Why I love My Mediocre Life

Go hard or Go home.

I am going home. So much more comfort there.

So my life took a quick 180 turn (are you not glad I didn't say 360 ? ) I did actually and quickly changed it. How quirky am I? Very. This is not an act.

In the light of last year ladies and gentleman please welcome by ADHD once again!2018 Oh! what a year it will be! I am asking.What a year it will be ?

Because, for the first time in my life! I have absolutely no glorified expectations of it. No, me winning at life or having monumental moments.

Well, is that not damaging to yourself? How will you achieve things and goals?

I don't think so, you see the later bit of 2017 was for me all about facing the iffy decisions I made in the beginning of the year, facing the consequences as an adult, which I realized is very different compared to facing it when your family has messed up... and boy oh boy have we. But, that can be some other blog.

Here, this instant I talk to you about leaving out expectations of the future. I get it, the New Year New Me catches on like flu in season change and no matter how much you try you simply cannot shake it off, you get all reflective start thinking that 2018 is your year, try to find meaning, closure.

But, sometimes the only closure you get is of you listening to the closer, Wow! That was bad even for me. 

 Acceptance of the Mediocre 

Let me make the connection here, so I have always been someone who devours self-help books and writes their goals down always hustling always trying to find a way and do something. Any thing! frankly I feel like its a drug but one day everything went to shit and I faced an adult adversity, something in me snapped.

My innate ability to fix it or look for an alternative like I always do became irrelevant when a realization summed my life up, the one that made me realize the mediocrity of it and...

Poof! went my anxiety.
Why?

Because I stopped waiting for my dhantanan moment, the one where Kajol runs for Sharukhan.

I realized at best I would only do a little wiggly walk to catch the bus and that is about it. No, dramatic train run ins, no 3 minute videos on hustling videos to sum up a life time choices and hard work.

Just acceptance of the average events, the average life.

Don't hate on me I love life, in fact the more mediocre I have come to accept it to be, the more amazing it is.

From looking out for extraordinary things has snaped me out of mundanes, it has made me aware of what life really is.

A cup of tea
My granny recalling her dreams and telling it to me in an elaborate manner

More so, of what Life has been for me for the past few years, a series of moments some a little more significant, a roller coaster, filled with pain, failure, acceptance, happiness and contentment (Sometimes all in the same day).

GO Hard or GO Home? Do both if you wish!

 Now, I accept that I don't need to make every moment count,  that everything needs to make sense. I know that I do not need to go "hard" that sounds weird I know cheeky fellows but you get my point.

Life for now is mediocre, is about sleeping in, its about achieving my goals without the expectation of praise or admiration. Its stillness.

It took a lot to except that this time I am not going hard but instead freaking going home, home where comfort lies but boundless opportunities too. If you want it to be ? Why not? Who is going to stop you?

Knowing that you do not need to fancy office to make money

Go out to parties to ring in the new year (although I did and it was fun) but not mandatory.

That life does not always need to be drinking wine in sky scrapers, its really not. When I accepted life as the mundane course of event it is, I must say it pretty darn boring and fabulous.

0

Chips Chilly or Aloo Dum? What kind of Nepali Are You & Does it Matter?

The standard food ordering for any Nepali consists of momo, some kind of chilli and a fried starch.

Hence, on one particular day just like most times,  my friends and I ensued in the standard proceedings of ordering food

1.Chicken momo
2. Chips Chilli
3. Chicke....fooled you, we decided to go with something a little different and went with Veg fried rice this time. Everyone likes change.


But today as we were going with standard checklist of food and about to wrap up a friend from the corner yelled out " Dai euta aloo dum". We all looked at him  kind of amused by this, although a  not so strange addition to the usual ordering it rather a small deviation from the standard. 

If you don't know by now my love for food is endless and hence my friends and I welcome this addition with open arms.

Is the comparison making you hungry? Okay. Okay. I will get to the point.

Now, in life a friend may not take the path of aloo dum but instead his/her difference in choice could be in the life he leads, the outfit she wears and the way  they live.

While Aloo dum is welcoming, him embracing is sexuality or passion may not be.

