I am waiting for my train to start from my work place back home. I do this every day from work but today I am late. It is almost 8:45 p.m. It has been a very tiring day. Tired by complaining of work, thinking why things couldn’t have been better, what if I was doing things differently, why don’t I change few things, blah, blah, complain, criticize, condemn.
Train master announces – “Obviously, Train is going to be delayed 7 minutes”. 7 minutes? Are you kidding me? I am already 3 hours late to reach home! And now they make me wait 7 more minutes? And who can believe how long the 7 minutes will be. I heard the ‘Obvious’ announcement 15 minutes back already.
There I go again… complaining, grumbling. Well, today’s day will go by and I will not even remember I spent significant part of my day grumbling. So who cares?
Do successful people have such frustrations? I am sure they do. All humans do because no place is perfect even if you are perfect, or you want to believe that you are. Either people around are idiots or the whole situation is just not right. Then what do these successful people do? Don’t they complain? Needless to say they don’t waste their time crying like someone like me would.
They are too focused on important things in their lives than to even think about other things that can cause a bother. Their complaints would be – How can I better things? What do I do to make things better? How can I do things differently? How can I change few things? My work suck but how can I enjoy what I do?
And that’s the difference between me and them. Both me and they work hard, both think hard. But the difference between what drives me and what drives them is ‘Necessity’ v/s ‘Passion’.
Btw, 7 minutes is almost 30 minutes long now. Grrr!
Thinking about focus, one thing comes to my mind. I have been struggling with weight problem ever since I was in college. I tried different diets, joined gym. I would carry on with a plan for may be max 10 days (recalling optimistically). And then back to square one. In fact at times 2-3 squares behind square one.
Lady behind just cried out, “This is bull$h&*’. (Train journeys are fun, get to see so many expressions, so many people!) Btw, the lights in the train are now turned on.
So, what was driving my focus to become thin? Necessity! I wanted to loose weight. I wanted quick results. I tried for 10 days but at the end of it I was too tired and frustrated. I did not see any benefits and I gave up too soon. I was too lazy to keep going.
But have you not heard of stories of people who went from size 10 to size 4? What did they have that I lacked? I know the answer. Passion! They had the passion and worked towards their passion.
The train has started moving. So, not everything is dark and bad today. I finally will get to go home tonight (before mid-night).
So where do I get the passion from? I was talking to one of my friends one day. I started complaining about work and he told how he did not like his job either. Then for a moment we started talking about what we could do for living if we had an option not to do things that bother us. Though we knew that some things may not be practical in near future, I could feel a new energy in me. We were so engrossed and came up with so many innovative ideas. Just thinking about the new ideas, my work did not feel so bad it did before the chat. I had a great day at work after that.
Abhinav Bindra won a Gold at Olympics for India couple of days back. During the award ceremony, he was so calm and confident. He had an ‘I know I deserved to win, I am good at what I do, I knew I could win Olympics gold one day. I worked hard for this’ look on his face all the time. I looked up his profile on Wikipedia and was surprised to know he is 25 yrs of age and CEO of a company. After Olympics he is going to get monetary benefit of 2 crore rupees. Boy! What an achievement. And how was he handling sport and business? I know it is his passion for both that drives him every day and there was this golden day where we reached the peak of success and got rewarded for his passion.
At work, I have got a chance to interact and work with many people who are passionate about their work. And how do I know they are passionate? Well, they deal with similar people I do, they work around similar things that I do. And they are successful. That’s because they want it so bad, it’s their passion. They know what they want and work towards it no matter with whom they have to deal with or what they need to do to reach there.
I believe that one who is passionate, crazy about anything will achieve it, will get it against all odds. There are NO EXCEPTIONS.
And those who do things just because they need to it will never get what they want. However hard they work or whatever they do. They will never be happy because necessities will change with time and finally they will give up. There are NO EXCEPTIONS.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Chicago 'on fire'
It all started with Piyush this morning. He was in the hall, lazing on the couch smiling all by himself, waiting for his first Bakra!
I was first one to wake up. Went out to the kitchen, hardly even opened my eyes, trying to find a vessel for the tea. I hear Piyush pass a remark, 'dekh yaar aaj kitni snow ho rahi hain'. KYA? snow? 'Nahi' I cried. I ran to the balcony door. I was supposed to take the car to office today, it was my turn.
'Yeh mere saath nahi ho saktaa! Aaj hi hona tha. That too when I decide to drive to work.' And to my amaze, I could see everything so 'white' outside. May be right within I wanted it to snow and that too heavily, so 'white' that no one could drive today and office was called off. And then I hear the slogan of victory, 'April Fool, april fool'. Ahh got me that time. Good one Piyush.
