Why did you spill coffee?

*I LOVE THIS ANALOGY*: 

Shared as read by Dr. Priyanka Ghode

You are holding a cup of coffee when someone comes along and bumps into you or shakes your arm, making you spill your coffee everywhere.

Why did you spill the coffee? 

"Because someone bumped into me!!!"

Wrong answer.

You spilled the coffee because there was coffee in your cup. 

Had there been tea in the cup, you would have spilled tea.

Whatever is inside the cup is what will spill out.

Therefore, when life comes along and shakes you (which WILL happen), whatever is inside you will come out. It's easy to fake it, until you get rattled.

So we have to ask ourselves... “what's in my cup?"

When life gets tough, what spills over?

Joy, gratitude, peace and humility? 

Anger, bitterness, victim mentality and quitting-tendencies? 

Life provides the cup, YOU choose how to fill it. 

Today let's work towards filling our cups with gratitude, forgiveness, joy, words of affirmation, resilience, positivity; and kindness, gentleness and love for others. 🤗

An Insightful Goal Setting Session

Being part of the mass healing sessions, I have become accustomed to blocking my time from 9.30-10pm every Saturday for the past 6 odd months. When the healer said that he would conduct a goal-setting session, I was ready to experience it. Though in my mind, I was like "As much as I look at setting goals, nothing works ou

As I continued through the journey of goal setting, I realized that I have been way too complacent about life. If I got something, great. If I didn't, procrastinate, blame someone, and then go on. This has been my life for at least the past 20-odd years. For example, whenever I quit my job, I tell myself that I want to try a different profile or industry. But I never think or plan the quitting and suddenly a money issue leads me back to the same situation time and again. The patterns were something that I had been observing but the why was not clear. Same with relationships too.

As the healer, Mr. Hetal Shah, spoke, to a much wider audience, here I was thinking "Arrey, this is my life! Oh! this is the answer! I don't seem to really have gone through any real struggles and when I do get into a struggle or hurt, I have a big tendency to run away. But more importantly, the hurt is not big enough and of course, I had not learned from the hurt or had taken a wrong learning out of it. 

The four reasons that drive someone to change were non-existent or I was complacent. In this case, I thought to myself, I should actually be grateful that things are moving forward. Plus if I really want to, I need to set those goals - both at macro and micro levels and make sure that I show up!

It is said that knowledge and insight come to you when you are ready to receive them. "You may be here for prosperity healing but remember that you may need to heal other aspects of life before the prosperity in financials." I am ever grateful to Mr. Hetal Shah for taking me through this journey and almost always taking me back to the ground level to reflect and improve.

So, at 50, this is the first time that I am setting some goals to move forward in life with a direction and a sense of accomplishment. 

Introducing oneself

I suck (BIG TIME) at introducing myself! Be it a small group or a large one, one person or 10,000 - I can't seem to introduce myself. I have a monotone, which goes something like "Hi I am .... I work for .... I am ..."

Now, does this reflect the boring person that I am? Is it complete lack of confidence? Why don't I ever learn or prepare on how I want to introduce myself?

During my initial acting classes, I had people compliment me for my voice - I was always told that I have a very sweet yet demanding voice (huh! I said to myself!). As I worked on introductions there, I seemed to pick characters that I could be and introduced myself. Every time, the tone, the voice projection, the type of introduction was different! Then, why is it that when I am myself that I suck at introductions?

One of my acting teachers gave us the example of a professor who was a complete introvert but an excellent public speaker. When questioned on how he did this, he said "Well... just before I go on stage, I tell myself that I am Bill Cosby or Marlon Brando or...."

If that worked for the professor, maybe during the next round of introductions, I should pick being one of the characters, like Marlene - the career woman from Top Girls, and introduce myself... The audience wouldn't know its not me because it is me... just taking the "Marlene" avatar right!

And follow:

Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.

An Eventful Evening

The day had been OK with work and other routine stuff. A colleague and I decided to head out for an early dinner. We started off thinking that we would go to the Chili's which was a route she knew. Midway, I asked her if we could go to the Cheesecake factory and she agreed. It wasn't too far from where we were.

We decided to take the freeway and took North instead of heading South. It took us a while to figure out that we were driving in the wrong direction. Well, we stopped at a gas station and took directions. It again seemed simple, just that there was a detour to take the next exit. We again ended up going round and round and finally got back on the freeway. After a few loops of no success finding the correct exit, we finally gave up and decided to head back to Chilis.

We sat there enjoying the food and the conversation, laughing. We discussed life, men, gay/lesbian community, God, countries, cultures, careers, and any other topic that popped up. And as we got ready to pay, the waitress came by to say that our food was all paid for. We were surprised and wondered if it was another colleague who we had "not" invited. There was a sudden "slight" guilt trip we went on but quickly checked with the waitress if it was him. The waitress went back checked and returned to say "No, it was a gentleman who was sitting there", pointing to the seating area diagonally opposite to us.  She continued, "He was pretty silent. He paid and left. He wanted to remain anonymous." What we got to know what that his name was Michael. We wondered who this person was and how we had been too busy with our conversations that we hadn't even noticed him.  We wondered why he would do something so nice - was it a Pay It Forward message or was it something else? We will never know.

