting refreshed, we got out to explore the nearby places. Mia, our little one, was all excited that the steep slope down the hill was something she didn’t pay much attention to. She rushed to the slope and before we could even stop her, had a painful fall. It took a while for us to pacify her. But the fighter spirit in her didn’t let the fall drench the spirit of adventure and the trip went on to become a huge hit!

A few days later, we were back home from vacation and were walking to the parking lot to take the car out. There was a slope that led to the parking lot and Mia was running towards the car. Quite naturally I stopped her by saying, “Don’t you remember what happened during the trip? You’ll fall again”. She looked into my eyes and made a statement that literally left me with a profound thought. She said, “But Appa, I now know how to walk carefully on a slope.”

These are the times when your so-called wise brain gets a shock treatment from a tiny brain as little as a four year old one. It really sends an electrifying pulse to your brain that you have no choice but to sit and think about it. How many times have we stopped a dear one from doing something for the fear of them getting hurt? How many times have these resulted in them losing an opportunity to learn and overcome a fear factor? In fact our action of stopping someone from doing something due to our fear is in fact instilling fear in them as well. If they yield to our request, it is highly likely that they’ll never do that ever in their life, especially if this happens in their childhood.

I’m not generalising. I know quite a few people who have dared their loved ones to go beyond the comfort zones and get themselves experience what’s beyond usual. But if you are someone who set a limit to our dear ones, knowingly but at times unknowingly, we need to be aware that this results in them not getting moulded to overcome the challenges in life.

I remember a cousin brother of mine who was crazy about Navy that he got himself enrolled in a defence academy. One of the initial drills they had was being taken to the open sea on a naval ship. As soon as the ship reached the outer sea, they were asked to jump into the wild waters. Those who showed reluctance were mercilessly thrown into the sea and were left to experience how life will be for a Navy personnel.

While we do not necessarily have to be ruthless as the Navy, the question from my little one was a jolt for me to think differently. I realized the need to unlearn a few things I’ve been following. I really need to give my loved ones the space to learn and succeed than to stop them from doing something and be a perennial failure from not attempting the task.

The attitude becomes so positive when we let people ‘know’ something than saying ‘no’ to them which by nature is quite negative. Having said that, we need to make sure that we don’t cloud our common sense and let our loved ones go into dangers that are evident. The point is to realize the fact that we have a responsibility to make our dear ones experience certain aspects of life and not to deny them an opportunity to make their personalities better.

We all are what we are today, due to someone taking such decisions way back in the past. It could be our parents, teachers, siblings or friends who influenced us one way or other to either stop doing something or jump into and get the experience yourself.

Hence on this Valentines month, here is a warm wish to each one of us to extend our love to dear ones to let them experience what they rightfully should all the while keeping an eye on the boundary of risk by applying our common sense. 

Neeleshwaram Effect

A cousin's wedding took us to Neeleshwaram, a small town in the Northernmost district of Kasargod in Kerala. We reached on the wedding eve and the next day was quite a happening one. 

By evening, after the wedding, we got back to the lodge where we stayed and I went out to buy some water. Also wanted to see if I could get some tea for all of us. Found a bakery where I got the water bottles. Since there were more than six of us at the hotel I checked with them if I could get tea as a take away item. 

All what I was expecting was to get tea in disposable cups with lids. Then came the twist. 

The shop was run by an elderly lady and her daughter. The lady asked me where I stayed. When she learned about our stay at the nearby lodge she filled a flask and another vessel with tea and also packed half a dozen glass tumblers along with it! There was more to this surprising customer service. 

When I suggested disposable cups, her response was that, tea won't taste good in plastic cups and insisted that I take the glass ones itself! She even sent one guy to help us carry these things back to the place where we stayed.

The tea tasted very good and later I promptly returned the flask and all to the shop. When they took the items back they even asked me to visit Neeleshwaram again to explore this place better.

Needless to say, it was one of the best customer service I've ever experienced in my life. All what I wish is the world to have more people like these to spread genuine selflessness so that we are surrounded with love than hatred! 

