Transience

I have reached a decision and I would like to announce it to the world.

“It is not possible to be happy.”

Do I hear a pandemonium of protests?? Hear me out before you all pro-happiness people start to counter me.

It is possible to experience brief spells of happiness spread over a period of time (ok...let’s call that a lifetime) but to expect to attain a perpetual state of happiness would be to aim for the unattainable.

Look around…there is not a single person who can claim to be happy all the time.

There are people who would say that a lot depends on your perspective which is true. What makes you happy might not be a trigger for me but that does not mean people who have set easier goals in life are more likely to be happier.

Unlike what wise men (majority of society calls them wise…I think otherwise which is palpable from my snooty and derisive comments) tell us happiness is not need-based. If you tone down out your expectations you do not make yourself closer to happiness…you are just giving in to sloth (a sin according another set of wise men…these people have no consistency) Your acceptance of whatever life has to offer might make you fitter for survival but it does no good in making you happy permanently.

Happiness can be at best likened to orgasms…it is definitely possible to have lots of them in a life time but it would be moronic to expect to experience it 24/7.

If that is not good enough a deal for you try to pay off your karmic debts fast and wait for your next life…may be it would be set in Utopia.

PS: People with opposing views are most welcome to start a debate. I being a “jhogrute opinionated bong” am fond of participating in heated arguments.

I hate Tuesdays

Every Monday I get a mail from the HR department titled “Thank god it’s Monday.”

Now that’s what you call hypocrisy at its best. I usually take revenge on them by promptly deleting the mail…unread. But the magnanimous HR department never seems to mind…they keep sending those every Monday without any signs of waning energy.

But is Monday really the worst day of the week? I think it has gathered too much of negative publicity. After the weekend break I have seen most people attack their work with lots of freshness and renewed energy on Mondays.

Tuesday is the day which is actually the worst day of the week. With the weekend edge worn off Tuesdays just offer us a long week ahead. And unlike Wednesdays they don’t even come with any reassurance. [After Wednesday’s work you can tell yourself that more than half the week is over.]

I know that Tuesdays make me unhappy also because I was born on one. How do I know that I was unhappy?

I was crying.

So were you after you were born.

[ Why do people cry after being born? Let's think of birth as end of death.

There are many ways of looking at this situation.

1. The thought of living made the soul cry. That just means death must feel like bliss which is good news for every one.
2. The soul is still mourning his/her death in the previous birth and is yet to realize the new turn of events. 
3. Weight issues. Most babies are fat and they probably don't like it. ] 

Well let's come back to the topic after quite a bit of digression…I hate Tuesdays.

In fact my hatred for Tuesdays is so much that a little bit of love is bound to creep in.

You see Tuesdays make us long…long hard for the weekend…

Grief helps us to value happiness…

Abstinence makes the sex more intense…
And Tuesdays make my weekends priceless. 

The rising trend of runaway brides and grooms

Random scene: The make up artist is dressing up a bride for her reception party. She is getting intermittent calls. Half of the calls consist of requests from would-be brides for appointments…the other half consist of cancellation of pre booked appointments.  Reason? The wedding has been called off.

These days it has become the trend to call off the wedding at the last moment to run away with “the true love”. Why this epiphany has to strike just before taking the vows I fail to understand.

In the olden days people did not have much say about their own weddings. So running away was often the only way left for the rebellious bravehearts. But nowadays even the “arranged marriages” are fixed solely at the will of the girl and the boy. Now that should guarantee an incident-free wedding. But in reality people are breaking off marriages…even love marriages at the eleventh hour. It has become the latest style statement. They think they are really cool if they display the guts to be the runaway bride/groom.

What gave our society such a heinously warped idea one might wonder…

Rachel ran out at her own wedding in the popular TV show “Friends”

Her defense: She was marrying a rich dentist guy to secure her material comforts, once she realized that she didn’t love him she chose to flee the wedding scene.