Now I knew what made the prankster have that witty look to his face all morning. But now, it caught to me too. I had to pass it on to someone. I go right to our room and tell Navin... 'Hey no office today! Its snowing.' But the same prank does not work with everyone. Lesson learnt on 'April's fool day'! Anyways. Popat hua :-)
But now, we were a team! Piyush decided to target his office folks while I took the responsibility of my office folks. And Navin, well he was supposed to support both of us. First one on the list was Mutthu! Piyush called him up and told him that there was a big office issue and he needs to log on to the system immediately. Their boss is looking out for him and he better get going and know what to do. Hahah And he believed every word. He panicked for a while and when he was told, its just an April Fool's day prank, he thanked Piyush :-) hahah! He is the only one to thank anyone for playing a joke on him. But he did not forget to use his favourite dialogue 'Kya reh! Idiotic Fella!'
Now, it was my turn. What should I say that would make people believe me? I hardly interact on any production issues with my office people that Muthu's prank could work for me.
So we decided to put Chicago on fire :-) I would say that there was some terrorist attack or something in downtown. There was a curfew in the city (believeable? Well, I could not believe people would fall for that). For safety, office have been closed and people advised to stay at home. CNN, Fox are flashing this news as high alert!
First one aimed was Payal! Tring Tring. 'Elooooooo?' She had just woke up, infact our call had woken her up. Thats the best time to make people believe you. So I narrate the whole news to her. SUCCESS! Payal ka reaction, 'Gyan to aaj jaldi office gaye yaar. He did not know anything'. Poor thing. Happy April Fool's Day Payal! :-) But the best part was when I asked her, Payal tu office jayegi? She says, 'yaar, meri aaj meeting hain. Main ready hoke baithti hoon. Agar curfew nahi hua then I will go to office aur nahi to I will work from home'.
Wah kya dedication hain! Too much.
Phir baari aayi Prashanth ki. Piyush called his manager Prashanth and he too was ready to believe every word. He was watching Fox news and says, how come they are not showing it on the Fox news? Piyush says, dekho dekho CNN pe hoga! Bolte hain, acha kaunsa channel? :-) haha
Divya was not picking her phone. So I left her a voice message. The same news, ofcourse. She told Mumeena, her roommate about the news. Mumeena then called me. Navin answered the call. He sounds very sad and even gives Mumeena the statictics of how many people have been injured and killed in the horrible event. Morever says that Shreya is gone to some hospital to see someone. What? Hospital? hahah what was that. Jhooth bhi thik se bolna nahi ataa. But so what! Mumeena asks in her typical style, 'tell me one thing, how authentic is the news that poeple have died'!
Another person to fall for the prank was Sohani! He went straight to the tv set and started the news channels. Initially we thought Sohani would be the difficult one to fall prey to us but it was our lucky day! :-) He starts looking for the news on every news channel haha.
And ofcourse Tushar. He was the coolest one and calmest of all to respond. Infact his reaction made us believe he was happy.. may be cos of the day off we were expecting :-)
All in all a very naughty and lively morning. Thanks to the master mind behind Chicago fire, Piyush.
I was first one to wake up. Went out to the kitchen, hardly even opened my eyes, trying to find a vessel for the tea. I hear Piyush pass a remark, 'dekh yaar aaj kitni snow ho rahi hain'. KYA? snow? 'Nahi' I cried. I ran to the balcony door. I was supposed to take the car to office today, it was my turn.
'Yeh mere saath nahi ho saktaa! Aaj hi hona tha. That too when I decide to drive to work.' And to my amaze, I could see everything so 'white' outside. May be right within I wanted it to snow and that too heavily, so 'white' that no one could drive today and office was called off. And then I hear the slogan of victory, 'April Fool, april fool'. Ahh got me that time. Good one Piyush.
Now I knew what made the prankster have that witty look to his face all morning. But now, it caught to me too. I had to pass it on to someone. I go right to our room and tell Navin... 'Hey no office today! Its snowing.' But the same prank does not work with everyone. Lesson learnt on 'April's fool day'! Anyways. Popat hua :-)
But now, we were a team! Piyush decided to target his office folks while I took the responsibility of my office folks. And Navin, well he was supposed to support both of us. First one on the list was Mutthu! Piyush called him up and told him that there was a big office issue and he needs to log on to the system immediately. Their boss is looking out for him and he better get going and know what to do. Hahah And he believed every word. He panicked for a while and when he was told, its just an April Fool's day prank, he thanked Piyush :-) hahah! He is the only one to thank anyone for playing a joke on him. But he did not forget to use his favourite dialogue 'Kya reh! Idiotic Fella!'
Now, it was my turn. What should I say that would make people believe me? I hardly interact on any production issues with my office people that Muthu's prank could work for me.
So we decided to put Chicago on fire :-) I would say that there was some terrorist attack or something in downtown. There was a curfew in the city (believeable? Well, I could not believe people would fall for that). For safety, office have been closed and people advised to stay at home. CNN, Fox are flashing this news as high alert!
