Waiting for a bus

(Highly suggest you both listen and read!)

Here is the typical bus waiting scenario: You step out of your house, happy that you are on time. Walk up to the bus stop, knowing that it is going to be your day. And then you reach the bus stop and no bus has arrived yet. It's okay, you tell yourself. It'll take five minutes at least. So you wait. And then it's ten minutes. So you tell yourself that Kuchh paane ke liye kuchh khona padta hai (to achieve something you must lose something). And wait for five more. Buses come and go, all except the one that you want. You think, I've waited for fifteen, just five more can't hurt. And while you're anxious about whether you'll reach on time or not, you stretch. And if the bus still doesn't arrive, you put your ego on the side and take a taxi. Or if you're stubborn, probably wait a little more till the bus finally arrives and it's crowded but you push yourself to get in, or like I said before, take a taxi.

And it may sound funny, but this event is synonymous with so many in life. We're always waiting. Waiting for the right person to come by, waiting for the right person to like us back, waiting for the right person to change his/her mind about the decisions that they have taken. We wait for our jobs to get better, for an interest to develop, and for the results of our perseverance to kick in. We're taught that time heals and fixes everything, and that if you work hard and really ask the universe for something, the universe will hear it and hand it over to you. But you have to keep wanting it and projecting everything you feel realistically yet positively.

Yet the truth is that time cannot always fix things for you. And sometimes irrespective of how much you want something, and how much you actively work for it, and wish for it with as much optimism as you can muster......it just isn't in your control. And that is hard to swallow. It sucks to not be able to be in control of something that is important to you.

And that is why you need to know your breaking point. You need to know whether you want to wait for ten, fifteen, or twenty minutes. And once that time is up, for your own mental peace, you need to take that taxi and move on in life to other things that are waiting for you.

Because at that point, do you even have a choice?

Kanksha

The subtle art of helping and being helped

A friend of mine was recently discussing with me about how her boyfriend kept treating and helping a guy all four years of University but that guy never treated him back. And I'm not a huge fan of that guy, so I easily agreed that something was fishy and conversation moved on.

I went back home, and narrated the events of the day to my mom as I usually do, and I brought this up as well when she reminded me that it would have been wrong for her (my friend's) boyfriend to expect anything in return anyway. Because help should be given without any expectation in return. And I realised that I had somewhere forgotten this.

That is why helping is so difficult. When you help someone, you get the feel-good-feeling and satisfaction from doing something good. You don't sign a contract telling the other person to help you in return. You don't feel wronged when the other person doesn't take that initiative for you when you need it. Because the minute you do that, all the goodwill, and all the happiness that you received when you lent a hand is destroyed immediately when you don't get something in return.

At the same time, it's also necessary to ensure that you remain grateful to the person who helped you. Remember what each person has done for you, thank them, and tell them explicitly that you appreciate it. This makes the person feel good, and more motivated to pass it on to others.

I have always found good people. People willing to teach me. People willing to share. People who'll at some level go out of the way and help me out. I could say that I am blessed and lucky. But I have also had people in my life who do not share or even care. They think they are entitled and have no gratitude for what you do. Or they just don't realise the amount of effort you're putting, at times also because you don't mention it. At these times, it's important for me to tell myself to not get bogged down by them and remember the former set of people. Because there are honestly so many people who are good.

When I was living in the USA and my sister Disha was just born in November, it was too cold to take her out of the house, even if it was just to pick me up from school. When my mother did so since she had no option, my sister got pneumonia. At that time there was a girl called Cathy who stayed in the same building, whom we didn't even know went to the same school. Her mother offered to get me home every day. I remember comparing how the Indian style of saying tables was different from the American and her mother telling me she took ages to brush her teeth every night. Once Disha was okay, my mother took over once again. When we left the country a few months later, we tried to send a gift to her but couldn't find them. To my six year old self, they were angels sent just for us.

Imagine the entire world following this principle - people helping out of pure selflessness and forgetting about it once it's over. People being touched by these people getting inspired to do the same. And the world passing on random (or even not so random) acts of kindness.

I think this place would be a wonderful one to live in.

Thanks for reading,
Kanksha :)

Being wrong

If you prefer listening, here's the track. You can read along!

I remember complaining about my excessive (2 and half hours in total) train travel time in my first year of engineering. I used to hate lectures scheduled at seven in the morning - you have to leave your house at 6:15 if you want to reach close to on time and wake up at 5:30. About fifteen of us from college would go out multiple times a week and I didn't care much about how I should be utilising my time better. Neither did I have regrets about my high school results and life unlike other people. 

One of the most passionate people about computer science that I know is a guy (now my best friend) whom I thought only cared about music and played the piano exceptionally well. You can imagine my shock when I realised how technically sound he was. I also thought that the latent heat of vaporization was the heat consumed and not heat released without a change in temperature.

I have been consistently wrong about things in my life. Train travel gives me breathing space, we recently protested to get back seven am lectures and if possible schedule them for the entire week, and my outings with friends are at an all-time low because my work is at an all-time high. And all these things that would be a downer are things I look forward to every single day. I used to think I did not understand physics but while explaining things to my sister who is full of good questions (which are good because, you know, you don't have an answer immediately) I realised that I do and I just didn't put much of an effort. Rediscovering physics with her is refreshing.

And while the mini-stories I have mentioned above are quite harmless, because of which it was quite easy to accept ignorance and admit wrongness, it isn't always that simple. Sometimes you go into denial, sometimes you feel betrayed and you'd rather believe the contrary like when you're wrong about a person for instance, and sometimes your ego comes in the way especially when the person correcting you is less qualified or younger. People who have strong beliefs and ideas find it even harder to see another way from theirs and accept that there could be flaws. 

We tend to do things because we feel like it is the right thing to do. We love being right and hate being wrong. Kind of like how a lot of us think we are extraordinary. We hope to do things that only great people could, aim to solve issues that have been left unsolved, or set the trend that Priyanka Chopra beings to follow. We hope for our blogs to suddenly go viral and everyone to love our music. But we need to accept that we aren't probably as extraordinary as we wish to be. Just like we must accept that we're not always right and being wrong could probably be exciting as well.

If you like dark chocolate for it's bitter and black coffee for the taste nothing else can give you, and continue shrugging your shoulders to their milky variants, you have a win-win situation. Likewise, if you can appreciate the growth and learning from the bitter feeling of being wrong and open your mind to explore multiple possibilities, and continue being happy with being right - it makes you a more pleasant person to be around apart from content from the inside. 

Anddd I hope I am not wrong about that^! 

Kanksha :)