Troll Model

Article for Bethlehem Matrimonial - Feb 2017

One of the distinct memories I’ve from my past is that our family had membership in at least three different international clubs, the branches of which existed in our hometown. The evenings and celebrations we had with the club activities were quite eventful. Being an international club, social drinking was considered a norm at these clubs.

As a little kid, I very clearly remember majority of the men there drinking with the exception of my dad and a few other elders. I recollect my mom telling my brother and me that dad very particularly followed the principle of not drinking in public and also in front of us, with the primary intention that he wanted us to grow up as responsible adults. Looking back, I really want to thank him for instilling that value and being a strong role model for me!

Fast forward a couple of decades and the actions from some people I see around makes me feel painful. I want you to picture this. Imagine you are a fifteen year old girl in your family get together where your dad is seated on a stage facing everyone. How would you feel if he keeps cracking a lot of X-rated jokes and sarcastic comments? Imagine your plight if you have to remain there in the room all embarrassed but forced to stay since your family members are seated around you?!

You may think the above scene I pictured is out of a fiction movie. In reality, this and many more are happening in the big bad digital world out there today. I’m talking about WhatsApp groups which are a part of our daily lives these days. Many of us when we forward a message or post something to the group see only the screen and not the picture I painted above. Would you really have spoken those words if you were in a room with the whole of your family looking at you? Would you really have posted a picture that you would’ve normally hidden from our innocent little ones?

The fact of the matter is, with the digital world spreading its arms even more in the current world, most of us have a digital personality along with our physical self. This digital personality of yours does not realize that you are doing things that you would’ve never done if you had to do it in front of the same set of people, in person. I you wouldn’t want your teenage daughter to hear you pass a very ludicrous comment when she is standing in front you and facing you, why would you do the same over a digital media like WhatsApp? What makes you a lesser dad when you are not face-to-face with your daughter? The same applies to any relationship.

I personally have a strong desire that I cherish. Just like how my dad and other elders in my family were role models to me, I would want my kids and other little ones in my family to look up to me and learn the good side of mine, if any. This will enable them to become better human beings for sure. I pray to God that let me never be a reason for someone to turn out to be a burden for the society.

And this is what is resonated in Mathew 18:9. “…And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It's better to enter eternal life with only one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.” Ask yourself these questions. Are you living a life different in social media than what you are in real life? Will you talk to your parents or siblings or kids in the exact manner as what you do over WhatsApp or Facebook? If the answer is no, then it is time for an introspection. If the answer is yes, you’ve a bigger problem to tackle!

Sit back and think about all the good role models that you had in your life and how have they influenced you to form the personality that you have today. Now think again if you are being one, to the members of your family or are you being something else?

In other terms, are you being a ‘troll model’ whose sole objective is to create controversies and provoke response from people? Alternately are you being a role model for generations to come and for them to hold their head high and proclaim to the world about their ancestor who was an awesome human being?

Think! God bless!

Laundry Basket Theory

Article for Bethlehem Matrimonial - Jul 2016

As is the case with most of the homes we also have a laundry basket in which all the clothes that need to be washed are stored. Every time we take a set of clothes to the washing machine we carefully separate the dark colored ones lest their colors affect the lighter ones. We also separate those clothes that cannot be machine washed and together they go back to the laundry basket.

This practice continued for a while till we reached a day when the basket got piled up with such clothes that cannot be washed in the machine. We’d a problem in hand! The basket will never get empty with this pile of clothes and we started worrying about how to resolve this since manually washing that pile of clothes in one day was an impossible task. We decided to do something smarter.

Every day we started to soak one of the clothes each from the pile which could not be washed in the machine. On a given day even when we had clothes washed in the machine it was not a burden to wash this one piece manually. As days progressed the pile of clothes that had to be hand washed became smaller and smaller and soon enough our laundry basket was totally empty! Suddenly we had nothing to worry about with respect to the laundry.

