Saturday, January 19, 2008

The sides...

A friend of mine used to say me quite frequently that if you can't see the brighter side of life, then try polishing the dull side. This statement was pretty strange to me, as I couldn't possibly judge which side was brighter and which duller. It possibly happens with most of us, and at many times. We find ourselves so clinched with some problem or the other that we start getting a feel that we're the only ones who face all these problems.

We probably see, or sometimes even ignore the other side of the coin. We are at times immersed within our own cubes that looking towards the sunshine at the other end is way beyond our reach. Some lips even speak about the out-of-the-box-thinking thing. Endowment of knowledge or the skill to solve problems might have been there, but ignorance of the same might deprive us, of what we have.

That's exactly where optimism brings multiple spaces for everyone. It brings with itself multiple rays of hope, and with hope, comes the will to strive for things, which probably might be beyond our reach. An attribute, so simple and so elegant, tries to polish the dull side, with it's own beauty.

And as some one had said, positive pictures come out from the negatives developed in a darkroom. So, if you find yourself lonely and in dark, understand that, life is working on a beautiful picture for you.
Bucket-Fillers...

I thank my friend Veer for sharing this forward with me.

You have heard of the cup that overflowed. This is a story of a bucket that is like the cup, only larger, it is an invisible bucket. Everyone has one. It determines how we feel about ourselves, about others, and how we get along with them. Have you ever experienced a series of very favorable things which made you want to be good to people for a week? At that time, your bucket was full.

A bucket can be filled by a lot of things that happen. When a person speaks to you, recognizing you as a human being, your bucket is filled a little. Even more if he calls you by name, especially if it is the name you like to be called. If he compliments you on your dress or on a job well done, the level in your bucket goes up still higher. There must be a million ways to raise the level in another's bucket. Writing a friendly letter, remembering something that is special to him/her, knowing the names of his/her children, expressing sympathy for his/her loss, giving him/her a hand when his/her work is heavy, taking time for conversation, or, perhaps more important, listening to him/her.

When one's bucket is full of this emotional support, one can express warmth and friendliness to people. But, remember, this is a theory about a bucket and a dipper. Other people have dippers and they can get their dippers in your bucket. This, too, can be done in a million ways.

Let's say I am at a dinner and inadvertently upset a glass of thick, sticky chocolate milk that spills over the table cloth, on a lady's skirt, down onto the carpet. I am embarrassed. "Bright Eyes" across the table says, "You upset that glass of chocolate milk." I made a mistake, I know I did, and then he told me about it! He got his dipper in my bucket! Think of the times a person makes a mistake, feels terrible about it, only to have someone tell him about the known mistake ("Red pencil" mentality!)

Buckets are filled and buckets are emptied? Emptied many times because we don't really think about what we are doing. When a person's bucket is emptied, he/she is very different than when it is full. You say to a person whose bucket is empty, "That is a pretty tie you have," and he may reply in a very irritated, defensive manner.

Although there is a limit to such an analogy, there are people who seem to have holes in their buckets. When a person has a hole in his bucket, he/she irritates lots of people by trying to get his/her dipper in their buckets. This is when he/she really needs somebody to pour it in his/her bucket because he/she keeps losing.

The story of our lives is the interplay of the bucket and the dipper. Everyone has both. The unyielding secret of the bucket and the dipper is that when you fill another's bucket it does not take anything out of your own bucket. The level in our own bucket gets higher when we fill another's, and, on the other hand, when we dip into another's bucket we do not fill our own ... we lose a little.

Therefore, let us put aside our dipper and resolve to touch someone's life in order to fill their bucket.
Small things...

I've listened to many people saying me, preaching me, and even convincing me that our Life is too big, and every now and then, there are many small things that happen and don't really matter, in our endless journey of life. But, I've always felt that there is some relation between these smaller things that add value to our lives.

I wanted to blog some events, expressions that were happening with me, and my life, but then, I thought why to blog it down, as they happen? So, I preferred to stay calm for sometime, and then sit down some day, and try to see whether those events, and expressions really mattered (or still matter) to me, in my journey or were they really small!?

I'm reminded of an incident that happened sometime back in November last year. I'll try to pen it down! I had to go to Kanjurmarg from Kharghar, to meet a couple of friends of mine. I started from Kharghar via a bus, and got down at Sion Station (a crowded area) such that I could catch hold of a train to Kanjurmarg. It was sometime in the evening around 6:30 PM or so.

Before the entrance of the Sion Station, there is a footpath nearby, which is covered by yellow colored iron fence (sort of a thing), such that the traffic on the road goes on smoothly, and the pedestrians could move along the footpath without much problems. So, when I had to enter the station, I had to move around the fence and then keep my feet over the footpath.

At the juncture, from where I could enter, there was a small puppy who was eating a few biscuits, that were lying before him, in the center of the footpath. As soon as I got to notice the puppy, I kept my leg away from the biscuits, such that the puppy could have them easily, and fulfill his hunger. Just after that, a girl turned up, and took those biscuits in her hand, and kept them in the corner of the footpath. It all happened within a matter of a few seconds.

It was a very small thing that she had done. She had noticed the puppy eating the biscuits, and acted in a proactive manner, and kept them apart because she might have felt that someone else might stamp either the puppy or the biscuits, in such a crowd. I felt, that there indeed is humanity on this planet. That girl's move made my day.

I was then a bit more convinced that small things do matter, in our lives. And moreover, if I look at the whole incident that had happened, it wasn't really that big, that I should have been able to remember it, even till date. I now firmly believe that these small things are part and parcels of our life. They come to us bringing with them lots of things - some bring the feel of happiness, some bring the aggression, some bring the pleasant moments, some break out the rebel, and some even bring the sense of responsibility that this girl had brought before me.

Probably, tagging the event as small, might be a 'wrong' thing, but rationality is relative, and it wouldn't matter even if I tag it as big. These are those cups of coffee, that bring love to the ones having it. After all, every drop of water - be it from any source - adds up to the ocean. Events, expressions; no matter how big or small they are, they do bring some charm to our journey of Life.