You may not understand it or find his way of life worthy of acceptance.

And, while the potato chilli or aloo chilli debate is not as debatable, how someone lives their life
certainly becomes one.

 For generaaaaaationnnnnsss we have heard insert annoying aunty voice "What will people think?" and diligently obliged to the unforeseen rules and costs of just being ourselves.

The cost ? It can range from back handed comments to honor killing. Killing just because the society fails to accept or understand their choices.

And although acceptance and respect something all of us deserve it becomes the hardest to give and what ensues as a result? Judgement.

Judgement we pass on the good decision and the bad.
On the passionates and the passives
On the dreamers, the non-dreamers and the doers
On the living and the dead

We  let judgement take over and go after those who tried loaded mash potato instead of the chips chilly or even those who do not like potatoes at ( Yes, there are people who do not like potatoes. I know. Unbelievable).



The point here is, potatoes on the side or no potatoes at all when judging someone for their food sounds unusual, why doesn't judging someone who is simply trying to do their best life?  

0

Having Passion can destroy you ...............here is why.....

The blogging hiatus stops here and now We Talk. A lot of the times suffering is silent and I would say mine is to, amidst all the going ons I lost my sense of self and my willingness to write. What came so naturally did not anymore, none of it did and that is why I decided take a break from it.

What bothered me more than anything in this time was my inability to understand how I may have just outgrown the thing I love, my passion, my love for writing.

It was not some terrible incident that led me to stop my writing mid clasps (of the keyboard) I should explain I have a fairly old laptop so every time I type it gives of that typewritery sound. Yes,
I shall choose to believe its a word and shall use it profusely. Coming back, my reasons to stop what I love doing did not come from any distress, it simply arrived without notice and took away something special to me.

And here is where I talk about passion and what the world never told me about it:

LET'S TALK ABOUT PASSION BABY! 

How I thought it worked :

Having passion meant you beep your way through it like a road runner,
I believed passion just came from within, it needed no persistence,
and while I may sound slightly naive for this I also believed having passion made things easy, I believed every motivational poster out there that took 5 minutes to make which stated that those who had passion had it all, that it was passion that was the key to everything.


Boy! was I dead wrong!!


What Passion really is? 

Passion is just a spark, for it to turn into fire people refer to so much,  it needs goes through a complicated process of the hard, slow, fast and easy stages of cultivation and nurture.


Passion is the pizza dough, if you don't work hard enough you may just end of up with bread. But, for it to become the cheesy goodness that it is, you need ingredients just like for passion to STAY and Passion to grow you need energy and commitment.

Passion takes work and it can be emotionally draining, it forces you to make choices, one that either leads you to opportunities or de-tracks you from it.

Think of the one thing that you were passionate about in the past?
Ask yourself this: Why did you stop?

Because the world gave us this idealized version of what passion is and without complaints we took it.

We believed that passion is the burning drive that pushed us to keep going, while we forgot that we are humans and we need to refuel, get our energy, that unlike things in the movies it does take time for passion to grow.

While the worlds version of passion might motivate us for a second, it is our understanding of how passion actually works that will keep us growing.


Therefore, let's broaden our idea of what Passion is and how it works:

Passion works when you have the determination
It works when you revive it, nurture it, accepting that just passion may not be enough
Passion sometimes can feel more like a chore than an exciting expedition
And,
passion sometimes means losing it and then working hard to get it back because you know its important for you.

As I sit here slouching in my couch working hard to bring my passion back I tell you to give your
 long forgotten passion projects or life choices one last push, give it time and understand that passion is not a blazing fire but a slight spark that needs nourishment to grow.




Have a lovely rest of the day people!

2

The timeliners

So when are you getting married?

When are you getting your masters?

When are you getting that new job?

When. When. When.

These questions or rather questions like these are forever imposed on us. Quiet frankly we impose them on ourselves too and with time the questions change aswell. No one knows exactly why we do it,  sometimes its because our friends are doing the exact same thing. Or its the "right thing" to do.

