It took me 10 years to learn this!!!

Note – this is by far one my longest posts!! Please bear with me 🙂 🙂

This Sunday morning i decided to go back in time and review my life for the last 10 years. Until i was 18, the most strongest and dominant of emotions in my head was joy,fun,happiness and confidence which has been amalgamated by many other emotions like anger, fear, sadness, self-pity and disgust.

Lesson Learnt 01: It’s not selfish to love yourself, take care of yourself, & to make your Happiness a priority. It’s a necessary .Though a little late for a 28-year-old , independent modern aged women i have realized that loving yourself is the best way to live a happy, guilt-free life. In this manner you end up not giving expectations to others neither you start expecting something from others and with such an attitude-you don’t blame a second person but hold yourself responsible for the outcomes – happy or sad, whatever it is.

My mom always said that i am the kinds who learns from my mistakes and i took it up so seriously that sometimes even though i knew i am gonna ruin things up and where i am heading to is a big mistake i ended up doing it just cause i thought its an attitude (learning from my mistakes) am born with…. i was SO DUMB and STUPID!!!

As kids we are always taught to love others, respect others which i totally agree since we are all social animals and need to be in harmony with other Homo sapiens around us. But what i think most importantly as kids we should be taught to love ourselves first. Only when we are happy and love our self we could spread that love to others.In loving others we somewhere down the line stop loving our own self.

Lesson Learnt 02 : SELF – PITY is easily the most destructive of non pharmaceutical narcotics. It is Addictive, gives momentary pleasure and separates the victim from Reality I have realized that most of our problems are conditioned. We try to find happiness by self-pity which my friends is only a temporary thing. We sympathize with our selves, the situation and circumstances we are in. And in this process we end up creating more and more suffering for us. Like the laws of attraction says  – the energy you send out is what you attract. What i have most importantly learned is that this self-pity leads in a deadlock – we pity and sympathize about our self and then we expect people around us to sympathize for us. If i am sad and gloomy how can i give happiness to others and attract same from them. If I am in a mess there would be some percentage of chances that I was responsible for it, cause of the choices I had made or for the pressure I succumbed to etc. So Self-Pity is a no no!

Lesson Learnt 03:  You teach people how to treat you. By what you allow, what you stop, and what you reinforce. Isn’t it true? I wish when i had said NO on certain instances if at all i had sent out a clear message that a NO meant a NO and not a MAYBE or YES, i would have saved few heart breaks and few failures :P. If at all i had been more blunt in my words, as said before setting expectations (the first point – see they are all inter related only if i had realized). I wish i had built a strong line of defense for myself and not letting people harm me easily. Boundaries that didn’t mean to demean me or anyone else but would  penetrate to people who could handle my worse and my good both equally. And in this process few people might have left me or would leave me – everyone has a right to choose for themselves , if I am not the chosen one then I should accept it. I should be ready to move on and value the ones who chose to stay with me.

Lesson Learnt 04: If you don’t ask ..the answer is always no. If you don’t go after what you want..you’ll never have it. If you don’t step forward..you’re always on the same spot. Ahh!! this is one of my fav lessons learnt in the last 10 years. Be it the profession we want to choose, the relationship we want to take forward, the kind of job/salary you are eligible for, the reason why someone else was chosen over you for a promotion, a better opportunity, or for as simple as the one rupee you are supposed to get back as balance from the shopkeeper instead you are handed over by a toffee. Unless we question things that happen to us we wouldn’t know its credibility. Life is to a larger extent is all about the choices we make so it is absolutely perfect and normal to questions those options life gives you. 

Lesson Learnt 05: I am not a product of my circumstances I am a product of my decisions. When in trouble in any kind of situation – physical, emotional or mental – if you aren’t happy about it you have two options – either accept it or fight it. It could be from choosing to move out of a bad and abusive marriage or choosing to move out cause you thought you and your partner were not compatible. It’s your life you have the right to redesign it for yourself. It could be choosing to fight against a disease you have been diagnosed with or just letting that diseases take over you your body and your life. It could be either telling the ugly truth to someone close to you or just bitching about them on their back and praising them on their face. So either accept things or fight against it. There is no savior. No one can save you unless you decide to take stand and take control of things, family and friends are only there to guide you.

Lesson Learnt 06: Family is where life begins and love never ends. They are always there for you no matter how old you become, how far you have grown in your life, how many people have come and gone in your life…they would always stay there by your side ..ALWAYS! People might come and go, promise you of love and care and suddenly one day shatter your dreams or start demanding in other ways for that love anything and everything can go wrong..but family – specially your parents they would always be there to support you. They would be strict and rude to you most of the times due to the generation gap but somehow they would end up being good for you in the long run. Today where i stand i think i owe it all to my mom who is now no more withe me but always in my thoughts and my dad who has been my biggest support. My elder brother with whom i have fought over things like a tv remote, when he didn’t approve of me having a bf (elder brothers i tell you!! 😉 ), for not being there with me when i wanted to play and he wanted to roam around with his friends. But he was always there when i did something wrong and wanted to be saved by the wrath of my parents he took it all on himself or he always kept a check on me who my friends were where am i going etc etc. Everything i am today is because of my parents and my brother. I love you guys!!muah muah!!!

Lesson Learnt 07: A woman always needs her girlfriends. They are like sisters you pick for yourself. I never understood the seriousness of this ten years back but now i can totally advertise this – Hell yeah!! I am in love with my girlfriends!!! No matter how old you grow , you have a man to love you, you would always need your girlfriends to go back to. I do agree friends could be both male and female but the kind of attachment you have with your girl gang  nothing can beat that friendship and it only grows stronger like a wine over the years. So invest that time in this friendship may be just calling up every one of them on a sunday afternoon over a conference call, meeting them for a coffee, asking them to help you go shopping, just talking to them right from that other girl in office to kitchen tips to sobbing about your heart-break to the new crush in office you would need them every time. I am glad to have found my besties over these ten years – Swetha, Ranjitha, Aakanksha, Sravani, Phanisri, Ahladini, Tulika, Nicy, Sriji and Sonam. These friends of mine have played different roles in my life – the caregiver, the crazy one, the rock, the opposite, the cool one, the honest one, the secret keeper, the i need to talk right now 🙂 🙂 🙂 And yup i have few guy friends who in the truest sense are my soul mates turned into friends without whom i guess i would always be incomplete. I love you guys too!! Who said soul mates only means lovers… isn’t it??

Lesson Learnt 08: Good education, financial stability, confidence is what a modern-day woman needs to have first for herself. Yes and i strongly live by it. Nothing more important than these three things and you could survive in this world. No matter if you have a financially stable partner one must always be have her own cash (for various reasons from moving out to buying something for yourself without thinking about the family obligations) Good education – knowledge is the strongest weapon one can have it can take you far and strong. Confidence- it may not bring you success but makes you ready to face all kinds of challenges.

So these are some of the lessons life has taught me in the last ten years from 18 to 28 life has been a roller coaster ride with so many twists and turns. Some hard times from which i have learnt to come out strong, some good ones which keeps the excitement and happiness emotion still dominant in me. I am not saying i know everything cause life is a journey and you learn with every step and turn. Like Maya Angelou said, “I know enough for today, for tomorrow I am learning.” Life is beautiful and we were born to be real and not perfect.

Ending with one of my fav quote – Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to Dance in the Rain!!!

–Sneha (gal from the island)