The Path Of Success

Recently we have had so many Indians heading the best of best companies in the world. we believe that this grand success is what they have achieved overnight, or maybe quite easily. But that's not very strange. Its a very common thought that dwells in our minds as 'not so successful' people that the people who do succeed have been very much easily winning every game of theirs to climb the ladder of success..!!
We as viewers always see the big picture and ignore the scarred details that have led them to the place that they are. But the irony of all this is that people whom we adore so much for their 'positions' actually know the truth behind it. They know that even after bagging the best position they will be replaced some or the other day. They know that the highest positions of success bring responsibilities one cannot imagine at all.
We measure success in an universally designed and accepted scale. It means that if you in any terms achieve something but it does not quite fit that 'scale' of success it won't matter. It'll hardly be counted as success! What we forget is the fact that success can't be measured. For every person the scale is different. Its a simple thing. Not every person in the world looks identical. There's a difference of colour,height,weight,genes,etc. Does it mean that you will not be counted as human? Its silly..isn't it? Why would this kind of diversity change anything about anyone being human?
Success has an identical idea. Just because you are not adored by millions for the work that you do doesn't make it any less important. Every little achievement leads you a little bit ahead to making your own big picture!
Over the years of my obsession to be successful, to be the best,I realized that it was unacceptable. I just want to succeed to tell people that I too can achieve something. Well every other person is trying to do that. And so many are tired of doing this that they have given up doing that. If there's one thing that will distinguish you from the crowd is the attempt to stop being one of them....
Success to everyone may mean something different. For a baby taking its first step and trying to walk is an achievement. For a person with limited means its an achievement to sleep with a roof on his head and food in his stomach. For a soldier its a huge success if he makes it through the day alive. For a cigarette addict its huge not to have smoked in 24 hours at all. For a girl who fears dark its an achievement to have walked into a dark room and switch on the lights all by herself and so on....
This list just reminds so many of us that we have been doing something,achieving something all these years without having even the slightest realization of it..!! When we start the journey of life we don't know the measurements of success or achievement. Perhaps that is the reason that babies are the happiest living things to be around..!!
It doesn't matter whether anyone notices your work or your achievement. As long as you feel happy, content and find the will to keep going from your work or achievement its surely is success. All along we look at the final destination of success, but its the journey to success that makes it worth while. When we do realize this we'll all stop worrying about being just successful and start living a life that has in store something more valuable than success..!!
Having said that does not at all mean that success or achievement is not important. It is necessary for progressing. But just don't use a scale to measure it. Success can be found in the smallest of small things...!! Not always can you apply the philosophy of 'the bigger the better..' Sometimes small things have an ability to sum up to an achievement..! After all its the drops in the ocean that make it so huge!!
Finally when you feel lost and you think of yourself as a complete failure, just look back and trace the path you have covered all over the years, you'll realize you have come a long way from where you started..! And that's nothing but success...
After all when you look back its not the final success but the path of failures and falling down that keeps the fire going..! That is real success...!!!

The Common Uncommon

There's often a catch phrase that I hear in anything concerning people, which goes "its really different. Its so not something you find very often....!!" It goes on and on with adding of adjectives to just glorify one simple fact " that something is different !"  Now this "different" can be concerned with either people or things in general. But frankly the obsession of being different is on the high in most of the population.

so what exactly is this "different?"  Is it really different or is it just a matter of seeing something differently...??? Its like a common logic of a glass half filled with water. Some see a half empty glass while others see it full. When we look at people who are really successful in something that really has made a difference not just to them but also to the people around, there's one common observation. These people don't think they have done something "different". For them its just an obvious fact that they have stated. They just justify the saying "winners don't do different things, they just do things differently...!!"

When it comes to something being unusual or not common, is it just really that unusual? If you give it a thought you may get a 'no' as an answer. Its because sometimes we see a person or thing not the way it is meant to be but the way we think it should be. So basically difference is not in the thing but it is in the thought. If we go a bit further on this route we find that too is not so unusual. We just did not take time to notice that there could be other way around.

I mean before Newton discovered gravity, things and people were still standing upright on the earth's surface. The fruits were still falling on the earth. Yet his discovery was new. Not just because he discovered or put forth some excellent work of scientific thought but he also took an effort to think in a way no one thought of!

We have so many ideas, dreams, thoughts that we think are so different from what anyone can think. But frankly, there will be people who share that different-ness with you without either of you noticing it. I'm not saying that everything is same. If that were the case the world would be pretty monotonous a place to live in. I just want to say that the difference we notice is in fact something we have not noticed earlier. Its been out there, just went by unnoticed.

The more we want to be different and protect our specialty, the more we go forward and join the crowd of common-ness...!! As the saying goes "Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.."  Its just a matter of a simple thought or a moment's gesture, that makes you stand out from the crowd of common- ness. You don't have to do anything special to be different. Sometimes yes, you do take efforts and prove it that you are not the same.  But otherwise you are just a person who needs to feel that difference from within..and you'll know it for yourself.

Making a difference, leaving a mark of your own is a very common desire. What is different is realizing that everything may not be noticed by the world, or make you famous, or earn you a million dollars and yet you choose to do it or be with that one person just because it makes you happy and "different...!!!"

And that is what really is different..!!      

Living The Rules Or Leaving The Rules...??!!!