And I agree there are certain things you have to do in order to go somewhere or be something. Your life will not get any momentum unless you make changes and decide to move wherever, no I don't mean take your coffee from the kitchen and sit in the couch! No No!

What I mean is, sometimes life choices are hard but needed if you want that extra cash, if you want your own business, if you want whatever you want. It won't just drop on your lap.....unless you want rain and even then you need to sit outside! But, what happens when these timelines come in between what you want to do and what you are supposed to do?

You guessed it. We get stressed. Now, I would have to admit that this generation perhaps is the most stressed generation of all times and it is for a number of reasons but more so because its so easy to compare yourself with someone. Now you can compare yourself with someone in the other side of globe, people you don't even know, people you may never meet. Times were simpler when it was just your bitchy aunty comparing everyone was it not? Well, that is life, with the good of  being connected there comes a whole lot of comparing.


But, how do we stop these ? Stop ourselves from turning into ticking time bombs.

Learn patience :

So here is what I tell you. When stressed forget the rest. Forget what your far cousin is doing and when he did it. Forget what your best friend is doing and when he did it. The truth is we all are so busy trying to be the timeliners we forget the one thing needed for us to do well, which is  patience.

We get impatient and we quit, we get impatient cause we compare.
Impatience is perhaps the one thing that stops you from being great at what you do. Left guitar after 2 lessons, left dance classes after 3. You get my point? To get better you need time and patience both of which you won't have time for if you are simply comparing yourself.

Know your future:

Now its true you can't quite know what is in the future but everyone can assume where they will go by looking at where they are. We lie and say tomorrow we will do it, but its the habits of today that will make you. So, instead of racing against time, make it friend and work with. Use time well, use effort and energy well.


Get crazy confused :

Get confused, figure it out, take time out because kya pata kal ho na ho... I just had to. Now, let me tell you why its best to not race against the time but rather take the time. The answer is simple choices.

Your choices make or break you. What you did a few years ago shaped you. I know its daunting and not ideal but it better to know that you took your time to figure it out. A friend once told me "No one will never know you took a year off in 5 years." No one cares. You shouldn't too, stop doing what you are unsure of doing simply because you want to do something.  That was english my friends take it in. I am not even going to edit that cause it makes sense to me and you won't remember this in the next 5 years. So, Hah! jokes on you.


Now, I am not saying that you need to ninja chop your way into living life in your own terms and time. Maybe start small like budgeting out the vacation you always wanted to go to but never had the time, or that dress you always wanted to wear but was not "in style". For once listen to me or to Nike and Just do it! (in your own time) Start small and built big. Like many say "Rome was not built in a day" because it takes Time to built it! Duh.


Lots of love people with potential. I hope this post touched you where it matters (no pun intended) cause everyone needs a blog awakening sometimes ;)

0

If you have a fear of happiness...................................(Read this)

It is called Cherophobia, the fear of joy in life and it is not an insane thing to have.

FEAR OF JOY 

It happened almost suddenly I was very happy about something, I do not remember why I was happy but  I remember this fear made feel. I was anxious and it did not make sense, "normal people" would not be thinking of such in that moment,  my life was going exactly as planned, I may have achieved something, had love in my life or a purpose I always had fear, but the fear of it being "too good to be true", the fear that "it may not be the same after a time passes." robbed me of the happiness. I was scared of being happy because past had taught me that it may not last.

I was just waiting for all of it to go to Sh** because well that was what I had witnessed in the past. Anxieties would rise up and the so called happy moment would be a cause of concern. In a "great moment" I would start wondering, "how much would this last?" "I hope this last ", instead of just taking in all in and enjoying the opportunity to appreciate it.

STOP LOOKING AT YOUR PAST FOR ANSWERS

The power of not thinking, not analyzing and connecting the dots is immense, why ? Because we often look for reference when we want to make sense of something or  in this scenario why a person was scared in such a happy time? This question sends triggers all over and the mind goes deep with in pull something applicable from our past.

 But, it turns out learning lessons from the past is not always that great.  Yes, this is contrary to what most people say, learn from your past! never repeat them mistakes, but don't you? and don't you go "UGH! I should not have I known better?" Yes we all have. So it turns out learning from the past does not always work, you do not always learn and it may even not be good for you.