We stepped out of the restaurant all amused and it was time for me to Thank Michael. I said a short prayer to Thank Michael for his gesture. Though I would want to meet him and thank him in person someday.

What I did realize through the day was that when I start having fun and stop putting conditions on things that happen to or around me, that is when life happens. It is God's message to me to say "Be happy, be yourself and life will happen."

Are we truly Independent after 69 years of Independence?

"A call is scheduled by a client at 9.30pm, please attend," I was told last Friday eve. I said "I have other plans so won't be able to attend this ad hoc meeting." "Then find someone else who can attend. The client has set up the call so we have to take it." came a response from the onsite person. When I said, "Sorry, but its a Friday and all team members will have some plans and get the meeting postponed and if possible to sometime our morning." Response was "You write to the client. We can't ask the client to stay back their evening. We have to adjust and take calls."

This made me wonder... After so many years of independence, really how independent are we?

We were enslaved by the British and we needed Mahatma Gandhi, Subhash Chandra Bose, etc. to get us out of it.

As a society, we still believe in "Ji huzoori" is still very evident in the corporates.

When it comes to service companies, we are coached "Clients are God." And hence follows:

• Say Yes to whatever the client demands, however unrealistic it might be. - The client on, one hand, will take full advantage of this. They will make sure to have some of the most unrealistic deadlines, demands. Almost all management teams will say "Yes" without understanding what is needed.
• Unrealistic commitments end up with unplanned and crazy working hours. (This reminds me of the forced cotton growing fields)
• Escalation around anyone who raises their voice (A typical Bhagat, Azad situation)
• Another recent trend that I saw was "Oh! I can't establish the rapport as quickly as the white-skinned person because I can't talk their language." 
• We have started fearing the clients. Why are we portraying ourselves as people who can't fend for ourselves?

And so I wonder, we may have got independence from the British but aren't we still under a different kind of a rule.

An Interesting Day of Perspectives

I was visiting a Child care centre for an enquiry around their set up. As I waited for someone to attend to me - a lady came by and signed to ask if I had had food. I said yes. She again signed to check if I was a Christian. I smiled and said No. Hazzled she again signed to see if I had prayed and had food as it was Ramzan. I said I already had food.

A man sitting next to me smiled and pointing to me said to her "She is a Hindu." The lady looked at me and signed again asking why I was not wearing a bindi. I smiled as she left a little annoyed.

It was interesting to see how a bindi seems to drive the religion for some.

Moving forward, I met a group of parents. One of the women in the group commented on how she had to drop her kids at the day care every day as she needed to travel for work long distance and returned very late. Curious the coordinator asked "Doesn't your husband help?" The lady responded "He is annoyed that I applied and got my promotion because of which I have to travel the long distance."

Another parent, a man, commented "With all these women starting to work, it is becoming so difficult for a man to find work!"

The coordinator, listening to this said "In our family, women, even if they have their M.Phil/Ph.D, are not allowed to work. If they do express their inclination to work, we set up a child care center for them."

The coordinator continued "We still believe that the most important parent for kids when they are growing up is the mother. A man cannot replace the mother's love and care."

And then looking at me, the coordinator said "You people from bigger cities won't understand this. "

I smiled. Did I agree with her? No. But we all have perspectives and views based on the environments that we grow up/experience in. Does it mean that anyone is right or wrong? No. It is just a point of view based on your experiences.

Be Happy, Accept, Move Forward

It had been a miserable morning, another day of dragging myself to work with absolutely no enthusiasm. I hopped in to the taxi to head to the office. As we drove to the destination, I noticed a very beautiful Laughing Buddha. I said aloud "Oh, this Laughing Buddha is so lovely."

The driver smiled and said "Yes, he is happy, you are happy. If he doesn't smile, then you are sad." in his broken English. He continued on "You have to be happy irrespective of the situation. Smile - it is very important. Even if someone says something really bad to you, smile. Because if you smile, whatever the other person says won't hurt you."

"Never lose your patience. If you lose your patience, you stop thinking straight. Again, smile." he said.

At this point, with tears trickling down, I just said "You see I lost my father recently and the emotional turmoil is too much. I miss him. He has been my guide all through. I have no one now. I know I should not, but I get angry with myself, with God."

He responded with a smile "Yes, it is hard to lose your father. But, you have to take control of yourself. You should thank to your father for having brought you into this world and guiding you through until now."

"You see, we all come to Earth for a holiday. It is not our permanent home. When we come here, we come with a ticket to tell us when we need to return."

I nodded, he continued, "When my father was getting old, I made sure that I got him things that he loved to eat. If he liked something expensive, I still got it for him. Did you give your father whatever he liked to eat?"

"Yes. I did."

"In that case, you have absolutely no reason to be sad. You have fulfilled your responsibility to your father. You should only feel happy. You have to look forward and not back. You have to accept that he is gone and that his grace is with you always." he said.

He continued, "Is your mother still around?" As I nodded, he said "You should make sure to take care of her. Make sure to get her the foods that she loves."

We had reached the destination. As I stepped out of the taxi, he said "Just one last thing - you must take care of your health. That is key to being happy too. So exercise."

And somewhere all the conflicts I had within were calming down. It is now up to me to practice Being Happy, Accepting the situations and moving forward.