Life Unplugged - 10

Virtuality takes on Reality…

As I pen this one down sitting beside my window, watching the droplets of rain race from the sky to kiss the earth, Delhi cheers with one more good monsoon. The sky goes grey, winds go cooler and green is the colour of mother earth’s habiliment. Weather can’t be more quixotic and drive through the rain with the special someone is what I wish right now…!!!! But this is what the virtual me thinks of. The real me resides in a more pragmatic world. He knows that everything is just for the moment. There are things to be done and there are people who depend upon one and the purpose of life is still to be met.

The human species have two minds running in parallel. The one which is more optimist and the one which is more conservative and life plays a tug of war with both these heavyweights. One shows you ray of hope and the other covers the ray and uses a torch instead and leads you safely to the end of tunnel. Sometimes you spell your heart out but things don’t materialise. But you feel, things can be achieved with little more persuasion. The judgement whether to give more effort and time to the task  is a result of who wins between the two minds which often goes unnoticed.

Rosy pictures are good. They make us happy and life seems a cakewalk. The optimist mind knowingly beguiles you but the hardheaded one comes to rescue. The conservative one knows the matter-of-fact and helps you draw life plans with these constraints. But one thing I like about rosy one is it makes you think things which are out of your reach and thus inspires the groundbreaking neurons in you. It helps in expanding your boundaries and this is how human evolves. Just like a tier 2 MBA student dreams to drive a BMW after some years into the job. But the ground realities make him feel dejected. The optimist mind goads him to search for new opportunities beside the regular job. Innovation strikes gold when poor chap puts his ideas into business and the conservative’s smile turns upside down.

What creates ruckus in life is when one mind tries to dominate the other. Many have tried to draw the optimal mind balance ratio but to their dismay. Both minds are individual tigers and no one has to be fiddled with else it backfires. Let them sort out themselves and by this way you reach your auto-equilibrium of mind. Virtuality makes you think you are going the right way at a good pace and things are falling in place(good job, exciting love life, mesmerising growth rate of salary, profound knowledge) while the reality takes you to ground zero vis-à-vis with your current snapshot of life (does the job drive you to work, is the love real, is the salary worth to forfeit small tantalizing things one does in life, isn’t there more to be learnt in this world?).  

The optimist gives you freedom the conservative gives you caution. Life often faces dilemmas as both minds get adamant at times and trouble starts when one fails to resolve the deadlock. But there is always a master key for life and I guess every carries it. Use the key, resolve the situation and have the maximum fun in life as these droplets of water are having with petals of flowers after the showers bathed Delhi. Life can be more exciting if you loosen yourself, challenge you imaginations, fall in love and rise in it too. Have a lovely monsoon  and Happy friendship day to you folks. Let the minds be at peace!! :)

Life Unplugged - 9

At Crossroads of life....

With less than a week to go in for my silver jubilee existence on this very mother earth, I find myself again at the crossroads of life. I am delighted to what I have done in this very life. But there always lied a fear whether the step am taking will put me on the right path. I tell you once you develop the finesse in this judgement making process, life is a cakewalk. But the hard fact is we have to deal with situations by our conjectures only. Certainty in decision making is a distant dream.

I feel most of you may have been at crossroads of life at some point or the other. Question like "Is this the way to go?" must have pested your soul like a thorn. I tell you relief comes only when you get a big “Yes” for a particular direction among the options (at crossroads) else the ambiguity kills your soul like hell for the entire journey. If you do a retrospection of the decisions you have taken and where they have landed you in, it gives you enough cues for which paths to choose in near future. But this all comes at cost of experiences which eat your life time. So how to reduce the cost and be economical?

If life is a journey, where are we headed for? And if we can answer that, how do we get there? What road, path, course do we take? And what's our means of transportation? In choosing our course, we need to keep in our minds our goals.  Life is full of small modules. The essence lies in completing these small modules and then connecting them. So whenever we get ourselves at cross roads, we need to identify which module are we in and how does it lead to our ultimate goal. Sometimes bypassing a particular module makes sense too. This helps in reducing uncertainty while making decisions.

Despite reassurances life does not offer guarantees. It is capricious. Nice cars, a good education and a high IQ don’t mean things will go smoothly. When standing at life’s crossroads you don’t necessarily know which way is the best. One road may mean happiness, another adventure, and yet another means safety and security. It takes heart to be alive in the world. You have both, courage and heart; do not be afraid to express either. You need to be bold when confronted with few dilemmas and you need to be alert at the same time. One may get too overwhelmed by the situation which may lead you to pick the wrong path(This is one of most common reasons why people fail to break the crossroads jinx.) These carrefours are the test of your character. Initially at crossroads, we may not the hit bull’s eye in choosing the right path  but the sooner we learn the better we get.

Crossroads are must. Life is too tad without them. And I tell you, once you know how to break the code, you will relish being at crossroads. But the most important part of the whole story is you should not forget that you are not alone in this whole journey. Helping co-passengers, guiding the lost ones and motivating the hopeless ones make your voyage more satisfying. I know “competition” is the word which makes you do all the wrong things but there is something bigger than that which you guys know better!!!

It’s a sayonara from the Unplugger who gets ready for a double 25 on the coming one. :) I wish my doll makes it here.