"I'm a law abiding citizen; "I follow all the rules my parents have told me to follow.." etc etc... We hear these dialogues quite often. The funniest part is that there nothing special about them. They are very common. So we hardly pay any attention to this. Actually we are quite presuming that like us, everyone follows the rules that are applicable to them.
I'm not a very old person. Just 21. But I'm starting to wonder all of a sudden that why is it that i follow the rules? I mean about everything,everyone I have been prescribed to rules. And needless to say I follow them. I'm not a rebel but do have a certain sense of logical thinking being a girl of this generation. I often care about the rules. Well that's an understatement. I am obsessed to follow rules. And I'm sure a typical middle class Indian girl would relate to the fact that our parents taught us some rules and we follow them...unquestioningly. Rare occasions ,we decide to question them, we hear a huge lecture about the bad influence of this generation, disobeying their parents etc etc... which leads us to the basic conclusion to make peace with our parents by saying "sorry" and making a silent note of never to question them again.
But for a while I'm wondering what did I get out of following the rules laid down for me? For example: My doc has forbidden me to have ice creams in any other season than summer. I follow it. I have the fear that I may fall sick if I don't follow this medical rule..!! Every year I have ice creams only in summer and the rest year I brag about the self control I exercise! But a funny thing happened. Its summer right now , I did have ice cream and guess what..? I fell sick..!! The doc said its because of ice creams..had it been winter the reply would be the same.I just wanted to go ahead and point out " Hey doc did you notice..its summer!". Anyway in a nutshell, my self control, my rules failed;so much that I'm planning a trip to a near by ice-cream parlor in winters..! 
Really! Jokes apart, does it ever strike you, "hey why the hell am I following it?" Rules, Regulations, Laws are important for a disciplined life. Code of Conduct, Ethics are the modern day children of "Rules". When I look at rules I realize we obey them not for what they are meant for, but out of the fear that we might loose or something will happen if we failed to follow them.
Its the same thing that is about respect. We don't speak to our elders on 1st name basis. We speak to them in a very disciplined way, with proper names etc. That's respect! Regardless of what we really feel for that elder in our heart,words are respectful..how good is that?
Rules are framed to achieve discipline. All the rules. Be it for you as a citizen of a country or be it for you as a member of family, we all have rules. Common rules keep members at par while dealing with each other. We all are surrounded by en-number of rules. Those are our boundaries. We can't step beyond them. If we do we are not civil..! Convenient isn't it?
We are a generation of thoughts. We have our mind and are not fearful to express it out loud. We have to get up and question a few rules at least to slacken the boundaries of life.! As individuals our generation has followed rules and become a some person for the country lost in a crowd of billions. People who challenged them made their way. They knew this was not acceptable for them and challenged it and stood for it.
What I want to say is that some rules are necessary. To have a certain kind of outcome some rules are needed. They are vital. It won't be wise to question them.But sometimes, there's a world beyond rules! Rules made us all equal. They are needed but not all of them..!
Going ahead and doing what you want is advisable. I mean how many of us really want to try out that one thing we are banned from trying out? I'm sure a lot of us. So go ahead and try it...! When you for yourself realize ,why is it that it was banned, it will be a real rule for you.
Make your own rules. Be a rebel to free yourself from the rules. Learn to breathe. Let people talk,parents shout, teachers punish! But one day not long from now, when you look back to that time you will realize, its my life and I have my rules. People will respect you for what you did! It doesn't always matter if you end up a loser or winner..! What matters is the experience beyond the rule. The joy of breaking a rule will be accomplished when you know and can answer why is it so..?!
So go ahead. Breathe. We are free. Life's too short to waste it in following rules. Make your own rules. Live! What seems a bad thing today may turn out to be legend tomorrow! Its your life...The rules too should be yours..!! what do you say...??!!! 

Being a Woman..!!

We stand at the end of February and the start of March. An important month not only because of the festivities that are lined up in this month,it is the month which celebrates women-hood.  8th March is celebrated as Womens' day all over the world. Being a part of this whole gaga for quite sometime now,i wonder what is so special about it..??
Maybe its a day or rather the only when people congratulate you for being a woman,specially in India. We have had a long tradition of women in historic times till the pre-independence and post independence period and quite recent times who have created a stir and have made their presence felt. Yet the history is also a witness to the bizarre traditions,blind faiths,and rules regarding the guarding of feminity right from Seeta to the latest Nirbhaya .Women have been let down as a weaker sex altogether. Why? I don't know ,and I'm very sure no one can offer a logical based solution to this question that poses in the minds of many "why are women considered a weaker sex??" its like why black is not superior to white? why are some sections in society neglected? and so on... none of these questions hold any logical base nor has history offered to explain why this started in the first place...??!! Isn't it funny how blindly we follow certain things without even thinking them through for its roots,causes and effects!!
Womens' day in India has been quite a celebration for a past few years. May be because of the ever increasing importance of the females in the society,it has become necessary to acknowledge that a women can be more than just a house-wife. Of course house-wives are not at all negligible, but let's face it; they can be achievers in other fields as well..!
In India today we see a dominating female presence in the banking field,a field considered backbone of the financial system of India. Even after that there are women who have to strive to get their basic rights to life and freedom. It is still a prevalent mindset that a daughter is a liability not an asset. There have been over so many cases of female foeticide and there will be..
What troubles me is the thing that why can't we accept females as just the other gender..?? When we have 2 hands to navigate our tasks, when we have 2 legs to help us walk; how can there be only sons and no daughters? When we need and what is necessary is to have a right and left together to be a healthy person..why can't it be so natural as that?  Why do we find a need just to celebrate that 1 day of womanhood and the rest of the time be as vulgar and cynical about women as one can be?
Amidst all the political statements about the Indian women putting their foot down to the wrong and doing it their way, I just want a simple thing...don't celebrate a special day for 24 hours and get back to doing what you were. We don't ask for a special day..all we ask for is respect,freedom, right to live the way we want to, guard our beauty or throw it away the way we want to...!!
If that'll happen I certainly doubt if we really need a special day to celebrate our feminity...!!!