FAIL to PLAN !!!

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. But does planning really work? Certainly hasn't worked for me most of the times. Even to this day I have tens of to do lists, resolution plans, goal planning documents that I end up creating after some or other self-introspection session. But none of them seem to ever strike a done deal. In fact, more of such lists keep on adding every few days and somewhere in the middle I lose track of them.

So is planning an art or a science? Does the problem lie in the way I plan or is implementation the tricky part? Or am I lacking determination or enthusiasm or motivation? What is it that will provide me the satisfaction of at least one all green to do list. I have some great planner friends and they have bestowed me with their best planning tips now and then. I have tried to follow most of them and yet what is constant is incompletion. How do you "just do it" after all?

Or is planning not everybody's cup of tea. Some people just live life as it comes with few guilty moments of not being able to attain perfection due to lack of proper planning, but still do happily without it most of the times. Do the people who plan and implement well ever feel guilty about anything that happens due to expert planning. Are planned quality results with almost always knowing what to do, better than the fun of acting at impulse and sometimes doing away with some after effects. Or is there a planned list of things that "should" be planned and things that "may" be planned. We all consciously or unconsciously plan several things in our heads if not on paper but how much of it is enough?

What works best when planning doesnt? I think its high time I plan about it...

Richness is not about money

For the past few days, there is this one line that has been hovering over my mind and so I decided to pen down some thoughts. I even had it posted on our dear Fb and had some of my friends share some really wonderful thoughts about this one line. So this is basically a consolidation of all those beautiful views with some of my thoughts here and there.

Richness is not about money...Sure it is not. I think we all are, well at least most of us lucky ones are - Born Rich. God bestows equally to each of us, everything we will ever need to make ourselves and this world better . He gives us the power of vision to marvel at His beautiful colorful creations all around us; the power of touch to heal and get healed. He gives us a beautiful mind to think and imagine and create new wonderful thoughts and creations. He gives us all a kind heart to feel and love and empathize with all the lovely creatures around us. We all are born with and equally possess and inherit the beautiful nature - the warm sun, the twinkling stars, the chirping birds, the blooming flowers.

And after that we become richer by the way we spend these gifts - the power of our senses, the strength of our mental faculties, the energies of our healthy body, the love of our touching hearts and every bit of the ever so passing time. And so at the end, our richness and our worth is calculated not by the number of bills we own but by the number of memories we created with our friends and families - the kind that make us laugh and cry all at the same time; by the number of positive traits that we developed in our character; by the number of times we extended a helping hand to anyone in need; by the number of times we hugged and loved and healed; by the number of beautiful sceneries we enjoyed even if it was a rainbow after a sunny rain; by the number of dreams we built and fulfilled; by the number of moments we lived completely; by what we built of us with what we had.

Richness is not about money... Richness cannot be about money because the BEST things in life are FREE...

Slow Down

Time and again we have heard this or more so likely read it somewhere in the inspirational column of a newspaper or a magazine. So have I. Numerous times. And practically tried to do that more number of times than I ve read it. Though I am not able to do that all the time and I guess its not meant to be done all the time as its beauty lies in doing it when you think you are really pacing up. It has worked for me most of the times. Whenever I do it I feel more in sync with myselves and my surroundings...more at my own pace..

When we get up in the morning in the hush to get ready and step outside and reach work, do we cherish the breath of fresh air and the beam of fresh sunlight. The chances are that we do, we do it in our minds without actually realizing it, which is probably why the day the sun decides not to show up in all its glory we feel gloomy. The only thing we don't do is to take a second and appreciate it. We perhaps do it only when the sun comes out after days filled of dull gloomy weather. That day we perhaps when we step out of our shells we exclaim "Oh what a day !!!" This is also probably why we enjoy the season's first snow, season's first rain the most.

And this might not just be true for the sun and the fresh air and stars and the trees. It might be about people as well. The people we love to death, the people we cherish so close to our hearts every single days of our lives. Thats true we cherish them and love them in our minds and hearts all the time. The only thing we don't do so often in our fast and busy lives is to take a second to appreciate them, their presence in our lives. Because just like the sun and the air and the stars, they are just there for us all the time. Taken for granted !!!

So when we feel we are moving too fast, when we feel we don't have the time and energy left for anything else, lets slow down. Lets give ourselves a minute to take one deep breath. We deserve that much. And lets appreciate the simplest things in life... the sun that shows up behind or before the clouds every single day, the trees, the fresh air, the rain, our heart that beats for us 24x7, the innocent chuckle of a child, the chirping birds, colors.....and most importantly the people in our lives that we so dearly love...all the things in the world that make life worth living. Lets slow down for a moment from the world's pace and lets live the moment at life's pace.

