My Blurred Perspectives

Living as ourselves

2009-07-31T11:52:00.000-07:00

"It is better to live our own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection"- Bhagwad Gita

Today's world is full of popular culture and social media. We are ceaselessly exposed to other people's lives and achievements. We have friends on facebook who put pictures of their happily (apparently) married life/wonderful beach vacation. Similarly, we follow tweets of celebrities who tweet about their newly bought Ashton Martin. As people usually share their beautiful part of life, it is likely that our lives seem less interesting or less fortunate than lives of people around us. Moreover, society seems to promote these seemingly successful or fortunate people and put pressure to change ourselves to imitate others. In order to feel better or be highly regarded by others, we become more inclined to live by replicating other people's lifestyle. Even when we realize that we can't live other people's lives truly, we often try hard.

I have met people who are anguished because they can't play guitar as good as (or as half good as, for that matter) Jimi Hendrix. I have seen people who complain because they can't be rich and famous doing nothing like Paris Hilton. Well, most of us, in fact, may not drool over not being able to play like Jimi or not being as popular as Paris. And, we might even think these grumblers need some kind of mental treatment. But still, there are many among us who think that our lives would be better if we were someone else. We incessantly forget that happiness depends more on our attitude toward life than being well-versed in guitar or being a hotel chain heiress turned celebrity.

I am not against the idea of being inspired from successful people and taking effective action. In fact, positive influence provides direction to our life. But, by ignoring the reality of our life and being obsessed with what someone else has done or achieved, we invite more misery to ourselves. We become blinded by others' success and consequently can't see our way upto the summit where we can celebrate our own success.

The above quotation from Bhagwad Gita has become increasingly important to realize as elements in our society encourage us to look for happiness outside ourselves. By imitating other people's lives in search of better life, we risk losing self respect and subsequently a meaningful life. Our purpose and happiness lie within ourselves. And in order to find them, it is necessary to love and respect ourselves as much as anybody else in the world.

20 important lessons that life has taught me till now..

2009-07-24T09:17:00.000-07:00

I know you are tired of reading articles with lists. But since I have just started this blog, I would like to give my readers some idea about who I am as a person. This article (which happens to contain list), I believe, will help you know where I stand on some important issues in life.

1. Take life as a gift, not as a debt or burden: You are not born in this world to make other people happy or be a means for someone else's goals. You have got only one chance to live; so, live life to the fullest.

2. Don't worry too much about the future: Future is uncertain. You don't know what's going to happen next year, tomorrow or even next minute. So, stop worrying too much about what is coming in life. Just keep a postive attitude, enjoy the present, and accept the uncertainties of life.

3. Don't try to control everything: There are always so many things going on near you. But, there are only few things that you actually can control. In short, don't try to control everything, because you can't.

4. You don't always get what you want: Remember Economics 101. There are limited resources and unlimited wants/desires. Be grateful for what you have and remember you don't need to get all the things you want.

5. Take care of your finances: No one will help you with money (except your immediate family sometimes). And, everybody knows that we can't live without money in today's world. So, take care of your personal finance.

6. Don't worry about small things in life: We have a habit of giving too much importance on small stuffs and forgetting things that are really important to us. We also worry and complain about small obstructions and difficulties in life. Stop this habit before you get into a major trouble and think how stupid you were then to complain on trivial obstacles.

7. Others don't care about you "that much" anyways: Except you are a celebrity or some kind of superstar, people usually don't care how you look or what kind of shoes you are wearing. So, stop overthinking and be at ease with your appearance.

8. You don't know all: Don't ever think that you know everything in this world. Actually, there are several worlds that you are not even aware of. Your understanding depends on your identifications and experiences.

9. Everyone doesn't have a perfect ending: Therefore, accept your fate.

10. Don't regret: Never regret on bad things that happened. Rather, learn from the experience and move on.

11. Comparing yourself with others is not a good idea: We are all unique and we all have different life history. So, don't compare your achievement with others. Otherwise, you will always feel miserable because you will always find someone better off than you.

12. Change is inevitable: There are always changes in life. Some of them are under our control and some are not.

13. Adjust to change: You will be happy if u can adjust to your new realities. You will be unhappy if you can't. It is simple as that; but, maynot be as simple as it sounds.

14. Make few friends and show friendliness to everyone: You can only be close with that many people. So, focus on quality when developing close relationships and be courteous and friendly to all the people you meet.

15. People are basically good, not evil: Assume everyone you see or meet are good people because usually they are.

16. Be proactive in taking care of your health: We generally tend to ignore our health until it deteriorates. Although we cannot always have control over our health, we need to do things that we are control of.

17. You are closest to yourself when you are by yourself: You are probably clossest to yourself when you happen to or are forced to take different path than everyone else. So, take this opportunity to self-reflect.

18. Be your own advocate: No one else will speak for you. So collect some courage to speak for yourself.

19. Don't forget the mountain: We are usually quick in dreaming of reaching our goals and achieving success. But, don't forget that if you want to reach at the height of something, you need to climb the mountain first.

20. You can't live without passion: Really!! because, you will soon be bored to death.

Why "Blurred Perspectives"?

2009-07-16T21:21:00.000-07:00

Einstein perharps didn't just refer to the motion of physical particles when he said "Everything is relative". There are more important facts toward which this quote points. Our thoughts and actions are relative to our fate and circumstances; our reflections are relative to our level of understanding, and our perspectives are relative to who we are.

Everything I am going to write on this blog are my "blurred" views on various aspects of my life and this world. Of course, I will be very subjective sometimes and will try to be very objective on some other times. Yet, I believe my views are affected by my identifications and experiences. Well, probably it is this blurred perspectives that is truest to each one of us. But, I definitely hope to find commonality regarding various views that I will express on this blog.