Keep it Flowing

On that cold evening, an usual tired day after work, there was this long 5 minutes wait for the bus in the main station. I was looking at the tram that was loading the people in front of me. How badly I wished it was my tram so that I could escape the cold winds and sit by the warm heater in the tram and put my head on the window. But this tram isn't going my way and I can't remember one thing that went my way that day.

As the doors of the tram is closing, I see an young man in suit running towards the tram probably with all the stamina that's left out of him on that Monday. He had a smile though, as if all that mattered now to him was to catch the tram. Maybe if he could catch this tram, he could make it up to cooking together with his flatmate. Maybe if he could catch this tram, he could make it to watch the football match right from the start. Maybe he can rehearse the lines of his proposal two more times before he goes to his date. Maybe he can cuddle with his wife on his couch little more before she is sleepy. Maybe he could play with his child 20 minutes longer. Maybe if he could catch this tram, he can simply sleep longer. Whatever he ran towards the tram as if nothing else mattered to him.

I saw him and instantly I could hear the tram doors clicked and I tried to open it by pressing the button. But to add to one more thing that ain't going my way, the doors didn't open and the tram started moving. I felt sorry for the guy who just reached the tram door panting but he couldn't make it to the tram. Yet, he saw me and looked as if he understood that I am feeling sorry for him. He thanked me for my lame attempt in opening the tram doors with his smile again.

Maybe that's one smile I probably noticed that day. An unusual stranger's grateful smile is the one thing that made me smile that day. I badly wished he could make it to the tram. Oh wait...the tram stopped for the signal near the end of the station. All hopes coming up high, my eyes and his legs went to the front door of the tram where he can see the driver and hope he opens the doors. He stood there and asked the driver. The driver hesitated to open as the red light might go green anytime and he has to start the tram. The doors remained closed and so are my fingers praying to let it open.

And after 10 seconds, the signal was still red. It was maybe waiting for a right gesture from the driver. And the driver opened the door. The man was so happy and his smile wide enough as the open doors and he went in, turning back and thanking me as if I am the one who is responsible for the tram to open the doors.

My smile grew wider and I felt it, the small part they say, happiness. I looked at another stranger's smiling face inside the tram who was watching the entire episode and waved a thumbs up at me. My 5 mins wait became more grateful and satisfied.

This is a normal incident. But, the act of me trying to open the door to him made him smile at me and thank me, which made me smile and feel happy. And we both made a another person who was watching the act of gracefulness and smiled and felt happy.

You do good to others without expecting and the goodness will find its way back to you without you expecting. A small act of kindness established a smile in three stranger's faces and maybe that's all it takes to have a smile when you sleep. Kindness is overflowing joy. Keep it flowing.

Expect Failure!

Learning is the process of gaining experience to tackle a situation that one is entitled to face in life. I am stressing the need to pay attention to negativity. This is because the negative actions teaches the most important lessons in life and one can never forget them. But it doesn’t mean we need to be negative. Being negative is worse but being aware of negatives is good. Plus and minus makes zero in maths but a hero in life.

As a child, we tend to learn from our mistakes. We learn to walk when we fail to balance ourselves. No one told us falling down when you try to walk as a mistake. Falling down while trying to walk didn’t stop us from not trying. Why?

“None told us it a mistake, none scolded us for it, none made us feel inferior, or maybe just because we didn’t understand enough of what people said when we fell down.”

As we grow up, we start to understand things, we start to hear people constantly telling about success and hailing successful persons. Somehow our mind is tuned to one word Success and it’s not getting prepared for anything else that comes its way other than success.

Remember, the value of light is not known unless you experience darkness.

Failures happen in life. It’s a very normal everyday happening. You keep alarm at 6 and end up waking at 6.30, it’s a failure. The problem is the way we were taught to see it as a negative thing. When someone fails, make him believe in himself that he can win again. Normally our surroundings make a person think if you have done the other way, you would have succeeded. Crap. May be he would have failed the other way.  

Negativity isn’t bad. It’s just another face of life.

The main glitch is that one will have an optimistic approach towards life. One will be comfortable seeing the positive aspects of life. At times, one may get reluctant to face struggles which will make one repent their actions. When some adverse situations occur, one will not be able to persevere the pain and learn from it. One will get blurred by the praise of the positive actions and cannot be able to see how to solve the problem. This will hinder the problem solving ability which is nothing but one of the entities of the learning process.

One cannot be completely optimistic or pessimistic towards life. One must focus on the mistakes or negative actions of an individual more than praising them for the positive actions. Prepare your mind for anything that comes up. Accept failures. Let it not drown you. There is no success and failure based on the results of your action. Its based on the happiness you get.

Know the failure. Accept it. Deal with it. 

Catching up with my friend

My Pen

On a chill monday morning, lazy to get up from the bed, feeling tired from the long gone weekend, looking at the cloudy sky, feeling like one more day of rest would solve all problems of your life, there comes an old long forgotten friend back to you with a coffee mug with right mix of sweetness in his smile.

Imagine yourself, he is just holding your hands, lets talk.. 