Do you see any similarity to this laundry basket to the tensions we’ve in our lives? Over a period of time we accumulate quite a lot of matters in our life about which we are constantly tensed. The thoughts about these items that create stress for you get piled up one on top of the other just like the laundry that needs to be hand washed. Nothing seems to be getting resolved and to make it worse many more get added to the list. Your frustration gets the better of you and you start to snap at every minor incident that affects you and more importantly the people around you.

We should learn to apply here the technique of washing I mentioned earlier. It’ll never help if you try to solve all your challenges together. You’ll neither be able to focus on all of them nor resolve even a single challenge. It is better to tackle them one by one if feasible. Specifically address the issues one after the other and find the resolution to remove them from the list of challenges. After a while you’ll be really happy to see the mountain of challenges getting reduced to a tiny hill or even better.

Have you ever driven or been in a car during an extremely heavy rain with the wiper of the vehicle struggling to clear the large volume of water on the windshield? You’ll experience how difficult it is to drive in such a condition since the road ahead is not clear. You may even have to stop the car for a while till the heavy rains subside. The situation is pretty much the same in our life when we’ve a heap of challenges and we find it quite a struggle to proceed any further. Instead of losing hope we should ideally try this approach of resolving the issues one by one. This is as good as taking a break from driving when you can’t move ahead due to the poor visibility of the path ahead.

Always remember that there isn’t a challenge in this world that cannot be resolved. The degree with which you’ll find a solution for your one challenge may vary from the other. Nevertheless if you approach the challenges all together it may seem to be a daunting task and you may possibly end up not solving anything at all. Hence here is my humble suggestion for you to approach your challenges one step at a time and see if you could reduce the pile of problems you are facing.

So the next time when you see your laundry basket, remind yourself that your tensions are just like that basket. Nothing will be difficult for us if we learn to change our perception about challenges and constantly remind ourselves about this laundry basket theory.

May the good God help you wash off your tensions one cloth at a time! Take care!  

The Complete Couple

Article for Bethlehem Matrimonial - May 2015

Have you seen people admiring a couple and making this cliche statement, "What a perfect couple?! Made for each other!" I have always wondered what does it really mean. Is there really something called a 'perfect couple'? Isn't it a dream that we always see in some of the less realistic movies? Here's what I figured out.

We see a lot of couples around us daily. We start seeing them right from our family, among friends, at work, outside work and all around us. Two individuals who decide to come together to be a couple and thereby form a family may have many things in common. It is equally important to notice that the uncommon ones quite often override the common elements in their nature. How is it still that some of these couples get certified as perfect?

The best thing to realize when you look at one of these perfect couples is that these two human beings are created by God just like each one of us. They were born in two different families, grew up in their own distinct backgrounds, have their individual views about everything around them and finally were joined as part of a Divine plan. These people were not born immaculate and continue to be imperfect. They make mistakes, they get restless, they fight and in the middle of all these they lead their lives, together.

What differentiates these regular-looking couple from the rest of the world is that they figure out a huge fact about themselves. They know they are incomplete individually, but together they make a Complete Couple! They know each one has got areas they are weak at, all the while realizing the strengths of their partners. This insight is one of the most powerful gifts in the life of any couple! It is no secret that most of the couples could discover this, soon after they begin their life together. The key here is how they make use of what they have learned about their better halves.

Remember learning about metamorphosis back in school? This is the magical process by which an insignificant pupa transforms itself to a beautiful butterfly! This colorful creation of God does not even realize what happens to it over the period of time. All what it does is wait patiently and let the nature take its course. Any impatience will lead to a disaster resulting in a deformed creation. Every 'perfect couple' goes through such a transformation as well.

The moment you decide to make the positives of each other work for your benefit, you transform yourself to a magical couple. Identify the areas where each one is weak and strong. If you are strong in one area ensure that you own it up thereby complimenting the weakness of the other. You could be strong in handling finance whereas your partner may have a unique acumen for planning out things. You may have an amazing eye for detail but your partner may be totally an artistic person.

