The End of an Era

24 hours. That’s the number of hours left for my 21st birthday. I was just lazing around on the couch today taking advantage of the weekend when my best friend from India messaged me on WhatsApp asking me how do I feel knowing that I am going to be 21 after 24 hours. To be honest, the first word that came to my mind to describe its state was, ‘PATHETIC’.

You must be thinking I am weird. You’re not alone. So do I. But I really cannot feel happy from within. And not without reason. I just cannot accept the fact that I am going to be referred to as a woman from tomorrow. I really cannot believe that my girlhood is over. Or maybe, it won’t because some say, age is just a number. And the vigour of youth can be felt at any age, as long as the heart is young. But still, knowing that during the same time of next year,  I would be almost done with my college definitely does not help matters. I just cannot shake off the terrible truth that tomorrow would be my last birthday celebration with my friends in college. Who knows where life takes us after this? Who knows whether we would even have the time for each other once college is done? And thinking about the amount of responsibilities I am going to be facing after college is done, creeps me out even more.

How has time passed by so quickly? I really do not know. I can still remember being a kid, counting years on my fingers till I could get a driving license and drive coolly like my Dad. And now, it all seems so futile. All I heartily wish for now, is to go back in time to those days when all that mattered was play, play and more play. Those days when that Cola flavored lollipop was the best thing in the world. Those days when all I wished for was getting into a school like Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (from the Harry Potter franchise) and ride on a broomstick all over the world. Those days when birthday celebrations with my childhood friends really were HAPPY Birthdays.

Happy birthdays have somewhat ceased to exist in my life since the past 3 years. Maybe I am being melodramatic. But well, when I am in a mood so low, I can’t help being a tragic, whining idiot. But I cannot be blamed. Its the events that have unfolded since then that force me to think so. All my life, I had dreamed that my 18th birthday would be the best one. Unfortunately, it did not. One mistake, one wrong choice ruined it all. And that day became the day I had to part ways with a significant part of my life. And every birthday after that has never stopped to remind me of that day, those moments of pain which seemed like they would never end, and those tears that never ceased. Although now I know, that I cried in vain, and that the decision I made that day was probably the best decision of my life, I still cannot rid myself of the sinking feeling in my stomach when those immortal memories that were asleep, suddenly awaken to remind me that I’ve not healed completely. That I need some more time.

Deep down, I know that I am being very ungrateful to Allah (God in Arabic), because I know that I have been truly Blessed with such wonderful, understanding parents, such awesome siblings and amazing friends who love me dearly, everyday of my life. And just the thought that all of them are still there uplifts me. But I still do not have expectations from anyone. I just avoid expecting too much, because expectations hurt and I cannot afford to be hurt more. I cannot inflict myself with new wounds, when the marks of the old ones can still be seen. I can go on and on, but no amount of words would suffice to express my confused feelings between joy and sorrow, and hope and hopelessness. Besides, life is all about surprises. It takes a new turn every single day, and expecting something and ending up with something else really shatters one, so it’s better to just sit back and wait to see what Allah has written down in our fate. Sometimes, that is all, we, as humans can do. Sometimes, it’s just not in our hands. Not everything is under our control. Whether we like it or not, truth is, this story, the story of our life, is not written by us. It is written by the Superpower that resides high up in the Heavens. As Shakespeare rightly wrote in his famous play, ‘As You Like It’, ‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players…’

Being Curious, Not Judgemental

Living – a phenomenon exhibited by humans, animals and plants. Biologically, all these organisms exhibit somewhat the same mechanism of living, they are born, they utilize substances in their environment for their growth and eventually, at a certain stage of their life, they die. But what sets humans apart from other organisms? Why do we consider ourselves superior? We are superior because the Creator has made us mentally capable of understanding emotions like love, hatred, fear, jealousy etc. And these emotions affect our relationships with the people in our life. We communicate with people, observe them and judge them. Based on our judgement, we form opinions about people and these opinions play a very important role in forming or destructing our relationship with them. But is our judgement always correct? Can we always be sure of our views about others?

I think being judgemental is a huge responsibility. We often form opinions about others without much thought, usually on mere instinct, sometimes on the basis of origin of birth, colour, religion and personality. When we judge, we don’t love, care or think, all we do is accuse. And accusations hurt, especially when they are not valid. I don’t believe first impression should always be the best impression because circumstances change with time and so do people and such also should be the case with opinions. Opinions should not be rigid. Education teaches us to broaden our narrow minds, learn to accept the unexpected, the eccentric. We should learn to give people a second chance to prove themselves. Moreover, a person should be judged on his behavioural attributes, especially those that manifest themselves in our absence and on interaction with others.

