Between Me and my Destiny ...

This might come as a shock to most of my friends and colleagues, but to be honest, I'm not an intellectual and logical person. In truth, I'm a person who thinks more with the heart than the head. I place great value on feelings and emotions.

Though my attempt is to be logical and rational as far as possible, many a times, my emotions get the better of me and I end up doing things which I regret later. At times such as these, I have often envied those people who prefer cold logic over emotions. It must be so awesome to be in control of yourself at all times . . .

Since the past few years, I have been making a conscious effort to suppress my emotional nature and be more logical and rational. Rather than expecting others to see and accept me as I am, I have tried to present what others wish to see in me.

Recently, I got a forwarded message which taught me a great lesson. It says:

If you are honest, people cheat you. Be honest anyway.

If you find happiness, people will be jealous. Be happy anyway.

The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.

The people you care for may not appreciate your affection. Love them anyway.

Give the world your best. It may never be enough. Give your best anyway.

Because in the end, it is between you and destiny ...

It was never between you and them ...

Change

"Change is the only constant in life."

This is an oft-quoted and popular saying. This is a favourite topic for Essays, Speeches and Motivational Seminars. Yet, even though we hear it, there are very few people who can claim to have understood it and applied it in their life.
What is this quote telling us?
In simple words, there is nothing in life which is "definite" or "carved in stone" so as to say. Everything, be it friends, family, feelings, careers or anything else, is temporary and fleeting.
What is there today may not be tomorrow.

We humans have a tendency which seems to be hardwired in us.
We take certain situations and then decide "This is the way things should be" and then hope that they will stay that way forever.
None of us is immune to this behaviour.
We all have faced situations where we've thought "This is so perfect. I wish things could stay like this always." Then one day, this hope shatters and we are rudely awakened from our dreams to face cruel reality.
Change has gate-crashed the party.

Now there are two ways we can deal with it: one, we can moan, groan and try to find ways to get back to how things were before and then grumble when we realize this is not possible. This is what most of us (including me) do initially.
OR
We can accept what has happened and move on with life. Always remember the good times but, at the same time, look ahead to what awaits us in the future.
Accepted, the second part is not as easy as it sounds. It is far easier to give in to the sadness and anguish we face at the parting. To resist it seems be a sacrilege, a grave sin. We feel as if we're being unfaithful to the memories we're leaving behind, to our friends who are mere memories now.
The only question we need to ask ourselves at this point is, of what use are those memories if the only thing they bring is anguish? Aren't we showing disrespect to them by making them a source of pain both to us and those new people who come in our life?

Of one thing we can be certain, by resisting change, we can't stop it. Change is inevitable. We merely make the transition more painful for ourselves by resisting it.
For example, an adjustment which might have taken a year of sad farewells to old friends and tentative forging of new ones gets protracted into 3-4 years of bitter anguish over lost friendships and later, regret and sadness over the new bonds we could have formed, but didn't, because we couldn't move with the times.

Whatever be the way we choose, the end result is the same. Sooner or later, we accept and move on.
What changes is merely how we achieve this acceptance.

From what I've written till now, it appears as if Change is an enemy we can't fight, a cruel conqueror who knows no defeat. This is not true. Change is merely an agent that Nature employs to ensure that Life is balanced, sustained and dynamic.
Just as a stagnant body of water gets choked with weeds and unwanted rubbish and finally ends up dead and lifeless, without Change, we will get "choked" and lose meaning in life.

When we understand Change and accept it, we are like a river, bubbling with life and energy, ready to face whatever life throws at us. This knowledge fills us with the power and strength to face the trials of life.
A river may cross wastelands, mountains, even deserts on it's way to the sea but it never stops. When it encounters obstacles in it's path, it merely flows around it and moves on.

That is what we have to do. Keep "flowing" till we reach our goal.

"The one thing that will never change is that things are always changing . . ."

Mumbai University's Educational System

I chose this topic for today's post because of an interesting questionnaire circulated by some students of my college for the purpose of their PCT(Principles of Communication Theory) Report.

Some of the questions were:
"How do you find the examinations?", "How do you find the paper evaluation to be?" and so on.

Answering this questionnaire led me to think about the current educational system. My simple conclusion was, to put it bluntly,
"The current education system sucks!!"

The new syllabus developed by Mumbai University is much better, but they forgot one crucial point. The point is, most of the professors are not qualified enough to teach us. At least, when the old syllabus was being followed, they could learn things by rote and vomit them out in class. Now, even that option is not available. So, things are back to square one.

Now that I've said all this, let me add one more thing. One very close friend of mine, The Saiyyan(read his thoughts at http://saiyyan.blogspot.com/), always says something to the effect of "If you want to change the world, start the change yourself." Those students of my college who took the survey also want to start the change where they can i.e. their own classroom.

Similarly, if we start to change things on our own, the System will surely improve, though it might be too late for many of us :-(

My thoughts on religion

This is my first attempt at posting a blog. So people, please forgive me if I make some blunders.

I took up this topic since it is an evergreen point of debate and discussion (and arguments) at my home, my college and among my friends.

Religion, as far as I care, is just a device to force people to adhere to certain "protocols" so that they will be worthy of a "better life". I do believe in that there is a Superior Force out there who is the Author of this "Order in Chaos" but I don't know what It/He/She is. On the other hand, I am pretty sure that even if He is exactly like how people imagine Him to be, He would never stand for all this nonsense that is happening in the name of religion.

It is rather ironic that people are willing to hurt, rape and kill other people whom they can see,hear and understand for Something or Someone whom they cannot see,hear or understand.

This post was not meant to hurt anybody's sentiments, but if I have inadvertently done so, my most sincere apologies.