Kareena Kapoor’s character dumped her fiancé (twice) in the movie “3 idiots”.

Her defense: She fell for another guy. When this guy vanished into thin air she went back like a wimp to her ex-fiance only to dump him again at the altar.

Abhay Deol’s character decides to call off his wedding at the behest of his two best friends during his flashy bachelor party.

His defense: She was stifling him and he had not really proposed marriage. It did not occur to him that clarifying the confusion at the right moment could have saved a lot of heartburn. 

And the winner: Deepika Padukone’s character leaves her newly married groom to run after ex boyfriend in Love ajkal.

Defense: The love of her life had always been the ex boyfriend. Since he refused to commit she had decided to marry a nicer guy. When she sees a chance of getting her ex boyfriend back she runs away putting the nice guy's life at stake.

And all the while we sitting at the audience took sides with Rachel, Kareena, Abhay, Deepika…because the plot had placed them as the heroes and heroines. We clapped, we cheered, we wiped away copious tears and left for home satisfied. We never thought how unfair the portrayal was until the trend went viral in reality. In real life when the same thing happens we all condemn these people as villains.

I do not see any solution to this. May be someone needs to take charge and glorify the value of promise.

Remember how in your childhood some kids asked you to promise in the name of god to ensure the secrecy of the just imparted information? We promised and did our best to keep our words. What went wrong since then?? Why did we grow up to be such messed up people with little regard to promises??

Why do we so often forget that records are made to be broken…promises are made to be kept??

The (n-1)th step

Can you identify a single goal as the defining purpose of your life?

It’s good news if you have answered the above question in negation.

Human beings have been blessed with too many senses to have just 1 dream in life.

After the seemingly unending monotony of the womb when we take a look at the colourful world our senses are hit with a deluge of emotions…we fail to give the strange feeling a name. It’s a mixture of shock, pleasure, anger, surprise, annoyance and amazement. We cannot simply call it happiness…we can only compare it to being high.

And from that point onwards we get addicted to life and start fearing death. We are driven by the hope to experience that high feeling again and again. We start weaving fantasies and strive to change them into reality.

But the flavours of dreams are complicated. Every dream feels the best at the (n-1)th step.

(n-1)th step gives us the feeling of being high.

nth step gives us the feeling of happiness.

Any sane person given the option to select between the feeling of being happy and the feeling of being high would choose to be high.

The uncertainty of the (n-1)th step accentuates our senses. Happiness is definitely better than sloppiness but it is rungs less than the feeling of being high.

Uncertainty makes way for happiness…happiness makes way for emptiness…

Being high gives us the will to live…being happy gives the power to give up life.

In a way it is good if we have some unfulfilled dreams in life…although we never really admit but they are the ones which keep us alive and ticking.

Criticism

No one likes to be criticized.

Behind every “Constructive criticism is always welcome” there is a silent growl which people fail to hear. It says “Praise is always welcome you idiot…criticism never is.”

There are 3 types of stances that can be assumed by a person against criticism.

I call them the 3 A’s of response to criticism.

Absorb-Attack-Avoid

1. Absorb: In this case the recipient absorbs the criticism and it erodes his/her confidence. The recipient has a very flexible mindset and hence she/he tries to accept all suggestions including the ones that go against her/him.

Social response- The general idea is that this kind of behaviour promotes peace and   harmony. Every one’s opinion is incorporated and hence every one is supposed to be happy. The truth is this kind of attitude promotes self doubt among every one and the whole society becomes weak and crippled.

2. Attack: In this case the recipient counter attacks the criticizer with a venomous response and dissects him/her with such violence that the person is forced to take a step back. 

Social response- The criticizer would issue an apology or at least would refrain from an encore. To slice the brunt of our attack we can always coat our vicious words in a liberal dose of sarcasm.

