Emotional Explosion!

Article for Bethlehem Matrimonial - Nov 2016

Being part of the largest airline brand from Middle East, I often get to work out of the Head Quarters (HQ) of my company. It is a state of the art facility with lots of offices operating out of this building. The second floor of HQ is accessible to general public where there are sales offices, customer affairs office etc. There is also an open space known as Atrium and at times I sit and work at one of the many desks available there.

The other day I was at the Atrium trying to complete a work to be delivered during the second half of the day. I could hear a kid probably aged around four years crying for something he wanted badly. He was with his mom and dad who were seen arguing if the kid really needs to be given that item. The argument became so hyper at a given point, so much so that, the next thing we saw was dad shouting at mom in public and dashing with his son to a nearby mini mart to buy what the kid asked for. While dad and son headed towards the department store, we could see the mother heading to a different direction with her head down avoiding all possible eyes staring at the family.

Can you imagine the impact created by this emotional explosion? Assume what happens to that father. He lost his cool and shouted at his dearest wife right in the middle of a set of people whom they’ve probably never seen before. He even forgot for a moment that what ought to be a private moment in their life is now exposed to the general public for their judgement and scrutiny. A momentary outburst of his emotion led to a situation that completely went out of hand. I can only imagine how the evening would’ve been back at their home that day!

Now think about the state at which the mother was in. She must have tried with the best of her intentions not to give what the child had asked for. She would’ve expected her dearest husband to support her in the decision since children need to understand the synergy of parents. The moment there is a clash between the father and mother, it is a natural disaster for the children. Instead she was ridiculed by the one on which she had utmost trust. That’s quite a dangerous situation to be in and one that will possibly have lasting impressions in her mind about her husband.

One of the most critical impacts is on none other than the child himself! He had seen his dad shouting at his mom and that too in a public place. This picture gets deeply etched in his mind and he’ll grow up thinking that it is ok to shout at your spouse irrespective of where you are and what situation you are in. He is bound to share his experience with his fellow kids and they’ll in turn have this unhealthy thought growing with them. A new generation is born with a threat to the society!

There is one more category of people who got impacted with the incident; the people who witnessed the scene. Each one of them, who were out there and watched what happened, will form opinions about relationship between a husband and a wife in their own way. Some will think like that father whereas the others will be all against this outrage displayed. Either ways the action by that couple has created an influence one way or other on everyone present there.

Many a times, when in rage, couples express their emotions without even realizing the situation they are in. The consequences almost never cross their minds during such scenarios. It is important that couples need to be aware of this fact and learn to master over their emotions. This is to ensure that you don’t end up being a negative influence on people around you, known or unknown.

Here is wishing you to be blessed with the providence of being a positive inspiration wherever you are! 

The Nail!

For a three year old kid, his dad’s workshop has always been a place of fantasy. His dad is well-known locally for the wooden sculptures he has created and many of them decorate the living rooms of the rich in that small town. The carpentry shop having quite a few sharp tools, his mom was always concerned about his safety. She used to keep a watch on him lest he’ll end up doing something mischievous.

That was just another day and in between the playing sessions at the workshop, the mom saw her son opening a can of long nails that was to be used for a specific wood work. She screamed at the kid not to touch those sharp nails, but by the time she reached him he already managed to get a tiny cut and a small stream of blood started flowing out!

She was all scared to see the blood oozing out and immediately tried some first aid to stop the blood flow. The next natural thing followed when she asked the kid, “Haven’t I told you son not to play with these sharp nails? See how you have hurt yourself now!”

The mom looked at him again and there it was! He had that unique look on his face which has been disturbing her for a while now. Every time he has that look it was as if he is seeing the future and she was right!

He was seeing thirty years ahead when a similar long nail will pierce through his palm and will be on a cross with his mom standing right below not able to help him in anyway! 

Keep the Change!

Article for Bethlehem Matrimonial - Sep 2016

It will be quite an interesting exercise to ask a question on changes in life to a married couple, especially a few months into their marriage. I’m pretty sure many of them will have stories to share about how life has changed for them or how their partner has tried to influence to bring in a bunch of changes in their life. Never mind, this is one of the most natural things to have happened to a married couple.

Having said that, after a few years into our marriage, during one of those looking-back-to-your-past days, I had a major realization! There were a few things which both my wife and I tried to get changed in each other after we got married. Needless to say we both were ‘successful’ to a great extent. That did leave us with a handful of changes that neither of us could influence the other to change and they remained as is.

The realization I mentioned earlier came to me a few days back. To my own surprise I figured out that I now love some of those things which I wanted to be changed in my sweetheart! I was not sure if I was prepared to face such a realization. Nevertheless it indeed was a moment of truth.

Probably this isn’t true for every couple. Then again no two couples are the same. Just that it works for some and does not for others. Nevertheless the thought is worth sharing. I now wonder how many such other things I may have made her change which would’ve been worth retaining in its original form that one day in future I would’ve started loving them!  

If you are a new couple or one about to be, it could be worth a try to keep this thought in mind. Realize that it isn’t a necessity to insist your partner to change every routine of theirs if you don’t approve it. Be informed that you might as well be changing something which you would’ve liked, given some time.

Be aware that the aspect of not resorting to changes is no excuse for changing the habits that negatively influence people such as addictions, illegal activities etc. Those that need to go must go. There are no two ways about it. The reference here is about those habits or nature you see in your partner which you wish aligned to your interests and hence you insist that they change them.

Needless to say, this act of not insisting a change requires a lot of courage from both the parties involved. While one is from the perspective of resisting the change, the other more importantly is to keep an open mind and embrace the nature of their partner as-is. This isn’t a simple task so to speak, a task that can probably take ages to reach an acceptance from the more affected party.