First one aimed was Payal! Tring Tring. 'Elooooooo?' She had just woke up, infact our call had woken her up. Thats the best time to make people believe you. So I narrate the whole news to her. SUCCESS! Payal ka reaction, 'Gyan to aaj jaldi office gaye yaar. He did not know anything'. Poor thing. Happy April Fool's Day Payal! :-) But the best part was when I asked her, Payal tu office jayegi? She says, 'yaar, meri aaj meeting hain. Main ready hoke baithti hoon. Agar curfew nahi hua then I will go to office aur nahi to I will work from home'.
Wah kya dedication hain! Too much.
Phir baari aayi Prashanth ki. Piyush called his manager Prashanth and he too was ready to believe every word. He was watching Fox news and says, how come they are not showing it on the Fox news? Piyush says, dekho dekho CNN pe hoga! Bolte hain, acha kaunsa channel? :-) haha
Divya was not picking her phone. So I left her a voice message. The same news, ofcourse. She told Mumeena, her roommate about the news. Mumeena then called me. Navin answered the call. He sounds very sad and even gives Mumeena the statictics of how many people have been injured and killed in the horrible event. Morever says that Shreya is gone to some hospital to see someone. What? Hospital? hahah what was that. Jhooth bhi thik se bolna nahi ataa. But so what! Mumeena asks in her typical style, 'tell me one thing, how authentic is the news that poeple have died'!
Another person to fall for the prank was Sohani! He went straight to the tv set and started the news channels. Initially we thought Sohani would be the difficult one to fall prey to us but it was our lucky day! :-) He starts looking for the news on every news channel haha.
And ofcourse Tushar. He was the coolest one and calmest of all to respond. Infact his reaction made us believe he was happy.. may be cos of the day off we were expecting :-)
All in all a very naughty and lively morning. Thanks to the master mind behind Chicago fire, Piyush.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Lost Keys!
Today a funny thing happened.
Navin uses our car to go to office daily. So anything and everything related to the car is directed to Navin. By this I mean whats the car mileage, where are the car papers, insurance registration, expiry, taking to mechanic, or for that matter even where the car is parked or where the car keys are kept!
I am only an infrequent guest who get a chance to sit in the car if we decide to go out over the weekend. And as far as me able to drive the car goes, forget it!
But over a couple of weeks things have been changing slowly. Against all odds, I manage to get hold of the car keys (gets very tricky at times, baht mehenat karni padhti hain) and after lot of persuation I am given the pleasure to drive!!! Well persuation on both sides. One - making Navin comfortable and assured that I CAN drive and other times it is making myself ready and excited to drive.
Last evening Tushar and Navin had to go for a swimming class and luckily (for me) they decided to travel in one car. And even more luckier was that they decided to take Tushar's car. Hee hee. Now that left me home alone ofcourse and more importantly with our beloved car.
It was the first time as far as I can remember, I drove alone by myself. So, here I was, happy and excited to exploit my freedom to take on the roads! And most importantly not have someone at my side who would usually have his heart in his mouth every time I stepped on the gas and who was ready to have an heart attack any moment.
When I came to office this morning, I get a call from a very panicked Navin. 'Where are the car keys!?' huh? 'I dunno. you drive the car, you should know.', I shout back. The funny thing was I had got the car keys with me to office. Boy, how I enjoyed the crack in Navin's voice. He was getting late for work (thats a every day story) and had been warned a couple of times by his manager. Well, don't think it was a wicked prank I had planned. It just so happened that the car keys remained in my purse after my infamous road trip (well, I would prefer to call it a road trip, so what)! And isn't it the driver's responsibility to make sure the keys are available when needed? But while I was talking to Navin on the phone, I knew the other duplicate car keys were at home and he could use them instead.
But thats how human minds work. You don't find the usual things (which you feel you own) in the usual place and you feel nervous. You want to blame someone before even looking for other options. In this situation, Navin was calling to blame me for not returning the keys to him, whereas I was blaming him for not remembering to take the keys back from me!
And why am I writing this as a blog post??? Like you know, the lazy me started writing this post the day the incidence happened and seemed so interesting. Now its almost a week, and I picked it up in between to finish off what I started with. And now it doesn't seem so interesting.
Anyways. Atleast keeps my blog spot space occupied :-)
Navin uses our car to go to office daily. So anything and everything related to the car is directed to Navin. By this I mean whats the car mileage, where are the car papers, insurance registration, expiry, taking to mechanic, or for that matter even where the car is parked or where the car keys are kept!
I am only an infrequent guest who get a chance to sit in the car if we decide to go out over the weekend. And as far as me able to drive the car goes, forget it!