And lets slow down before the brake stops working...

DREAMS....

My favourite quote about dreams....the kind that one wishes to work hard for and bring true is:

“Dreams are not those you get while sleeping. Dreams are those that don't let you sleep”

It may sound extremely metaphorical but anyone who has had a Real dream must have practically liven this quote. I have. I remember having a significant job interview and a comparatively trivial decision of having my home selected as an entry for an interior designing website, both happening almost the same day. And I found myself sleepless at nights thinking how wonderful my simple bedroom would look on the website I browse everyday, instead of burning midnight oil over anticipating job interview questions. And there was another sleepless night when I had unofficially received my first interiors project of designing a friend’s cousin’s daughter’s room. And then many sleepless hours and nights of excitement when I was doing up my own home - my dream project.

Such is the power of dreams. They creep through behind your eyes when you are day dreaming about how you want your life to be and before you know they capture your mind so strongly that all you know, all you have and all you want to know and have revolves around this dream.

I believe every individual should have a dream like this or what they call - “the greater calling”. Its a shame that we become so busy running the rat race that we get detached with even our own self. We hardly find or more significantly realise the need to make time to find our greater calling. Sure, some dreams may not be capable of paying one’s bills or bringing meals to the table but they are a very good (in my case, the best) way to know and stay connected with oneself. I have a dream and though I dont know when it will come true but I am protecting it. Everyday like a little plant I am nurturing it, watering it and whenever I find time fertilizing it so that it does not die before I do. I know one fine day when the time is right, beautiful lavender flowers will bloom out of it. I can see that in my mind’s eyes where it all began.

There are small dreams and then there are big dreams. But one that captures all - make that dream your “dream” no matter how big or small. Even if you feel you will never be able to make it there, dont lose it. Just protect it because every single day when you do so, you unknowingly start working towards it in your own simple tiny ways. And soon it becomes a part of your life. And it is way better to live your dream in bits and pieces everyday rather than losing it forever. Who knows your dream might like you liking it so much that it might come true for you...

VALUE...

Time and again this question has crossed the depths of my mind that what do we value most in our lives...Is it true that we realise the real worth of something only after we have lost it.

There may be numerous opinions about this but one thing that remains the matter of the fact is Loss plays a big role in understanding the value of what we possess at the moment. Untill we have lost in our lives, untill we have gone through the extreme pain of the emptiness of someone or something missing in our incomplete lives, we might as well not know how to value the people we should cherish in our lives. The intensity of the loss is the feeling that somewhere teaches and implants the feeling of equally intense love for the people we have. It would have been so much simpler and so much less painful if we need not have to lose something worthwile to gain this wisdom of worth.

Anytime in my life, when I feel that I am not valuing a person as much, I just put myself to think of how dreadful my life would have been in the absence of that person and the next moment I find myself loving and valuing the person a thousand times more.

Equally true is the fact that we do not know what we are missing in lives untill we have it. But to possess and not value is the biggest irony.

We may desire a thousand things in life but unless we learn to value the few things we already possess, none of our fulfilled desires will ever make us happy. Do not wait to lose something before you begin valuing everything else in life, because you never know - That Something might be your Everything...

SOULMATE..

“While standing on the beach that evening watching the sunset; absorbing the beauty of the only scenery that’s beautiful even though its an expression of setting down; and trying to understand the feeling within that makes you feel you are standing near horizon, the feeling that brings tears in your eyes without a reason-there was something stronger that was going within me- the urge to have someone standing by my side holding my hand and sharing with me all those feelings without speaking a word...having someone whose presence would make that moment perfect and whose absence diminished the vigor of everything else that was perfect around me...

Its so the law of nature that a person who is destined to come into the world alone and leave the world alone, seeks for a companion in his life…Every soul seeks a soulmate…a mate of his soul…a soul that is never destroyed…a soul that is the utmost pure identity of a living being…a soul that has its free will away from the conditioning of the human world…a soul whose feelings are free of the acquired wisdom of the laws created for human existence…for its only soul that can feel without bias, the depth of any feeling that a heart experiences… And so when one finds a soulmate, the love is felt by the heart and by the soul in its most free and purest form, for it is not recognized by how the two got moulded in the past years but by the eternal union that has existed without any beginning or end…

The waves of the sea rolling over my feet, the gentle touch of dusk wind against my face, the last bright rays of the day and my arms I used to hug myself on that touching moment were none able to suffice for what my soul was seeking- an immense sea of pure love to drench my soul, the soothing caress of immortal affection, the never fading light of blissful togetherness and the warm tender arms to hold me strong …all this that I knew existed somewhere else…all this that I knew existed with MY SOULMATE… “