Sleepless in Seattle - Part 7 - Why not everything at once?

“Kya karna kya hai tujhko life mei? You cannot get everything at once yar!” he said. And he said so to direct my crazy confused soul in a single direction for the upcoming quarter. My mind was indecisive. It still is. Life suddenly seems very restrictive. The sea of opportunities that I was dying to explore has just turned out to be a lake. We can traverse only a particular square. Sometimes, you just cannot cross the borders simply because there is too much at stake.

When I realized I cannot take all the courses I like I remembered all the things (recent times strictly) that I have always wanted to do but could not. Giving up on something untangled was one such thing. I have always wondered why all of us cannot have everything…everything at once! Why do we have to give up on something in order to achieve something else? Why do I have to give up on milk chocolate just because I want to have a darker one? Is it unfair for me to have both the chocolates at once? Not that I am snatching the milk one from someone else…but…if both the milk and dark chocolates are available on the shelf why can’t I have both? Just because they pose a threat to my teeth and gums?

The world follows some rules (unfortunately) the golden rule being ‘You cannot have everything you want’. “Kuch paane ke liye kuch khona bhi padta hai” is the rule. But kuch paane ke liye kuch khona kyun padta hai? So that we can make space for the new thing/person? Something similar is said in the book ‘The Secret’ too. I, somehow, have started to disagree to it now. The khona-paana part ceases to make sense to me. How I wish everyone could have everything! At Halloween you can have a broom and a nice hat and be a witch or grow wings and be a fairy. Why cannot I grow wings and still wear the witch’s hat and become a FITCH?

I am still searching for answers to my questions – Why cannot I have everything at once? Why do we have a ‘risk’ factor for everything in life? Who decides on who deserves what? Does God/karma maintain a spreadsheet for everyone that says ‘Can have’, ‘Cannot have’ with expiry dates for everything? I personally hate databases but if God or Karma maintain such records then the database would be loads bigger than ‘Big Data’.

I found this quote on the website http://lifesbestadvice.com/2012/04/01/you-cant-have-everything-you-want-but-you-can-have-everything-that-matters-to-you/ … Maybe it is kinda true -

“You can’t have everything you want, but you can have everything that matters to you”

Maybe God has his own way of directing you to whatever is good for you and whatever matters to you. Maybe not. God obviously does not run the biggest telecommunications company in the universe and hence will never be able to talk you into something. Karma is busy too and cannot stop you from committing a sin every time you attempt it. Hence Karma finds some way to punish you for every mistake the severity of which depends on the severity of the mistake.

I want everything in life including the things I know shall harm me. But how wise is it to lose everything you own to have something you can never own? Why do we walk the wrong paths when we know it ends in a valley? Maybe for the sense of having everything for a short time?

P.S: I miss everything. Badly.

Current Mood: Disappointed.

Current thought: Everything at once.

Sleepless in Seattle - Part 5 - Life is Timeless

It’s been a long week… and the irony is I am just done with Tuesday. I feel super exhausted and the mid-term has not even arrived yet. My bed is messy and so is my calendar. I have no clue what to give priority to – love, money, readings, assignments, coursework, job or … life. Life’s been so busy that I haven’t had time to… well… take care of my ‘pratarvidhi’ well.

Just yesterday when I was running in between course and money I learnt about something happy. Unfortunately, I didn’t even have time to *be happy* about it. Weird but true. I suddenly realized… we do miss out on a lot of things just because we don’t *have* time. Those small things, those moments, moments of lust, moments of pure love, moments of laughter, moments of…you know… But such is time, right? You never know what you’ve lost until you realize that you really wanted it. There is going to be a time when you come face to face with whatever you have lost because you had no time – a really sweet girlfriend, an opportunity that didn’t seem like one earlier, a relationship, an offer…just everything. In such time of opportunities can one really have everything?

I remember reading this quote somewhere –

“Time is like a handful of sand- the tighter you grasp it, the faster it runs through your fingers”

 Never knew what it meant until now. I’ve been trying to catch up with everything but have failed literally. It’s really not possible to be everywhere I guess and multi-tasking cannot mean being omnipresent. An attempt to be omnipresent is just an attempt to grasp the sand…tighter. I think it is just time to sit back and not to believe in the song ‘Everything at Once’. The best thing we can do is to hold time, brace ourselves and go with the flow; enjoy whatever comes our way. Sometimes the best plan is to go with the flow.

Ant v/s Grasshopper

A forward I received a few days ago. Wonderful story. Whoever wrote it is brilliant. Not that I have a problem with the reservation system (I feel reservation should be purely based on financial ability). I feel I have a problem with the entire caste system itself. It ceases to make any sense to me anymore. Someone is Shudra just because it is written somewhere. Humanity should win....after all.... We are nothing in front of the Almighty. I feel the caste system is the root cause of all the problems around. Discrimination in case of caste, creed, language, borders, complexion etc. I wish to live in a world with no borders and no visa requirements; a world where you can go from USA to Turkey just for a cup of tea without having to go through the visa tiff. My heart pains to see the discrimination at times. My wish is soo never coming to reality.

