Stressors & Relaxers

Two months after I hoped I would be in my high-performing state, I finally feel I am. My thoughts now naturally wander to places I like. I'm thinking better, doing better, and feeling better.

Some of it can be attributed to the "me time" I have had since Aditi was on vacation in India. But I want to attribute a lion's share to the small changes I've been trying to make since last year. Puts Atomic Habits into a very real perspective. You don't see it coming, but you can look back and see all the good work you put into build-up over time.

Last year, around this time, I was stressed out. I had fewer responsibilities than now, but when I look back, I remember having thoughts when, while driving to my office, I had thoughts of just skipping and continuing to drive down the road to wherever it took me. No destination. That's where my idea of a long road trip originated from. I was insecure, unsure, and anxious.

Now, 1 year later, even though I have more responsibilities - I bought a house, got a promotion, am leading a new project, and managing more people - I feel much happier, more relaxed, and more content.

So what changed? I reflected. 

And I found that I was keeping a lot of stressors with me and was not giving myself any relaxers.

I was trying to control things that weren't in my control. I was trying to help people that didn't want to be helped. I was dwelling a lot on communication gaps like when people wouldn't understand what I was trying to say. I had stopped improving. I had stopped learning. I was stagnant. All of these and more were my stressors.

What are my relaxers? I've talked about it previously. Music - I wasn't listening to it much. Creativity - I wasn't making anything new. Me Time - I wasn't having any. Water - I wasn't spending much time with it. Thinking - I couldn't do much because I wasn't getting time to myself.

And that's all there was to it. Life will always send stressors your way. That's what life does. Things are going well, and then they suddenly don't. The key to getting through is to not let those stressors build up and continue to visit your relaxers. Things that make you happy. Put one step in front of another and keep walking. Until a solution is in sight. Until things again change for the better.

Now I'm listening to music nearly every single day. I've been woodworking and gardening. I have time to think and write these blogs.

Dispositions, Outlooks, and Moods

So I had to look up the definitions to refresh my mind even though I knew what I wanted to write about. And I pass that on to you as well :

Disposition is defined as a person's inherent qualities of mind and character

Outlook is defined as a person's point of view or general attitude to life

Mood is defined as a temporary state of mind or feeling

And that's our topic for today. Of late, I have been in high spirits. Higher than I usually associate with myself. I've had a good state of mind, I've been looking for improvements, and I've been tackling issues with a smile on my face. As I explained to someone on a call in January - Sometimes, we are able to dictate a change in our dispositions, and other times the dispositions make us do what we do.

I have a mood tracker, and it has six options: Angry, Sad, Meh, Neutral, Happy, and Ecstatic. Last year, I was consistently neutral. And I wasn't exactly happy. No surprise. This year, I decided to force myself to think better, give myself more leeway, and let myself feel more happy. That meant that for the first few days, I consciously reminded myself that I needed to rate myself Happy or above. After 15 days or so, now I don't have to force it anymore. I see that prompt about what my current mood is, and my brain automatically responds, Happy!! And I am. More so than last year. This, I consider, is partly responsible for my feeling of being in higher spirits.

What I noticed additionally, though, is that since I made this change, I approach things differently. I talk to people more positively. I accept the issues & challenges thrown towards me, and instead of letting them drag me down, I look for the positives and the next step forward. I feel & hope this has also rubbed off on the people that I converse with. 

So what caused me to write about it? 

Today, I arrived in the office, as usual, full of high spirits, looking forward to what I can achieve today, and trying to add some new habits to organize myself and my work better. Then I received a call, and the other person was not in a good mood. And that rubbed off on me, and I started feeling as if I was getting dragged down. And it triggered the thought of how different people's dispositions, outlooks, and moods get passed around. If I'm talking to someone with a smile on my face, more often than not, irrespective of what the other person is feeling in their life, they would feel better. However much we deny, we are all connected as species. 

We run away from each other if there are conflicts because our survivalist instincts kick in, and we want to preserve ourselves. But give us a safe space and a happy crowd, and we will all connect. Look at how concerts typically go. Like-minded people all enjoying something they all love. Together.

