B is for Believe....

For quite some time, I have been loathing in self doubt. There were ideas and thoughts that I believed in. There was a picture of me in my mind. I thought I knew who I was, and I did know myself pretty well too. And then a friendship gone sour destroyed all that. The breakdown of a relationship so trusted and so important to me put me in self doubt. I faulted myself for the breakdown and that thought wrecked havoc with my belief in myself. I had begun wondering if I was who I thought I was, or who my friend said I was. Worst of all, I stopped believing in people, in trust and in love.

It was during that time I read extensively. I hovered over blog posts from friends that were hugely motivating, read stories that that slowly brought back my self-belief, and had conversations with people who re-affirmed my ideas and thoughts. That all this should happen subconsciously without being planned in anyway made the whole experience even more holistic.

Miraculously, another friend stood by me without even knowing what I was going through. But she became a medium. And what I learned repeatedly through all this brought me back to being my old self. That was when I learnt that everything happens for a reason. When people change, it is to help you learn to let go. When you trust someone and have been lied to, it is to help you to believe in yourself. And when good things fall apart, it is so that better things can fall in together. It is we who are in control of our lives, not other people, not circumstances, not luck, and that is exactly what we should believe in too!

And that is why it is so important to “Believe”.

Believe in your strengths.

Believe in your beliefs.

Believe in trust.

Believe in magic.

Believe in happy endings.

Believe in God.

Believe in promises.

Believe in your heart and where it takes you.

Believe in never growing up.

Believe in your passions.

Believe in promises.

Believe in all that you are.

Believe everything good is possible.

Believe in your dreams.

Believe in love.

Believe in people.

Believe in believing.

And most of all believe in yourself.

 And don't let anyone tell you otherwise!!!

A famous quote goes thus, “A bird sitting on the tree is never afraid of the branch breaking, because her trust is not on the branch, but on her own wings!” 

A is for Appreciate

 The famous old bard once wrote,

“What is this life so full of care,

 If we have no time to stand and stare?”

Perhaps, he spoke about not taking time out to appreciate nature. The magnificent sun, the radiant moon, the spectacular blooms, the swaying trees and the cool breeze. We have no time indeed to look at the world around us; far less appreciate what is in it!! But I would like to understand his rhyme as it extends to every aspect of our lives. If we just took a moment to sit down and notice, we would find so many things that we have been taking for granted all our lives.

There are so many people out there who wish that they had what we have. The things we might not give a second thought to are luxuries for so many; Good air to breathe, food on our plates, potable water to drink, a roof over our heads, and a warm bed. And yet, we have no time to appreciate being so blessed.

Then I think of life and its moments. These moments are fleeting, and what is there now will soon be gone, and we will wish we had treasured them more. In the end they will all be memories, memories we will hold on to forever. When we learn to appreciate these little moments in life, they leave us with smiles on our faces and contentment in our hearts.

How about the people we love? We never truly appreciate all that our parents did for us, till we have kids, and we start doing all those things for our children! How often we take for granted the unconditional love of our parents, spouse, children and friends! These are the people who see us through our thick and thin, supporting us, loving us, and holding us when we fall.

We better learn to appreciate what we have before it turns into what we had! It’s never too late to show our appreciation for the blessings we have received, for the love we have received, for the abundance we have and for every single moment of life. The more we appreciate what we have, the more we will have to appreciate.

April A-Z challenge

It's been quite a while since I have blogged regularly. This absence from writing, however, did not mean absence from the deluge of thoughts that has been washing over my mind space. This period has been a time of contemplation over many issues, battling the many demons in my head and getting over and letting go what should rightly be got over and let go.

This was the time when I thought about what I am actually holding close to my heart and whether those things were really as important as they seemed to be. Some were and some really weren't....and that was what set me on a path of discovery as to what should actually be important to me.

Call it coincidence then, that I stumbled upon Shilpa's blog, calling us blogger's to participate in the April A-Z challenge.

This path of self discovery is what I am all set to share in this month long A-Z challenge. If you wish to participate you can also register here and fill up a simple form to get started!

Hoping to see you in April!!

How about a story?

The little one, as you all know by now, is a little too smart and quite witty.  So this how last evening turned out to be.

“Mamma, tell me a story,” the little one asked me, settling on my lap and turning my cheek towards him.

I stopped what I was doing to pay attention to him, after all what can be more important than spending quality time with your child? The instant story teller that I pride myself to be, I started with the lion in the jungle that ate all the animals, the story already beginning to take shape in my head.  I had no idea how wrong I was going to be proved in a short while from now.

“There was a bad lion in a bigggg jungle” I started, acting out the part. “He ate any animal that came his way.”

“Which animal?” he wanted to know.