With some melodious music running in the background, here i am with my very old friend. Sitting by our balcony, we start to chat. 

Damn he has changed a lot, from the times when i used one hand and three fingers to hold him to the ten finger and 101 keys on the keyboard. yes, he is my good old gone friend my writing. its nice to get him back. No, he got me back from the never settling new feed scrolls of Facebook and the instant stories of Instagram. 

I miss him, He made me speak to myself. he made me speak my heart out. he made me do things which i didn't know i could do.So its good to have him back.

So, what do we talk about? Maybe we talk about how i lost him. 

I was a young teenager and as it sounds i was so energetic and enthusiastic in whatever i did. Thanks to Sivakasi and Sithurajapuram municipality for not having proper broadband connections. I never watched a TV series until last year. I never watched Youtube when i was a teenager. i never even know the word social media when i stepped into my bachelors. I must thank my college Mepco Schlenk Engineering College for not allowing mobiles and social networking sites in college campus. Now i wish i could turn off my WiFi. 

As usual i got addicted to social media sites when i got into college even though college had restrictions and my snail paced Internet. But i wasn't struck with it. 

I used to write Tamil poems short stories and some motivational quotes. Most of my friends know me by my DV's morning messages. I write poems and post it in Facebook. Not to get more likes or earn more friends but i felt it as a place where i can showcase my feelings and get it reflected through people. i never really cared who are gonna read it or whether i am writing a good English or whether my words are placed in proper way. I just wrote and they just reflected my feelings and i felt good. 

But after accomplishing my bachelor degree, i chose to pursue my higher studies in Germany  A new land , a new language, new people, new food, new climate, enormous amount of knowledge. The later part is as dangerous as it sounds. After coming to Germany  initially i was the same energetic enthusiastic social person who i used to be. i was excited in doing small small things and i felt so good about it. Writing about each new experience i had in Germany was a pleasure. But in the mean time, i was being judgmental on myself in order not to be judgmental on others. I started to think maybe i am just foolish and childish to do all these things very socially. I mistook expressing feelings in words to the world is childish. and that i need to GROW UP... 

Experiences, so many different background people, new culture  new language baffled me and made me doubt myself. when i try to write, i started feeling maybe this is simple and maybe this isn't right, maybe people have other perspectives, maybe i am not thinking that way and in the end, i am left with a blank word document or unfilled fresh paper smelling diaries. 

Its sad. i simply couldn't write Even as i write this, so many things going on in my mind, whether will it mean anything to people? whether people are interested to read such a long post about my feelings? Does it gonna bring anything to them? to the society?

but i dont wanna end up again with an empty post. 

Its one of my initiative to bring back the old me. I see more of my friends are suffering from just sticking to scrolling newsfeeds in facebook and just doing less of what they really wanna do. I top the list of those people. Thanks that i got my friend back today. i would try to stick to him.

There are such friends for everyone in their life. Call them back. Spend time with them. be it cooking, going out on a bike ride, drawing, photography, travel, dance, singing. Call your friend back. Stick to them. Express your feelings and not be hindered by the judgmental critics about what you wanna do. The more and more you spend time on newsfeeds, you are increasing the input to your brain and you are giving it less time to process them. Take what you need and spend time with it. Life is just spending time on what you like. Dont let the artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms hide your friends from you. 

More to come in a while since i patched up with my old friend. I would be so glad to receive your experience with social media and your old friends. Take you time to catch up with that old friend. 

My pen

Autmn Leaf Speaks !

Autumn speaks !!

Autumn is beautiful. For some, its a little respite from scorching sun, for some, its time to click their cameras to get the beauty of dying nature in their laptop screens and for some like me, its a dying phase of life where i have to sacrifice myself to make my species sustain the forthcoming winter.
Yes, me and the colourful leaves that you see during the autumn are dying just to make sure the tree survives the winter. Its such a wonder that nature shows that things get beautiful while sacrificing even though they had to sacrifice their lives.

The interesting thing that strikes me is you people are so like me. When we are small as a kid, we get the attraction of people pinching us, plucking our cheeks, playing with us, we get a lot of attention. And also we are not the monotonous green leaves in a brown tree when we just sprouted. We have our own unique taste, smell, colour, texture and own path of growing. We are so tangible and fragile and so is a human child treated.

Once we grow up, there are many like us and we get to lose attention from others and we are one among the other green leaves in the tree, sometimes freely floating in air enjoying the privilege of being in the top, sometimes shaded by some other big leaves and we had to fight to get some sunshine on us to contribute on our part to our producers. This is the phase where we are healthy, prosperous, active, running and working all the time but none will notice us or wonder how great we are working. The normal grown up not bed wetting phase.

And then comes the autumn. Its time to prepare our producers for the next winter. we cant take food for us anymore but we had to leave it to the stem so that they can produce more leaves after winter. So, we had to pay the price and lose our self. We had to lose our colour, texture, smell, freshness yet for everyone we will be beautiful so are most people in their last bed. Everyone wonders and praises how great you are when you are dying and you get the attention again when you really want just to
leave the tree and fly freely.