It is a wonderful nature of the human psyche that a seemingly least interested entity, be it a person, a thing or an activity, can generate a lot of interest over a period of time. Without you knowing it, you’ll be forced to start developing a liking to the same entity you disliked in the past. This probably is one of the biggest ironies of life! Hence you may just end up putting in a lot of efforts to get a habit changed in your partner resulting in losing a wonderful experience you may have in future.

Change is a constant as all of us are aware. But ask yourself this question. Is the change that you are insisting on your better half really worth it? Is this in fact something which you may possibly love in future and see a benefit in doing that? If so there is only one thing you have got to do. Keep the need to change to yourself. Give it sometime. For all that matter, you might uncover a diamond which looks like a piece of carbon today.

May the good God help you have a vision for future and bless you with such decisions that will have life-saving moments! 

Love

Life appears red
In a funnel shaped glass.
On a 40 inch screen 
Runs my favorite TV show
Memories go back
All the way 7 years
Used to sit on a couch
With a beer bottle for company
A few months later
You took the place.
It was all fizz and no barley
Take a while it did
But happy I am now
To have completely drenched in you.
The wine the beer
And an occasional tequila
They all seem to bend their knees
No better intoxication than you my love.
Want to live and not just that
If you ever decide to leave
Know that I can't be on the couch
All alone again!

The Lost Love!

She stayed in the corner of that house which was dark most of the times. Though surrounded by many known faces, she lived in constant pain of loneliness. It has been months since she lost her sweetheart. One day he just vanished leaving no trace at all! They were always together and had travelled to faraway lands. He ensured that she stayed right next to him all the time during each such trip.

No one really could console her since there was no news at all about him. The modern world was mocked at, for all its advanced technology and communication. None of that could find her love and bring him back to her. She cried in silence mostly during the nights and during the day, she’ll sit idle remembering the good old days when they were together.

Here is the irony of life! Not too far from where she stays, in a completely messy house, deep down in the cellar was lying her sweetheart gasping for his breath! He got locked in this dungeon from where there seems to be no escape. He could hear the wailing from his dear one but was absolutely overpowered by the mighty forces above him.

When all hopes seem to have ended, one day he started feeling the pressure on him getting reduced. The forces that tie him down seem to be getting lighter. With each passing day the chamber where he was held a captive was getting filled with fresh air and good light. Finally a day came when he was freed up from the clutches. The first thing he did was to get a perfect hot water bath. He then got himself dried in the sun which was denied to him for all these days!

Finally, one of the grey socks lost deep down in the laundry basket was united with his love who was sitting all alone in the cupboard for the last few months.

They lived happily ever after…

The Other Side of Faith

Article for Bethlehem Matrimonial - Aug 2016

During a recent retreat I attended, one of the brothers shared an experience. One evening his 2 year old son developed a fever. They tried to give some medicines but the fever was not subsiding. He tried to call up one of his doctor friends, usually always available on call, but that day he never answered the phone. He then tried contacting a nearby hospital and for some strange reason even after multiple attempts the hospital staff also didn’t answer.

He got really worried about the situation and that’s when he suddenly felt someone talking to him from within. He very clearly heard a question being asked to him. “You’ve tried giving medicines, called the doctor twice and called the hospital multiple times. How many times did you call Me?” That’s when the brother realized that despite being a man of faith, God became the last resort for him in the event of an emergency instead of being the first one to have called for help. He apologized and the rest is history!

How many of you could really relate to this story? It is an interesting observation that I saw him making that day about many of us. Most of us, especially facing adverse situations in life, often tend to resolve the problem ourselves initially in many ways. At last when everything else fails, we turn to our good God for help. Our faith most often becomes the last thing to be taken out and applied in our lives. Ideally it should’ve been the very first weapon we should’ve wielded to fight against the negative forces that cast its shadows in our lives.

Faith plays a crucial role in every form of life, married or otherwise. The complexities increase in your life especially when you share your life with someone and later when you are blessed with children as well. This makes it all the more important to be aware of the fact that it is not just enough to practice your faith, but to live it. Going to a church on a weekly basis or remembering God during bad times are merely practicing your faith. It isn’t that easy to bring in the concept of living the faith in our lives though that’s what we are required to attempt.

One of the easiest things to do in life is to take people or things for granted. Look around and observe how many blessings that we’ve in our lives that we never bothered to be grateful for. Right from our childhood; think about all the good things that happened in your life. Starting from loving parents and siblings; getting good education, landing up in a good job, being blessed with a wonderful partner and kids, leading a healthy life and many more positive aspects in your life. How many of them are we really thankful to God for. We take many of them for granted as if we were supposed to get it!

There are many good things that happened to you in the past and there are many happening now and many more are bound to happen in future. They are all there, not because you worked for it, but because you are blessed to receive it. This blessing requires you to be constantly thankful and the only way to do that is to live in faith. It is quite easy to be complacent and ignore the source of these blessings. It is easier to question your faith especially when you go through bad times. But that’s when you need to remind yourself about the other side of your faith. It is the side where you go across your current boundary of faith and experience the love of your Creator.

Your bad times are similar to those days when you have a fight with your partner. The day when you hug each other and look in the eyes of your sweetheart and say a sorry, you feel the rush of happiness back in your life. The feeling is similar when you get back to your Creator and try to be one with Him in your faith. You won’t even realize how quickly bad times give way for good ones!

May you be blessed to experience the other side of faith and live in the love and peace of our good God! 

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!