Another totally contradicting thought which my mind has been fiddling with since yesterday is why are people, their actions, objects judged at all? Why are they always graded against a benchmark? Why can’t things be done just for the joy of doing them? Why do we always seek judgement from others in the form of appreciation? Why does acceptance matter so much to us? Why aren’t we just satisfied that God is happy with what we are doing? Is this flaw innate in us or are we conditioned to seek judgement and judge others since birth? So many questions unanswered with nobody who has answers in sight. *SIGH*

Feel free to comment if you have anything close to an answer for any of the questions above. 😛

TIme for me to leave you all to ponder upon my insanity. Until next time of post, goodbye!

P.S: Every line of this post was more of a reminder to myself than to the readers. 😛

Redefining Happiness

Seclusion—it can be so rewarding at times. A walk alone with no one around except the whistling trees and the blooming flowers, gleaming in the cool sunlight gives an unparalleled form of pleasure. These are the moments when we get a chance to reflect, realize and rethink life. Recently, during such stolen moments, I started thinking about happiness – something all of us live for. What exactly is happiness? It cannot be so easily defined.  Its literal meaning describes it as a state of mental and physical well-being characterized by pleasant emotions. However, it is highly dependent on individual desires.

For our ancestors, a family dinner, annual vacations- basically, time spent with family and friends was enough to lead a blissful happy life. However with time, people’s opinion of happiness has varied. Now, it has become materialistic- selfish, just like every other emotion these days.  Apparently, buying a new iPad, or a piece of designer jewellery, that’s all there is left to happiness these days.  Unfortunately, many people fail to grasp that this happiness is momentary.  There comes a time in life, when one needs true inner satisfaction. In this fast-paced world, we often find ourselves frustrated, bored, clueless, basically – depressed, and what do we do then? —many start throwing tantrums, some start living off anti-depressants , and few decide to take the nearest exit from this world- suicide. WHY? The main problem of our prevailing society is that we are such self-obsessed creatures.  God had created us to be the most sensible, thoughtful creatures on this planet, but somehow we have evolved into this new category of organisms what I would call – humanimals. All the actions we perform throughout the day seek to fulfill some motive. But this race of achievement has become a race against humanity. We are so blinded by our dreams, we never stop to think at whose cost we are fulfilling them. And then when our road to achievement is blocked by an obstacle, we start complaining why God is so unfair. Have we ever been fair on our part?

We are always on the quest for eternal happiness. But somehow along the way, we forget the basic lesson those old bedtime stories taught our innocent minds- ‘As you sow, so shall you reap’. Making someone smile fills one’s heart with such overwhelming joy which is difficult to express in words. You got to try it to believe it. But once you try, learn to wait. Patience seems to have evaporated these days. With growing technology, people have become so used to things happening in a blink of the eye that they expect happiness too to magically appear in an instant.  God doesn’t like the idea of fast-forwarding life with a remote control. He has assigned a time for everything to happen, so we should learn to wait. But first and foremost, we have to redefine our meaning of happiness.  We need to transform our worldly goals into spiritual endeavours.  Only then, can the heart and soul be content.

What I have learnt from all the events that have unfolded in my life, is that life is actually quite simple. It is just our choices, which decide how long it is going to be so. The choices we make may or may not be the best for us, the situations we are in may not always be pleasant, but if we choose to remain positive, then even the darkest night cannot obliterate our hope for a brighter day. We enter this world crying, let us all pledge to leave it smiling. As quoted by popular essayist, Agnes Repplier, ‘It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.’  REFLECT! MAKE THE RIGHT CHOICE!  IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO START OVER….

This post was too long, but worth a read, especially if you are unhappy! 😉 So all my friends out there, keep smiling!!! See you soon! BYE!

---

Why Blogging?

Loving infinitely, fighting evil. Sounds a bit too dramatic and unreal right? Well, in my life, it isn’t. Confused? Let me explain. Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to create a superhero-ish image about myself. The title of this blog solely attempts to describe two strong acts innate in human behaviour – they love and they fight for what they love. And this is what life is all about. And coincidentally, this is also what my blog is all about.

My friends say that I think a lot, “over think” to be precise. And in recent times, I have been feeling that this over thinking is causing a lot of chaos in my mind which are probably the reason behind my random moodiness, harmful temper and devastating frustration. Thus, I decided its high time I let this frustration out in a better, productive way. And what could be better than giving vent to my often neglected and forgotten passion – writing. So what if this isn’t literally writing? As long as writing on a piece of paper or blogging in the virtual world serve the same purpose, that of getting my thoughts, ideas and emotions across to the world wide web out there.

Now that my purpose of writing this post has been fulfilled, I leave you all to digest this piece of randomness! 😛 See you all soon! Keep visiting! Until next time, take care.