P.S: Purely what I feel.

Here goes the forward.

OLD STORY:

The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and laying up supplies for the winter. The Grasshopper thinks the Ant is a fool and laughs & dances & plays the summer away. Come winter, the Ant is warm and well fed. The Grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.

RESERVATION VERSION:

The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and laying up supplies for the winter. The Grasshopper thinks the Ant's a fool and laughs & dances & plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering Grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the Ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.
NDTV, BBC, CNN show up to provide pictures of the shivering Grasshopper next to a video of the Ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.The World is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be that this poor Grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?Arundhati Roy stages a demonstration in front of the Ant's house. Medha Patkar goes on a fast along with other Grasshoppers demanding that Grasshoppers be relocated to warmer climates during winter. Mayawati states this as `injustice' done on Minorities. Amnesty International, UN, EU and World Human Rights Organisations criticize the Indian Government for not upholding the fundamental rights of the Grasshopper.
The Internet is flooded with online petitions seeking support to the Grasshopper (many promising Heaven and Everlasting Peace for prompt support as against the wrath of God for non-compliance).Opposition MPs stage a walkout. Left parties call for ' Bengal Bandh' in West Bengal and Kerala demanding a Judicial Enquiry.CPM in Kerala immediately passes a law preventing Ants from working hard in the heat so as to bring about equality of poverty among Ants and Grasshoppers. Lalu Prasad allocates one free coach to Grasshoppers on all Indian Railway Trains, aptly named as the 'Grasshopper Rath'. Finally, the Judicial Committee drafts the ' Prevention of Terrorism Against Grasshoppers Act' [POTAGA], with effect from the beginning of the winter. Arjun Singh makes 'Special Reservation ' for Grasshoppers in Educational Institutions & in Government Services.
The Ant is fined for failing to comply with POTAGA and having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, it's home is confiscated by the Government and handed over to the Grasshopper in a ceremony covered by NDTV. Arundhati Roy calls it ' A Triumph of Justice'. Lalu calls it 'Socialistic Justice '. CPM calls it the ' Revolutionary Resurgence of the Downtrodden '. Ban Ki Moon invites the Grasshopper to address the UN General Assembly.
Many years later.....
The Ant has since migrated to the US and set up a multi-billion dollar company in Silicon Valley. 100s of Grasshoppers still die of starvation despite reservation somewhere in India.

AND
As a result of losing lot of hard working Ants and feeding the grasshoppers,
India is still a developing country!!!

My Sibling... My Life...

So you are this sweet little kid and a Princess for your parents. You are their love, their soul and everything else. Their world revolves around you. Your wish is their command. Every word you speak is iterated and re-iterated (the first word you ever spoke, the first time you said ‘ma’ and ‘baba’ etc). Your parents adjust their sleeping schedules according to yours (and you never have a sleeping schedule). Toys, teddy bear, clothes etc. everything belongs to you. Parents are ‘yours and only yours’. You rule the world.
All of a sudden your world turns upside down. Your parents bring home a sweet little kid. You think of him as a guest at first but he refuses to go. Slowly, the kid wears your clothes, plays with your toys and your parents adjust their sleeping schedules according to his. His presence is celebrated. You feel a little neglected and your life changes.

Eventually you start liking this kid. People around you say he is your ‘brother’. Something called as ‘belongingness’ seeps in. You enjoy his company. You play together. He irritates you at times but you learn to adjust. You fight for every little thing on this earth. You oppose things just because he supports them. After a certain period of time the sibling rivalry ceases to exist.  Life starts rolling amidst this chaos.
One day, while you are trying to keep awake in a boring lecture you see a kid crying outside the class. It’s your brother. You excuse yourself from the class and go to see him. He tells you his teacher threw him out of the class because he refused to stop talking to his bench-partner. You request the teacher to allow your younger brother to attend the lecture but she refuses. So the entire 4th grade witnesses a 7th grader almost arguing with their class teacher for the sake of her brother. The teacher finally gives in. For you, your sibling can never be wrong; at least not in front of a 100 people and their class teacher. You grow extremely protective of your sibling. The bottom line remains ‘Only I can fight with my brother. You lay a finger on him and you die.’

You reserve your chocolates for him and he does the same. You plan his birthday in a big way and so does he. You share your secrets and even your pocket money. You are his ‘other and reliable’ source of income. His happiness matters the most to you.

The bond grows stronger with time and the love is unconditional. This is one bond that can be taken for granted come what may. The bond that every sibling is proud of. A sibling is the best gift your parents can ever give you.