But this attention is only till you remain in your last bed holding on to your last breathe. the moment you fall down, you are no more to the world. None clicks pictures of you, none watches their feet when they walk over you or feel sorry when they stamp on you. its just my time is over. But I am not. My sacrifices are not wasted. They will help my tree survive the winter and sprout again in summer and again i come and live and sacrifice as a colourful autumn leaf !

Nature is the meaning of our existence. Sometimes we feel that we exist in wrong place, we made wrong choices, but existence is existence and choices are choices.... Love, Affection, Care, Sacrifice are all a part of existence.. Instead of fighting it, live with it to end you life one day so like me as a colourful autumn leaf !

கண்ணாடி முன்

காலை எழுந்து கடவுளாய் தாயை தந்தையை வணங்கியவனை கண்டேன்...

பக்கத்துக்கு வீட்டில் சின்ன குழைந்தை கண்டு சிரித்தவனை கண்டேன்...

பசி என்று ஏங்கி வாசலில் நிற்பவனின் பசி போக்கியவனை
கண்டேன்

நடு ரோட்டில் கிடக்கும் கண்ணாடி துண்டுகளை அப்புறப்படுத்தியவனை
கண்டேன்...

சக ஊழியர் சோகம் கேட்டு ஆறுதல் கூறி அரவனைத்தவனை
கண்டேன்...

வீட்டை சுற்றி மரம் வளர்த்து பாசத்தோடு தண்ணீர் ஊற்றியவனை
கண்டேன்..

அதிகம் ஆசையின்றி ஆத்திரமின்றி ஆணவமின்றி
அதிகம் அன்பும் அரவணைப்பும் அமைதியும் கொண்டவனை
கண்டேன்...

அவனை கண்டு அனைவரும் அவ்வாறே வாழ்வதை கண்டேன்...

சட்டென்று விளித்துக்கொண்டேன்..
கனவென அறிந்து 

“இப்படி பட்ட மனிதரெல்லாம் கனவில் தான் வாழ்வார்கள்
என்று சொல்லி கொள்கின்றேன்
கண்ணாடி முன் நின்று முகம் பார்த்துக்கொண்டே !!”

அன்பு அமைதி அரவணைப்பு அறிவு
இவை யாவும் கனவில் அன்றி
தன்னில் தான் இருக்கிறது !!

The magic of Life...
Maybe the refreshing smell of a morning coffee !!
Maybe the first ray of hope shines on your eyes !!
Maybe the sweet aroma of your existence !!

Maybe a child's smile on your way to work !!
Maybe the fragrance of flowers on the roadside !!
Maybe the smiling morning greetings of your colleagues !!
Maybe a small appreciation from the previous day's work

Maybe a caring call for lunch from your friend
Maybe the delicious meal in a serene environment
Maybe a call or sms from your loved ones about your whereabouts..

Maybe the rainbow of colours on the sky on your way back home...
Maybe some children playing heartfully in your garden..
Maybe some old friend calls you about some occasion in his life ...

Maybe someone opens door for you...
Maybe someone loves to hear about your day...
Maybe a candle light dinner..
Maybe the peacefull scene of looking stars from your window..
Maybe a pleasant music you hear...

Maybe some memories you cherish living them again...
Maybe the sound sleep you get every night...

These are the most common magical moments of life which  is no longer valuable when we don't see it as magic..

P.S - We are the magicians and apparently only we are our audience !!
Rejoice your magic in life as much as you want
Only then it stays as a magic :)

Something That doesnt exist

Apparently , these days many words have been added to the minds of human which are mere illusion. One such thing is Stress.

Stress is a state of mind people say. Its not something that exists or comes in a while. There is no such thing called Stress. Its not a noun. It may be regarded as an adjective or adverb. But most of us see it as a noun.

We have stress when something doesn’t happen the way we wish.

We have stress when something happens which we don’t wish.

We have stress when we have so much work.

We have stress when we have nothing to do.

Where does this stress comes from ?

What it does ?

How to avoid it ?

The one word answer to all these is "Mind"

As I said earlier, stress is a mere illusion which exists only in our mind (thoughts). It slows down your brain activity or push it in a negative way, making you consume more energy than needed, that’s when you get tired and exhausted.

When you are in stress , you get tired easily. Just think , your own thoughts… mere an imaginary thought lowers your body's energy which is capable of doing anything.

We cant avoid or ignore all the things that happen wrong. But there is no need to go against it.

You just need to accept It and say its okay.

Things don’t happen the way you always wish for. Knowing this thing will not make you feel stressed, when something didn’t happen the way you need. Teach your mind the things which you need to accept. Teach your mind so that it doesn’t make your body lose energy. Keep your mind well informed about the life and its happenings.

Each one of us are meant to succeed in their own way in their own life at their own pace.

Don’t force yourself and lose energy for the things which you were not meant to !!

"Be ready to face anything in life" doesn’t mean you need all capabilities to face anything that comes up in your way. Its just to be aware that anything may happen in Life.

When the mind knows life, it stays calm.

When the mind is calm, there exists peace in Life.