The challenge a person thus has to live a happy and positive life is whether they are able to change their outlook, improve their disposition and rub off on the people around them to create a happy & positive environment for everyone.

Firsts

So, I've been thinking about this one for a while. A thought occurred to me while I was driving back home from the office, and I wanted to pen it down. Two weeks ago. And I didn't. Why? As I got home, I got busy with other routine tasks; making dinner, working on my garden, playing AoE, and writing the blog took a backseat.

However, recently, I had a couple of sessions with a therapist. Partly because I've always wondered how that works and partly because my new employer offers some sessions as a free benefit. After two sessions, I feel that the experience is slightly underwhelming - I've found it an excellent place to open up and talk without reservations, but there are some small things that could've made for a better experience which I'm not gonna talk about, in this blog. Getting back to the first digression - One of the things she said in the latest session - "When it feels that there are things bottled up, give them an outlet, write it down." - stuck with me. That, for me, for a lot of years, had been this blog. This is where I would come and pen down my thoughts without hesitation, without thinking about who's reading, without a care in the world. And so here I am today.

Now, getting back to the original topic and the thought from two weeks ago.

Firsts.

We spend the majority of our life in schedules, routines. Work to home, home to work. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner at specific times. Working Monday to Friday(for IT). Yet, that's not what we look forward to. That's never our focus. That's not what makes us happy. In fact, that's not what we even look backward to. That's not what we reminisce about. We don't go, "Oh! Do you remember that 70th day when we went to the same place for lunch, and nothing different happened? We ate, talked casually, and came back to the office?" Because we have a tendency to brush past the monotonous, barely paying any attention to it. What we look forward to, or remember, mostly are the firsts. The first kiss, the first time your heart jumped after seeing a beautiful girl, the first paycheck, the first trip somewhere. Some may generalize and say we look forward to our vacation every year when we go to the same place and do the same things. But do you really? Do you not crave going to a different place, even though that feeling of your comfort bubble draws you to the same place? And then, do you not, during your 5th or 7th visit, go, wait, I don't think it was like this earlier. It used to be better. This restaurant used to serve better food, and this beach used to be more clean.

So where am I heading with all this? This behavior shows that we all crave change in our life. Change is what makes our life better. Change is what makes our life worth remembering. We would remember the first time going to a specific office building and loving it. We won't remember the 1072nd time when we visited the same building since you've been desensitized towards the beauty of the building, which hasn't changed. You have changed in those 1072 visits. Law of diminishing value. What excited you the first time doesn't excite you anymore. However, if you switch employers or locations and go to a new building, it's a second that's also a first, and you may feel excited about it.

Even when most of us maintain, "We don't like change - why can't it be how it was?" We all crave it. The "Why can't it be how it was?" is because it's the nth time something is happening. And at the end of it all, when you look back, you will remember the times something changed. You won't remember all the days the stock market ticked up 1%. But you'll remember that one time AMC & GameStop surged coz of Reddit investors. We are good at remembering anomalies much more than mundane ones. And so, my thought is that for a life worth remembering, you oughta have enough anomalies in it so you can reflect back on it and say - "You remember that time when.."

Destiny & Probability

This afternoon I was talking to one of my friends and we were discussing an achievement when he said that it was just plain luck. As usual.. my mind immediately picked up a thread of reasoning that I had started some time ago. It centers on luck. Destiny. And believe it or not.... Probability.

I had read this book by Scott Adams called God's Debris a couple of years ago. The book broached the same point. What we call luck/destiny... is it not just probability playing it's part. One of my favorite arguments in the book happens something like this:

A delivery guy Y delivers a box to the person X. X starts the argument saying that the box has delivered the person. Y believes that it's the opposite. He's the delivery guy so he delivered the box. And it's revealed that the box was posted by X himself to his own address. The purpose of the box was to make the delivery guy come to his home. So the question hangs.... Who delivered whom?