But over a couple of weeks things have been changing slowly. Against all odds, I manage to get hold of the car keys (gets very tricky at times, baht mehenat karni padhti hain) and after lot of persuation I am given the pleasure to drive!!! Well persuation on both sides. One - making Navin comfortable and assured that I CAN drive and other times it is making myself ready and excited to drive.
Last evening Tushar and Navin had to go for a swimming class and luckily (for me) they decided to travel in one car. And even more luckier was that they decided to take Tushar's car. Hee hee. Now that left me home alone ofcourse and more importantly with our beloved car.
It was the first time as far as I can remember, I drove alone by myself. So, here I was, happy and excited to exploit my freedom to take on the roads! And most importantly not have someone at my side who would usually have his heart in his mouth every time I stepped on the gas and who was ready to have an heart attack any moment.
When I came to office this morning, I get a call from a very panicked Navin. 'Where are the car keys!?' huh? 'I dunno. you drive the car, you should know.', I shout back. The funny thing was I had got the car keys with me to office. Boy, how I enjoyed the crack in Navin's voice. He was getting late for work (thats a every day story) and had been warned a couple of times by his manager. Well, don't think it was a wicked prank I had planned. It just so happened that the car keys remained in my purse after my infamous road trip (well, I would prefer to call it a road trip, so what)! And isn't it the driver's responsibility to make sure the keys are available when needed? But while I was talking to Navin on the phone, I knew the other duplicate car keys were at home and he could use them instead.
But thats how human minds work. You don't find the usual things (which you feel you own) in the usual place and you feel nervous. You want to blame someone before even looking for other options. In this situation, Navin was calling to blame me for not returning the keys to him, whereas I was blaming him for not remembering to take the keys back from me!
And why am I writing this as a blog post??? Like you know, the lazy me started writing this post the day the incidence happened and seemed so interesting. Now its almost a week, and I picked it up in between to finish off what I started with. And now it doesn't seem so interesting.
Anyways. Atleast keeps my blog spot space occupied :-)
Friday, March 14, 2008
Shining Stars
I remember this evening faintly. I was travelling from Goa to Mangalore in the Ganesh travels bus. I don't know why I was feeling lonely. But I remember I wanted to reach Mangalore as soon as I could and put down the thoughts on paper, well, rather type it down somewhere.I doubt if any IT person would ever like to write on paper, say maintain a diary or something! I used to keep a diary long long time back but then I used it as a crib session to let go my frustration about studies and my fights with my sister. So I dumped it and moved on.
So that journey in bus, I was thinking I am lonely and was getting emotional about close friends. I would really want to go back to that day and find uout what made me think like this. May be I was missing my friends! Anyways. I came to Mangalore and posted it on my office bulletin board. I also sent it to few of my friends. And now, I thought why not put it here as a keepsake. This was written sometime Dec 2002 or Dec 2003.
.. a thought to share !
I think to myself... work and gain nothing! frustrations creep... health ruined... no fun! Nothing seems interesting...Dumb codes.. issue logs... dart... bugs... be productive at 9:00 Uhhh!
I want to get away from it all I thought one day. I land up on a lonely beach... i look around. Waves merrily splashing againt the rocks happy with the presence of just each other. Trees swaying, wind blowing all doing their own thing.
I look up at the sky. I see a star starring right at me. Ahhh! Thats him I say! This is whom I can identify myself. Just no one besides him, no one to talk to, no one to share a thought... no one to tell I am sad.. i am lonely. I call him aloud... "Hey! I understand your situation. You are just like me.. "
"No" he replies. "I might look lonely to you all... but see closely... there are so many more stars in the sky.. with me... all the while. You are right. You are me. You may find yourself all alone at times. No one around. But did you see around you? Its all in your mind. Your people are always there for you. They will be there for you now and forever. Some might be dull and maybe busy with their world but try to turn towards them and look for them... you will find them.... " ..
Thats what I did. I looked around and I saw all my stars! They formed a beautiful word "Friends". Thank you all for being my friend. You are special to me. I might be a fool sometimes to ignore your brightness and your twinkle. I pray to God that you reach the heights of the sky and do well in all you do. Enjoy your vacations. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Love,
Shreya
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Welcome Everyone
Hello Friends,
Welcome to Shreya's Space!
I had been waiting to start blogging and share my little space with all my friends. But my laziness always managed to surpass my 'want' to write.
As I begin to put down my first blog, I hope it is going to be an interesting and exciting experience for me and those who visit my space.
Takecare folks! Looking forward to hear from you for feedback and comments.
Love,
Shreya
Welcome to Shreya's Space!
I had been waiting to start blogging and share my little space with all my friends. But my laziness always managed to surpass my 'want' to write.
As I begin to put down my first blog, I hope it is going to be an interesting and exciting experience for me and those who visit my space.
Takecare folks! Looking forward to hear from you for feedback and comments.
Love,
Shreya
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