YOU DO YOU BOO! 

We have to do what suits us, not follow formulas and rules that other people give. I was reading Robin Sharma's book once and the celebrated author just did not click with me, Not saying he was not right and that I was wrong. I just could not relate. I tried hard to finish that book because I had heard such good things about it. But I just could not. A book that was supposedly giving me reasons to live was making me want to kill myself (not literary). It was frustrating! Then I just stopped reading that book. It was good decision, I stopped putting pressure on myself to love something that I in fact hated.

YOU ARE NOT AN EXCEPTION !

Now coming back to the whole reason I told you this facade of a story, you and I maybe different, we may have fears about happiness but that does not mean there is not something to help us. The power of not thinking did what Robin Sharma could not get me do. I realized making sense and diving into the pool of my past was simply making me resent my present happiness. It does not have to be that one way. If you feel fear during happiness, thinking to yourself "is my fear of happiness right now  cause of my past?" If the answer is yes probably that is not path worth venturing into.

We must stop thinking we are an exception, we were not just chosen for unhappiness despite of what the past says, we were given equal opportunity to be happy.  It is and was  only a matter of how we use it, stuck in the past or by living in the present.

0

Are you scared of criticism and praise? If so.................................................(Read This)

Marketing yourself is a skill I am still trying to master. The problem is  not that I do not know how to market my work but doing so makes me feel like I am "saying too much" or that "all that I have done is because people have helped me". 

It was only recently that someone special spoke to be about the  impostor syndrome that made me wonder if I have it. Yes, I resonated with the google definition of the term so I am guessng there is much more to that. 

The impostor syndrome, what is it? It's when an individuals does not have the ability to internalize their achievements. When this person has success, they are quick to to attribute it to luck and timing, often belittling everything they do. The word impostor here implies that when you and I work, we feel that we do not deserve the success, hence we have this fear of being exposed, someone will look through us and start believing what we believe, that we do not deserve our success. Am I making up Impostor syndrome? I wish, personalities like Kate Winslett and Tina Fey have openly talked about being or feeling like an impostor so did Dr Chan, Chief of World Health Organization. Hence, you very well know I am not making this up! 

Many of us have trouble admitting our successes and taking compliments,  phrases like " Aw thanks but its not all that great! ", "Stop it!" shoots right out almost like a reflex. But when someone points out our short comings, we compromise our sleep, lives and everything in between to convince ourselves that they were right. 

The problem with people like us is we like to look for "reasoning" in everything. Reasons why we succeeded and reasons on why people may have criticized us.  

Why did that thing in the past become successful? Why did people like it? Why did I win that?

SUCCESS IS JUST SUCCESS 

But,  what we need to know is it was successful because it was successful. The more we try to give reasons to our successes the more the impostor in us jumps out, telling us "No, your not good at what you do, it was only because someone helped you, or it was fluke, or that the timing was right." All these self defeating doubts only prompt you to work in a manner that makes you fall short of what you are expected to do. You start becoming scared, you refuse to define yourself with work. 

You are not a blogger, you just write sometimes, you are not an artist, you just do some sketches. All though people admire our work, for what it is which is good work. The problem was not that people did not believe in us, it was because we did not believe in our self. 

HOW TO STOP BEING AN IMPOSTOR?

How do we stop this from affecting us? How do we silence the impostor in us?

Stop giving success a name, just look at it as a result of work you put in, think of what you could have done instead of doing that work, but you choose work. Many people would choose other things but you still choose work, success is just your work talking nothing less nothing more. 

And then the criticism comes along, and we do what we know best we attach reasoning by asking questions "Why did he or she say that about me?" "Why did he feel that?" "Am I doing something to make him feel like that?", the answer to these questions follow self defeating beliefs.

Next time you find success know that it was you being rewarded for the opportunity cost of perhaps watching netflix or mindlessly being on the internet. It is your reward for putting a few hours of your day for the work you do instead of doing something else. You deserve every bit of your success because you did the work. 

0