Anyways coming back to the intertwining of probability and destiny. A Hindu holy scripture says "Karm kar. Phal ki iccha mat kar" Meaning that the duty of a person is to do the work assigned to him in the best way possible. But the person should not expect the outcome. The outcome may or may not be in the person's favor. Doesn't the second part sounds like probability. But then you ask.. why even work if the outcome is not in our hands. Well.. Probability is strange. But being a part of mathematics. Still follows some rules. Whatever work a person puts in goes towards improving the odds of the result being in the person's favor. But probability being probability sometimes it's the less probable thing that happens.

I wanted to talk a lot in this blog. About how probability has worked for me. But well.. maybe later.

Water and Me

So this Saturday when I woke up after a 16 hour Sleepathon... it had just stopped raining outside... The first thing I did was tp pick up my Cam and run to my window. I knew I'll find water droplets still hanging on the tree outside my window. I clicked around 5-6 photos with various zooms and shutter speeds. As soon as I was done I transferred them to my lappy to have a look at them without wasting any minute.

And here's one that I captured...

Now why am I posting only this.. you ask?
Well... looking at this pic elicited a thought chain that has been in my mind from quite some time.
Which is... Are we connected with the basic elements in different mythologies/fantasies in some way. The elements that I'm talking about, if you don't know, are: Earth, Water, Fire and Air. Some myths/fantasies add Spirit as a fifth element.

Not sure how many people would know or believe this... But I am very much into zodiacs/astrology/myths and their relation to the us, the humans. The year 2010 has infact been very helpful to me in this context. Some wud tell me that it's just a perspective or my way of looking at things and may not be completely true... But well... it's my blog.. so my view rules. :D

So again.. from the past some time it has been my belief that I have a relation to water. I am somehow connected to it. My being a piscean just kind of confirms the relation. Pisces is the only zodiac sign amongst all 12 that is truely and completely water. The other water signs namely cancer , scorpio and aquarius are half water. Cancer and Scorpio are primarily water but carry Fire and Earth with them while Aquarius is primarily Air.

Coming back from the detour. So 2010 confirmed that I feel a lot better if I have a natural source of water to visit often. In absence of natural source, lot of times a shower does the trick. In Hyderabad it was lakes, Mumbai it was the sea that I loved. Rain has been a common factor in both the cities. Now here in Louisville it's the river Ohio which my office window looks upon.

But what does this have to do with the pic you ask? Yes.. I detoured... So coming back from my memories into today's world.

When I looked in the pic above I saw the water droplets glowing like beads of light. And my brain took a train(oh! that rhymes... Cool!!!) to the glow within someone's heart. And then I thought that the glow in the water droplets is not coming from themselves. But they try their best to keep the glow. Give them just a ray of light... and they'll start glowing. Isn't the heart same. Give it just one ray of hope, one ray of something good. And it catches onto it with all it's strength.

Going back to other forms of water. The flowing water represents the life. A lifeline of a river... is also the lifeline of a human.
Starts in the mountains rushing down, with so much energy.. Isn't childhood the same? Trying to cut down the rocks to carve a new path.. Some are successful in that and some aren't... Beating against each rock that is in the path... Learning something from each rock.. each hurdle...
the river reaches the plains... The major portion of a rivers lifeline. The working age. Working.. sometimes giving.. sometimes gathering... sometimes flooding with emotions.. sometimes feeling emptied of everything.... The ups that are more and more difficult to climb with each passing hurdle... The downs which give just that little boost that makes it going on. Sometimes merging with other's lives creating a new one... Others just continuing alone.. making its own path...
the river reaches the last stage... the deltas... or the old age. After losing all it's energy it just wants to reach and merge with the sea. But still there was a lot of work it did during the plains. And it's time it deposits the good work done in the form of sediments, minerals before it drains whatever's left of it into the sea and dies....

The calm waters represent stagnancy in life, the whirlpools are the emotional vortexes that we find ourselves in a lot of times.

Rain.. isn't it a form of giving.. Without condition... Love... which infact if goes overboard turns into obsession and is as dangerous as the rain that pours down more water than is needed by earth and brings floods. Some areas.. arid areas desiring rains desperately while others have it in abundance....

For now I think I'll stop here. Lots of threads were running in my head while writing this. On zodiacs, on elements, on life.. Hope some of the above does make sense to you....

