Change

Hope this blog finds you in good health and spirits. I thank you all who read my last blog “Shift the Gear” and shared their comments. It is indeed encouraging to know if you liked something I enjoy writing. So dont hold on to your comments and share it with me as well.

A brief update on last week follows-

-          Completed reading “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho. In case you have not read it, I seriously recommend you to read it because it is a magical story of a shepherd who gave up everything to pursue his dreams, and also teaches us why it is important not to give up when we are so close to success. The book talks recurrent dreams, omens and signs which life hints us at while we are chasing our “treasures”.  Every one of us is actually an alchemist who can turn convert their dreams into reality. I really liked the following quote from the book “I don’t live in either my past or my future. I’m interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you’ll be a happy man. Life will be a party for you, a grand festival; because life is the moment we’re living now.”

-          Watched Steven Spielberg’s “Back to the Future” Trilogy. The first thought that crossed my mind was that given a choice of going back in time and changing the past, what would I want to change. Also, would life be the same incase we knew what future had in store for us? Food for thought…

-          At times, a natural calamity can change the lives of all those you are involved. One such sad incident happened in New Zealand last week where there was a major earthquake. Life is precious. It is sad to know that man is nothing against the fury of nature. May God give strength to those affected by disaster.

Change is the only constant thing. Look everywhere and you would see nothing remains the way it was earlier. Life is all about change. I have been here on this planet for more than 3 decades now and it surely has changed in between. Our lifestyle has taken the maximum toll.

-          Inland Letters / Post cards to emails / video chats

-          Landlines Telephones to I-Phones

-          Typewriters to Blackberry

-          Black & White Tv’s to Mobile Tv's

-          Test matches to T-20

This list would surely be endless. These are some of the things I can think of immediately. However, it is difficult to notice change if you are not looking for it.  I had shared the story of the frog in the boiling water in one of my earlier blogs 'Paradigm'. (You can click on the hyperlink to check that out)

Taking cue from my last blog on shifting gears, life would be monotonous if we kept doing the same thing over and over again. Also, it would be foolish to expect different results while doing the same thing. At times we need to look at the problem with a fresh perspective and that’s it. A lot of times, change is in mind. If we try and be thankful for whatever we have rather than focussing on what we don't have, we sure would find ourselves to be much happier!  However, in the same breath, I would want to clarify that we sure need to have some realistic targets which are stretched, so as to move ahead in life. It is very important for us to understand what we really need in life. Most of the times, we might fail to realise that it was right there all the time, when we were looking all over the place for it. Complicated, but true!

At times, we try hard to bring around change in our own mindset and beliefs. I was reading somewhere that motivation always comes from within. Someone can inspire us but the change would come only if we persisted. Patience surely is a virtue in this situation.

Sometimes, on the contrary we need to ensure our basic values of life should never be compromised. We need to be the protectors of our values and ensure they don’t change due to external environment. I shared some basic values in my blog “My Compass”

I leave you with this thought which I read while flipping through the pages of “You can Win” by Shiv Khera. The article was about how they caught monkeys in India. The monkey hunters use a box with a opening on the top which is big enough for the monkey to put his hand in. Inside the box, nuts are kept as bait. The moment the monkey grabs the nuts, the hand becomes a fist. The fist is bigger than the hole and the monkey has 2 choices –either to drop the nuts and be free or keep holding to the nuts forever and be caught. Amazing but true, the monkeys choose the latter. Shiv Khera has beautifully described us also as the monkeys who don’t let go off the nuts and in the process hold ourselves back in life…So, it is essential to let go of some things which look important but actually hold us back in life.

Do share your views as well.....