First question already.

“It ate the deer, the…”

 “No mamma, the lion can’t eat the deer…” he said as a matter of fact.

“And why not?”

“The deer lives in the zoo…” he said, with a I’m-surprised-my-mom-didn’t-know-that look!

“No baby, it lives in the jungle, some of them are caught and kept in the zoo…”

“Oh” he seemed satisfied, still pondering over what I said. Then came the next question.

“Did the lion eat the zebra?”

 “Yes baby. The lion ate the zebra and….”

“Giraffe?”

“Yes, he ate the giraffe too and…”

“Buffalo?”

“Yes, the buffalo too.”

“Monkey?”

“Yeah, the monkey, the ….” I paused, thinking of what other animals the lion could eat.

“Hons cow?” he asked.

“What?” I was not sure I understood what animal that is.

“Hons cow?” he stressed again. “Did the lion eat the hons cow?”

“What is a hons cow?” I was beginning to get tired.

He made an imaginary horn with his hands on his head, “hons…”

that's his Hons' cow!!

“Oh!” it dawned on me, and I smiled, “Horns cow?”

“Ya, did the lion eat the horns cow?”

“Yes, it ate the horns cow also…”

Dear god how many more animals did he know? Even as I’m thinking about it, came the next poser.

“No, mamma, the lion can’t eat the horns cow, because it has horns… if the lion tries to eat it, the cow can knock it down with its horns….” He laughed, gently hitting his head with his tiny palm.

“Oh…” I was almost embarrassed. Imagine a mom who doesn’t know this basic fact! THAT was some enlightenment. I must make a mental note of this, next time will be unpleasant if I happen to make this mistake again.

“Ok, it did not eat the horns cow...So this lion…..” I tried to continue.

“Mamma….”

Not again.

“Yes?”

“What does the horns cow eat?”

“Grass?” I asked cautiously. You could never be too sure what his horns cow ate.

“Correct.” He nodded his head, and then, “What colour is grass?”

“You tell me…”

“Green” he smiled.

“Good boy” I smiled back, and then , “What does the horns cow give?” I would regret this question soon.

“Milk” pat came the answer.

“Very good. What colour is milk?” I realized I’m diverting from the story, I’ll get back to it next, I tell myself.

“White”.

“Good, so we’ll go back to the story? So this lion….”

The little one was still thinking and then came the bouncer.

“How does the green grass turn into white milk?”

I really don’t know that. And I could cry, yeah, I wanted to cry. I gave up on the story telling session.

“Baby, why don’t YOU tell me a story today?”

Password incorrect!!

Kids are so gadget savvy now a days! That's exactly the reason why my mobile and desktop are password protected.

 My little one is all of 4, but the mobile sits snugly in his tiny palms like it was tailor made just for it! He knows exactly what icons he must touch to go to the sub menu and then to "Talking tom" or "angry birds"! I watch in awe as he switches on the computer, and then the CPU, and then his little fingers click away on the keyboard and he finds his way through the "D drive" on "My computers", sifting through the folders, locating the folder marked "games", and then finding his favorite car race game-NFS ! It will be imperative to tell you here that he has just started learning his alphabets and cannot even distinguish between b and d, p and q and looks at me for help each time! So it beats me how he navigates through the entire path to reach his destination without being able to read a word!

Hoping he doesn't delete some data by mistake, I typed in a password on my desktop . The little one sat next to me and I was sure he was not that smart to guess the password, leave alone read what I had typed. For a few days all was well and I smiled at having tricked the little monster. Did I mention "few days"? Yeah, because that's how long the trick lasted! Just by observing my fingers as they moved over the keyboard,he managed to crack the password! And very consistently he did it every time I put a new password! Well I'm just glad he doesn't know how to change the password yet!

He must have taken the password thing too seriously and how seriously he showed me at dinner. As I picked up a morsel from his plate and tried to feed him, he put his tiny palm over his mouth. 

"What's the password?" He asked.

"What?" I looked at him blankly.

"Password mamma? Put the password or this gate will not open."

Dear god! Really? Ok, I scratched my head thinking what does he know? Perhaps the alphabets?  "Let me guess....ooook," I said as if I was trying too hard,"abcde? Right? Now open your mouth"

"Wrong password, try again" he said without blinking any eyelid!

What? Did he just say wrong password? How in the world was I supposed to know what he had in that little mind?

He wasn't about to let me give up, so I tried a few more times. "All wrong" he said!

"I give up, you tell me" I coaxed him.

He gave me some crazy random letters and once I did an imaginary punching of keys he let me feed him. Ah! So much drama! The "game" went on till the last morsel was fed and to say I was fed up too wouldn't be an exaggeration!

So much for passwords and so much for privacy!