Musings of a Frustrated Soul

Since a couple of weeks I've been in Chennai... and no wonder that I've been thinking a lot. Before coming here one of my friend gave me an advice about the office.. rather a warning:
"Dude!! the office stinks like shit in rainy season. Take Care...."
I asked him: "But it won't be raining right now na... ??"
"Ya!! It won't be raining. So it'll stink like a dustbin..."
Reason: the office I'm going to is right opposite the dumpyard of Chennai. And it's alongside a marsh.
But once you are in the office there's nothing like it. You have an almost food court inside the office complete with Spencer's, LandMark, a couple of juice stalls, Barista, a couple of other coffee stalls, an ice cream stall, two biryani centers, a shop each for north-Indian, andhra and Chinese food and all this apart from the normal office canteen. And from the windows of a few top floors you can have an awesome view of the marsh which more looks like a lake. And did I mention that this marsh is also a bird-watching area. And by bird-watching I meant literal bird-watching.
Anyways, enough about my office. Now about where I stay. When I say Sastri Nagar not many would identify it to be in Chennai... It doesn't sound south-like.... But here I am, in Sastri Nagar... one of the posh areas of Chennai... and 1 km away from Elliot's beach.. where, as another friend pointed out, most of the people in Tamil Film Industry dwell.
So last weekend, on the suggestion of this friend I went to Elliot's Beach. It was way past sunset. And I was in no mood to spend more than 10 mins on the beach. Coz I've already seen lots of beaches in Mumbai too. So I walked from my house to the beach. I was about a couple of hundred metres away from the beach and yet I could hear the sea. And pretty soon the beach too came in view. It seemed no different from the ones in Mumbai. Similar stalls lined the road. Selling tea/coffee, and chaat-papdi. Not to forget the bhel-puris in typical Mumbai style except that when u neared a stall no one called out to you to sell something and when you heard it was not the smooth Marathi that sounds a little like Hindi but some language which feels as if someone is hitting you with words. Once a Telugu friend told me what they called Tamil in Telugu. I don't remember the word exactly but he told me the meaning and I do remember that: "It meant harmful for ears or not very good to hear" So about the beach yes... Through the sparse distribution of stalls I went towards the sound of sea. Slowly the sound of sea grew... and the sound of stalls dimmed out.... And there I was... a cool sea breeze flowing around me.... Drenched in the noise of waves... Looking out at the waves again... in wonderment... as I've always have... And the beach suddenly was nothing like that of Mumbai... The waves were bigger.... Made more noise and crashed on the beach somehow... unlike Mumbai.... I've always wondered on how the waves crash onto the beach and return only to come recharged with new energy... as if to test the boundaries of sea..... As if to expand the boundaries... And there I stood thinking along those line again... Transfixed by the oncoming waves.... And looking onto the moonlit sea. Have I ever told you... a moonlit sea looks much better than a sunrise or sunset time sea... U can see just a few waves at night... lit by the moon... U have to stare hard enough to see how a wave forms.... and all ur concentration is on that single wave. I stood there for around half an hour... thinking how I am getting late for dinner. Then I remembered I had spotted a Domino's near the beach and I gave up the thought of returning soon. I went in Domino's ordered a pizza with coke and sat there waiting. For some reason I've never come to find out how Domino's serves you within half an hour when you are ordering from home but when you are sitting at an outlet it takes them more than half an hour. Anyways... after around an hour I left Domino's and went back to the beach. Once again thinking that this time I would just gaze once and leave... But call it my love of sea or whatever that it wasn't another half an hour that I could leave.
The next three days.. I was down with fever..... But that's another story....
For now I leave you with a question: Can a person be frustrated and happy at the same time for the same thing?

Forty - Two!!!!

