Respect Life

How do you feel when you get respect from others? Now you may think what kind of stupid question is this! Everyone existing on this planet loves being respected. Here comes another question for you. Do we give respect to every person in our life, even strangers? Well, we all may have different answer to this but most of us don't give people the respect they deserve. And it is surprisingly  true. I don't need a statistical data to prove it. We all know this fact and are living with it on a daily basis.

Few days back, I went to a market, crowded with people. Sellers were shouting their funky slogans to attract customers, rickshaw pullers shouting various name of places, waiting for people to hop into their rickshaw. And suddenly my eyes caught a person sitting in the corner , completely drunk and unaware of the surrounding. Now, I have seen two different kind of people, almost of the same age: Rickshaw puller and a drunk man. As an academician, I started doing a comparative case study in my head. After some time, I reached a conclusion that rickshaw pullers might not contribute much to the economy but they certainly deserve a lot of respect. I think that they are able-bodied men that have opted to wok hard rather than indulging in any heinous activity.

I remembered a similar scene at the vegetable and wholesale market and suddenly a lot of respect started erupting inside me for those people. They could have easily fallen into prey to some immoral ways of earning money like robbery, kidnapping and many more unethical acts, but they have chosen the path of hard work, to survive, trying to live their life with dignity and from my point of view, they deserve being respected.

Yesterday, while crossing a subway, I spotted a man with a weighing machine. All of a sudden, I was keen on knowing my weight. Why I did it? I think you know the answer now. We all might have seen singers and dancers in local buses or trains, who ask for money after they are done with their music or dance act. They too have the desired skills and from the marketing point of view, they are selling it. Unfortunately, people sometimes get confused and consider them beggars. But, in reality, they are not begging. Instead they are showcasing their talent to earn their livelihood. Don't you think they deserve some respect?

We are happy to pay for expensive branded clothes and other materialistic things, but bargaining with rickshaw pullers or vegetable vendor give some people the happiness of their life, that is the reason they indulge in this act. Don't you think some responsibility rest with us so that their noble way of living continues? One thing we can do is not looking away, give them the respect they deserve, and sometimes if our pocket permit, help them without hurting their dignity.
  

Don’t Stress, Boost your Confidence

Another day of work begins and unfortunately it is accompanied by stress and anxiety among us. And sadly, everyday, this stress is brought on the platform of our mind by our own negative attitude. Surprised, but it’s true.

Instead of setting targets to improve our own performance level in accordance with our past records, we are busy competing with other people who don’t even give a damn about our mere existence in their life. “I have to be number one”. This statement haunted many of us in our life. We are putting a lot of stress on our mind whenever we say this statement.

“I must accomplish more than other people and leave them far behind” and lot of other things we say to soar the magnitude of stress. We think a lot and most of the time could not deduce anything logical from it. Moreover we expect our mind and soul to accompany us in achieving that illogical conclusion we reached upon, giving more stress and pain to ourselves.

Just wondering , how can everyone be number one? How can everyone achieve 100% in their life? Being a student of economics, opportunity cost does not allow me to have everything in life. We get some and lose some. So is the life we live a paradox? How to achieve everything? How to live a stress-free life? Is there any solution?

Before reaching to the ultimate answer, we should first try to understand this. Everyone has their own strength and weaknesses. We all are different – one may be good at sports, other might be good at academics. Some people can communicate their thoughts effectively by speaking whereas other prefers to write. But due to our expectations and ego, I feel that instead of improving our capabilities, we end up spending more time meeting the expectations of others and in competing with them. Well, this may degrade our performance. Instead, we should work on better ways to improve our potential, rather than wasting our time trying to be someone else.

Now the big question arises. How to do it? How to reduce the level of stress in life? The answer is simple and you won’t have to go anywhere to find it because it is within you. All you need to do is go back to basics. Imagine your life when you were a kid and think about the amount of stress you handled when you were 4 years old. Statistically none. One used to enjoy their life, every moment. Just compare it with the life you are living currently. Are you even trying to live every moment of it? So break the monotony, do what you like and make every second of your life memorable. Improve your weak spots, learn new things. The moment you start doing this, stress will be gone miles away. After all, there is truth what someone once said: “It is not work that kills men, it is worry”.

So start you day with a positive attitude and a big smile because it is the only curve which makes all the problems go straight.

Finding Comfort Zone

It is disheartening for most of us that we are experiencing a life in a state of uncertainty, solicitude – a kind of agitation. Everyday of our life revolves around one or other kind of skepticism. It is not a new phenomenon, humans have been constantly looking for a comfort zone since prehistoric civilization.

Comfort zone, as defined by Cambridge University, is a situation in which you feel comfortable and in which your ability and determination are not being tested. Every human being tends to create his or her own comfort zone which varies from person to person, depending on their personal preferences. A new born baby finds ultimate solace in his mother’s arms. As the time gradually passes by, comfort zone keeps on changing.

One of the most disturbing fact is that traits like anger, hate and envy are considered to be normal. Instead of embracing all these traits within our soul, each one of us must diversify and expand our horizon of our comfort zone, which will eventually lead to no space for negativity within us. Even if a person can handle anger, envy and hatred with ease, they should still not be regarded as a tranquil state.

We should pay utmost caution that our comfort zone does not become the reason for misery to people around us, who may happen to be our own near and dear ones, whom we love so much.

So it’s time to embrace love and rise above hate.

An Evening Walk With Books

I was sitting on the couch, watching an episode of “The Big Bang Theory”. As usual, Sheldon knocks the door of Penny asking some interesting science question, about which she had no clue, leaving me with a laugh. Suddenly a thought crossed my mind. Can books give us strength and guidance? Can they help us in solving real life problems? Do they play an important role in our life? Again I was stuck with so many questions with no one to answer.

I was a bit confused on the solution i thought and took a lot of stress in searching for the correct answer, but unfortunately I could not reach to a valid conclusion. So I decided to go for a walk in a nearby park to relax my mind. It was around 6 in the evening. People from different age group were present there. It was a bit awkward for me because i rarely go to any park. So, I started walking and I met a very interesting person there. He was nearly twice my age, wearing a loose white t-shirt, paired with grey track pants. We both were walking at the same pace. Hence after walking for 5 minute in utmost silence, I heard a voice reaching my right ear. I looked at him and we started chatting. We started with a casual conversation and then i thought of asking him about my uncertainty on role of books.

After carefully listening to my questions, he was little bit amazed and with a sweet smile on his face, he replied “Books of  self-help and spiritual genre can give us the delight and strength to handle problems in life, and further helps us in finding the correct solution to our problems”

Now, I was excited to know how he will further support his theory. I was ready for the counter-argument with all my weapons of thought loaded in my mind but the way he explained it was beautiful. It mesmerized me. He added that books fuel him to function to his full potential especially inspirational books. He recommended me to spend one hour every morning on self-development.

After two miles of walking, thanks to the technology for notifying me, we were still discussing the root topic. So we increased our pace and with it the talk skyrocketed to a whole new  level. After 5 minutes, things started bouncing over my head. It was way too difficult for a twenty years old guy to handle such a great talk and understand each and everything out of it.

After coming home, I got all my answers and realized the importance of  books in my life. I started reading daily and now i go to the park every weekend and try to have at least one conversation with an interesting person. Whenever i get an opportunity, I put some questions to a person who is more experienced, accomplished in some way, and try to learn something from them.

Few days back, I faced a problem. Then i remembered the trick the person told me whom i met in the park. He told me that whenever we are worried, we should ask ourselves two simple questions: What am i worried about? What can i do about it? Once we have defined the problem, we can easily find the path of solving it.