Whatever unique characters you both are, it is important that you extract the power of your combination to the benefit of the family. Always remember to never let the other one down citing a weakness. Reassure your better half during moments of doubt that you are on a journey together. Tell your partner that you are there to share the load and that's how you fulfill your wedding vows.

May the good God help you realize the power within you to transform yourself as a perfect couple! May the world around now start looking at you and exclaim, "Look at them! There goes a Complete Couple!"

God bless you! 

Miracles you miss!

Article for Bethlehem Matrimonial - Jan 2015

 

“Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them.” – Mark 11: 23. Guess I was in my early primary classes when I first heard this during a Holy Mass. Immediately after I got back home after the Mass that day; I went to my room and promptly closed all doors and windows. With utmost sincerity and faith, I sat at my desk, folded my hands in prayer and submitted my wish to God Almighty.

 

The wish was pretty simple. During those days when kids were not spoilt with choices and had to live with whatever that was available, getting a 5 Star chocolate bar was considered a big thing to dream about! From the bottom of my heart I truly wished and asked God to make my wish come true. I had absolutely no doubt that God is going to fulfil my wish in a matter of few seconds. With eyes tightly shut, fists held closely together in prayer and breath becoming laboured, the whole body got ready for a miracle which was bound to happen the very next moment.

I finished the prayers. Opened my eyes quite slowly and the reflection of the golden glow of a 5 Star Chocolate wrapper in my eyes, remained a dream! The table top was empty! For a while, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I even wondered if my brother sneaked in and took away my miracle gift. I checked the door latches again and realized that they were all intact. Reality started settling in. I figured out that my prayer was not answered. Needless to say I was totally shaken up. I started questioning myself. Is it that God didn’t hear my prayers or is my faith not strong enough?

Days, months and years passed by. There were many more such moments in my life when I badly wanted something and I prayed to God with all my faith to make that happen. It was a 5 Star chocolate then. The wishes later gave way to stickers, bags, shoes and as I grew up the wishes also grew with me. I wanted bikes, admission in a specific college, great friends, and an awesome job; see the world, a lovely partner in life, beautiful kids and what not.

God heard all my wishes, but He never seemed to have answered any of them right after I asked Him. Each time I felt disappointed, every time I repeated the same set of questions I asked earlier. Why isn’t God answering my prayers or do I need to be stronger in my faith?

Today when I stand on the third decade of my life I look back at the wishes I had. Miraculous enough, I see that most of my wishes I made till date have come true. It is a fact that many of them were not answered immediately, but I now realize that He knew when I was ready for each of those wishes and made that happen for me when it was time. Many a times what happens is, I fail to notice these miracles in my life. I still think that many of my wishes were not heard. The truth really is otherwise. I just didn’t recognize when those miracles were addressed. Perhaps because by the time the miracle dawned on my life I would’ve forgotten about what I asked for and it blindfolded me from seeing and believing that my wish was indeed fulfilled!

There could still be a bunch of things that I’ve wished for and have not been rewarded yet with a result. But I now strongly believe that these are the ones that are not yet ready to be given to me. Every miracle is like a new born baby. You can’t make a miracle take birth before its designated time. A baby needs to complete a certain amount of time before it is fully grown and delivered to Earth. Your wishes need to be grown enough in the womb of faith that when it is finally ready to be delivered, it’ll incarnate itself in your life as a miracle. The onus is on you to realize when it happens and thank Almighty for making your dreams come true!

May you be blessed with a wonderful insight to see the miracles coming true in your life! May the good God bless you with an amazing year ahead filled with His blessings, love and care!

The Success of Failure

Article for Bethlehem Matrimonial - Nov 2014

Many of us have the habit of planning important events in our lives. These could vary from deciding on higher education or getting married or building/buying a house and lots more. A lot of time gets invested in thinking how to plan and execute each of these events. It is also a usual practice to consult our family and friends before taking such major decisions.