The title is just a reference to The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy's famous quote: Forty - Two is the answer to the ultimate question of the life, the universe and everything.
There's not much relation with H2G2, but while reading a friend's blog I came upon such a question: Why can't life be simpler? And as usual my sleep went out the window and I remembered my lunch time today.
Unlike everyday or rather unlike most of the days when me and my colleagues eat in canteen, we today had gone to Pizza Hut. No occasion, nothing. Just because we felt like. And while sitting there I started strolling down my memory lane. How Pizza Hut was no less than DisneyLand when I was young. Even when I was in college!!!
I still remember a lot of my firsts. My first visit to McDonald's had been to meet a very special friend. My first visit to SubWay had been on a disastrous day when almost nothing went right. And my first visit to Pizza Hut was, here in Mumbai, after I had been on job for more than an year. But today it was nothing special. Pizza Hut is just another restaurant for me where I go and eat whenever I feel like. Pizza Hut, KFC, McD and all the similar chains hold no more special meaning for me. That's because I've become highly habitual of such places. So the joy I used to experience while going to McD in my college days is gone. Such places are no longer a rare commodity for me and so the pleasure I used to get while dining there is thinning.
Now coming back to the question in question(pun intended).... My friend, in her blog, asks... Why is it, that if you are married to someone, and you see the person you loved walking by, your heart flutters. And if I think in the same terms as I described above... that's because that person is a rare commodity.
My friend had also mentioned heart ache in her blog and I, ah yes!!! Me... I have countless things to say about that... But am keeping them for future because love for me is a very "alien" subject....

Are we what we think??

One of the questions which always bothers me is: What exactly is our purpose to live? What exactly are we here to do? And are we doing it? And why are we doing what we are doing? And whether something called destiny is present in our lives? If not then why am i in the place i am instead of yours? And if so then who decides the destiny? What bothers me most is this scenario which i frequently imagine. Consider yourself in the position/location u are right now. Now just consider yourself from the eyes of a lizard had it been on the ceiling of the room you are in. Easy... Let me make it more difficult. Move the ceiling a little higher. Or maybe as high as you can imagine. and now look through the lizards eye again. And remember only the ceiling goes high. The walls of the room do not expand.... See how small you've gone. Well we've not reached even half of what we know. Consider the ceiling to be transparent or better if you can imagine your room without the ceiling. Consider an aeroplane which is just flying above your head. And a five year old kid is looking out of his window directly at you. Do you think you are the only thing visible to him? Just try to imagine the perspective of his gaze. Well if you are able to do so let's take a huge leap and land on the moon. The only manmade thing visible from there as they say is Great Wall of China. What happened to you? You are just one of the people whom the astronaut on the moon can't even see. Want to go further?? Your wish... You can go on to the other galaxies and much further and you'll find the worthlessness of yourself. I'm not saying you are worthless. What I'm trying to say is that when i reach such heights i find myself negligible as compared to the huge scenario in front of me. So i wonder. What exactly is my purpose of existence. I already have written an entry on it. But one of the gruesome realizations/question that comes to my mind is that...
From the eyes of the five year old kid in the aeroplane the scenario seems similar to what your eyes see when you look down at a cockroach. I didn't want to use this scenario but this is what exactly comes to my mind. So the people who have problems in coming to terms with this scenario... please do not read any further. And i apologise beforehand if i hurt someone while describing my thoughts any further. How much difference is there between the two scenarios i just mentioned? We are populating as much as i guess with the same speed as the cockroaches are or can. Most of us think that they are making a difference to the society or the world but they actually make the same kind of difference on a larger scale as an intelligent cockroach does by making an artificial leg for a leggicapped cockroach. Most of us just care about our families and relatives and their well being. In fact so do cockroaches. Most of us have just money on their mind(which after a long discussion can be equalised to food) and so do they. Can you imagine whether cockroaches can play football or not? How sure can you be that they do not build football fields hidden from us? Or that they do not have hangouts where they go on special occasions? Of course they will be special to them and not to us. Just like our sports are special to us but not to a lot of other people. And by the way i guess that i think about cockroaches instead of any other insects because i hate them a lot.
Not going into any further details but all this makes me think if i am like a cockroach to someone just like a cockroach is to me.

Nice webcomic site

Here's a nice weblink for a webcomic on life and various irritants.. Chk it out.. It raises some nice issues through humour and satire.
http://www.flyyoufools.com