3. Avoid: In this case the criticism hits our psyche and glides off just as a water drop slips off an oily leaf. This method is adopted by the most secure people on earth. But let’s be truthful here. Deep down we all want validation and approval of other people to varying degrees. That’s why great people like Sheldon Cooper exist only in fiction. But we can do one thing…we can at least pull off an act of being indifferent to criticism…that will also provide the same effect. 

Social response: The criticizer would be left feeling inferior to you once you choose to ignore her/him. Now that their criticism spate has boomeranged the criticizer will leave you alone and choose a new target.

Clarification: This really wasn't an attempt to stop people from giving me negative feedback about my blog. :-)

Two professions

In any profession there is a clearly defined customer-vendor relationship. The customer pays and the vendor is supposed to try their best in satisfying the customer with their product or service.

Have you ever heard of a vendor who accepts the customers’ money, behaves badly with the customer and yet the customer has to feel obliged that he has been given a service?

Well there are indeed two professions followers of which believe that they are exempt from this accepted social decorum.

Doctors and teachers.

Many doctor suffers from a repugnant superiority complex and more often than not talks to you in a condescending tone.

“I don’t have much time…pay attention.”, “Don’t use your brains…I’m the doctor here”, “You better listen to me...you don’t know much.”

I also suspect that they get some sadistic pleasure when strike the good food off the diet charts.

And some teachers are even worse. They not only make the students feel bad but they also feel it is their right to insult the parents.

Every time a teacher asks a parent, “Your ward is faring very poorly…why?” the parent should immediately answer “I’m paying you to take care of that and I should be the one asking “why” ”

The logic by which doctors and teachers justify their rudeness is that they “SAVE” lives.

So non-doctor and non-teacher people are basically ruining lives???

I believe that any person putting in an honest amount of effort to earn his/her money deserves respect. Why do we have to classify professions in a hierarchical manner?

Now tell me how would a doctor/teacher feel if a team of vengeful software engineers decide to set the amount in their bank account to zero?

Yes I agree that there are well mannered doctors and teachers and in past I have used their help and advice and in future too I would need that. This post is against the ones who show a certain amount of high handedness which I find intolerable. I’m just tired of the way our stratified society behaves and expects people to behave like a lesser mortal every time they visit a doctor/teacher.

Flexibility is overhyped

We were all born as wonderful human beings with vibrant traits that could have lit up the world…but there are 2 types of influences ruining the genuineness in us and making us dull and commonplace.

Type 1: Involuntary interference

Throughout our lives we imbibe characteristics of people around us. A day comes when our individual personalities are diluted to the extent that we become a conglomeration of all the people that we have interacted with.

If we recall our earliest memories we can remember how we had inimitable traits which were spoiled by regular interference.

Type 2: Voluntary interference

Throughout our lives people around us often try to manipulate our decisions. Our individuality gets severely mutilated in such cases.

A few common instances:

Childhood: Parents take the liberty to make our decisions.

Teenage: A dominant friend might influence us into ventures we don’t like.

Youth: Manager trashes our career aspirations.

Marriage: New people might impose their decisions.

Social circle: Narcissists might expect compliance to their standards.

The problem is when people politely say that altering a certain trait would make us better they think they are doing us a favour but they  directly imply that we are unacceptable with our existing traits. And no one loves to hear bad things about themselves…it erodes our self esteem very fast.

We need to be firm about the 2^nd type of interference. It is our life and we entitled to our own whims. Complying with other’s whims might earn us the “good boy” / “good girl” tag but the tag comes at the cost of our happiness.

Also there is a graver damage done to the society by our spineless behaviour. We fall into the vicious adapt-imbibe-impose cycle. It is our life and if we do not live it according to our wishes some day we too run the risk of becoming a dominant parent, a roguish boss or an awful in-law.

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We often confuse free thinking people with selfish people but freedom is a very basic human right and it’s not an optional right.

There is a common trend of asking people “While taking a decision are you a brain person or a heart person?”

Doesn’t matter whether the decision is coming from heart or from brain…as long the decision is coming from YOUR heart or from YOUR brain.