A final decision is usually reached after all such discussions and evaluating the possible options. You even reach a point where you tell your mind that this is the best decision for you and gives a thumbs-up to go ahead with it. It is then, only a matter of time you taste the happiness of the successful decision you took. Occasionally there are times when you end up not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

The success, especially after all the meticulous planning and execution, elates your mind with all the positive feelings that come along with it. A failure could have an equal or at times even more of an impact on your mind. You may experience the power of your positive spirit getting drenched in the water of despair. Some of us feel like being pulled down from the pedestal of sense-of-achievement to an eternal disappointment that we don’t even want to attempt anything else in life. What we fail to observe is the power that comes along with each such failures.

It is absolutely true that every failure teaches you a much bigger lesson than the biggest ever success could make you learn. Probably the hormones that drive the extreme happiness during a success, clouds your ability to learn from it. It could also be due to the fact that, hardly anyone asks themselves, ‘Why did I succeed?’ This is not the case when you fail. Almost everyone does look back knowingly or unknowingly to see where did they fail. This action indeed is the best teacher.

The secret to succeed is not to worry about failures. This must be exactly what Edison meant by saying, “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” This is quite true in our lives when we set out to achieve the many different events as mentioned earlier. It is quite natural to feel dejected if you do not succeed even after all the planning and almost certain conclusion. You feel let down and the mental strength seemed to get drained. You experience a very strange phenomenon during a failure. The mountain of confidence you had till a moment back gets bulldozed into a pile of desperation.

It is ok to feel heartbroken since it is an outlet for your mind to let go the bad feeling created with a failure. What is not ok is to linger in the same thoughts for a prolonged period of time. It might sound strange, but realize that failure does have its own good side to it. Each time you fail you learn a few additional aspects of the event in hand. Look at the level of knowledge you had at the beginning of the event. See for yourself how much have you learned with a failure. You’ll be surprised to see that you’ve learned so much more than what you knew earlier. You’ll be better equipped to take up the same task next time with a lot more confidence than before!

Just the way you try to learn from each failure, it is equally important to make yourself trained to take the failures lightly. Remember the well known statement, ‘everything has its own time’. There is a bigger power Who knows what is best for you. Till then it may seem to you that things are not working out the way you want. But realize that it is part of His bigger plans to make things better for you.

Let me leave you with this thought: ‘To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven’. Ecclesiastes 3:1.

God bless you!

World of Negatives

Have you ever come across people who can speak only negative about everything? I have and as a matter of fact I'm positively blessed to be with a few of these beings whom I meet every day in my life! I call that a blessing since these are the people who make me realize how simple my life is. Thank God for that.

Cribbing, Complaining, Crying... These are a few terms that could represent this very specific state of mind. Initially when I got to hear these cribs I was genuinely concerned about the well being of these discontented souls. As time proved, this wasn't exactly the outcome of an unhappy mind. It turned out to be an addiction that led to constant and repetitive sessions that in one way of other, I presume, gives a level of satisfaction which anything else could hardly provide.

Empathy gave way to sympathy. My attempts to sympathize with these lesser mortals took various shapes. Advices, sarcasm, anger and what not! The futility of my heart-felt attempts led to sheer pity for these people. Probably what they realize not is the fact that, more you are negative about something the least possible will that look. The reality of negative energy is such that it spreads like an epidemic across the omnipresent neurons. This leads to a situation where every other possible experience of a human mind gets corrupted with these cancerous thoughts!

The worst of all scenarios is when these dear little Children of God not realizing that they are treading a path which after a while will take them to the point of no return. They won't even realize the quick sand of emotional negativity into which they get sucked in. The power of negative thoughts is indeed one of the strongest. It is so easy to be caught in this without even the slightest of the effort. The once innocent psyche gets engulfed into the claws of this fieriest of the beasts world has always faced!

I honestly appeal to all those who realize or otherwise to sit and think. Are you stepping towards the destiny you create for yourself? Learn to live a life where you find the little joys and positive self. Nurture your happiness. It is just like any other living organism. You take care; it'll grow, flower and bear fruits. You feed it with toxic thoughts, die it will, a real painful death. And mind you, it'll take you along with it!!!

Be Positive!