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Posts from the ‘Myself’ Category

May 16

Ambition

 

Ambition (Wale album)

Ambition (Wale album) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Why is ambition in some and not in others?  I hate my ambition sometimes. There are days I wonder why I push myself so hard, and am so anxious that I just want to chuck it all way and go in the safety of just working a 9 to 5 shift. I want to be an employee who just puts the hours, gets the paycheck, and then veg out on the weekends spent in the safety of TV. I envy those who tune out everything, and just sleep the weekends away.  I sometimes hate that I wake up thinking of writing, reading, of promoting events, of new revenue streams, of the 100s of HR and legal tasks at Ziba.  Each day nowadays is spent on a looming TO DO list that I sometimes dread to look at because I am never satisfied with how much I have accomplished. More! More! More!  I constantly feel undereducated, feel like I am missing out new things, falling behind in the world. This nagging feeling of not getting enough done follows me incessantly, and I just to BE sometimes.

 

 

 

I look others around, and I am amazed at the lack of ambition and structure in their lives. Each day just being lived, with no look at the future, no desire to be better, nothing to accomplish except just passing the time. Yes, I do sometimes envy that but I also know that it’s not a life I could really live. I want to more from myself. The standards I have set for myself can only be reached if I work each and every day towards.  If I am not improving myself then I am declining. If I am not reading or writing, I am less educated. If I am not working out. I am less healthy and ultimately less happy.

Everything I desire can only be accomplished if I use each day to cross off things off my to do list. It’s relentless, and quite frankly its exhausting, but I also know I wouldn’t have it any other way. Ambition, you’ve got me by the balls!

 

 

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May 14

Fraud

I have this need to be read It’s why I have been writing since I was 16, and I often wonder what makes me want to share with others.  What makes me desire to hear the sentence “I read what you wrote” followed by “I liked/loved/laughed/cried/thought about what you wrote.”  I am open to criticism but I am scared of it as well. My biggest fear is not being liked but being ignored. As if I don’t exist. I write because it makes me feel as I exist. It is the only time that I am the uninterrupted. unadulterated me.

All my life. I have fought this nagging feeling of being a fraud, of feeling that I was meant for something different. The reality is that we are all a bunch of choices.  We are where we are either because of our own choices or others in our lives.  The others count only if your under 18 or just not willing or able to make your own choices. As a Punjabi, its easy to point the finger at my parents, but they didn’t force me to write, or go to UCLA or law school. Those were all my decisions so in a way I need to write to think out loud on paper. I have this need to inflict my opinion others. It’s perhaps the only time I feel as if intellectually I matter.

Yet even my writing is haphazard just like my feelings and thoughts. I have been unable to write something original in a long time. It’s as if I am afraid to really put myself out there or maybe just maybe I don’t have it in me. It is that last thought that drives me crazy. If I am not a writer, then what am I?  It’s the only label I have ever really wanted, and its the only that has eluded me now for over 2 decades.  I often the wonder if the feeling I am a fraud is actually who I am.  That perhaps in some way. my desire to be something other than what others think of me is what drives me?

I don’t know, and so I write even though I feel like a fraud.  IMG_1964

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May 12

One More Time

Cover of "Rocky Balboa"

Cover of Rocky Balboa

 

There comes a time when you have to stop for a moment and ask yourself if this is the life you want.  Doesn’t matter when you do it or how often. For me, it’s been daily as I am not satisfied with where I am.  Maybe that feeling will never go away, and you know what , I don’t want it to. It is that feeling that makes me wake to write in the morning, to read a little something, and occasionally exercise. If I don’t make the time to be accountable for my life and where it is going, then I have no one to blame except myself. Do I fail?  All the time.  But like Rocky Balboa in part 5, I say “one more round” after getting knocked to the ground. I worry about the day I don’t do that. Life will keep punching, and if you don’t respond, you will be lying on the ground in despair. You will be knocked out and living life as if unconscious.  So get up! One more round.  That’s my motto. There’s no easy way out. There is no shortcut home. Bump up “No Easy Way Out” From Rocky 4 to get yourself pumped, and just keep punching.

Giving up is not an option! 

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May 3

Thoughts For Food

A penny for your thoughts...Dollars for your t...

A penny for your thoughts…Dollars for your thoughts – NARA – 513735 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

I have been doing the Daily Food For Thought for Ziba Beauty for almost 5 years, and I happened to read some of the old ones.  I realized that at first they started out as long one page inspirational stories that I scoured for on other sites. But now they are one liners mostly for quick digestion.  My world is slowly turning from one based on thought and reflection to easy consumption. We no longer seem to have the patience for learning through patience.  We seem to want our inspiration in 140 characters or less. As the messages get shorter and shorter, I wonder how much meaning is being retained?  Perhaps we are distilling it down to the essence of thought, yet truthfully for me, I miss the days of reading the whole story.

 

We are in the middle of a generation the prefers texting to talking. Leaving voice-mails seems old fashioned or just work related.  We no longer seem to feel the need to buy a CD or buy digital based entertainment.  The value of creativity based on words seems to be sinking.  I now have officially entered into the realm of the good old days.”  None of this change is bad. In fact, I love the ease and convenience of getting to music and ideas that I never could before. And there lies the lesson. It’s not really about the message or the shape or form of it. Its how you interact with it, what it does for you.  Someone who does not want to change will simply ignore a long or a short message.

 

That’s hard for me to swallow. I am a fixer. I want to fix everyone and everything. i know that is foolish and ultimately a waste of time. People will not change unless they are ready to. No matter how often I forward inspirational quotes, messages or texts, nothing will get through until they are ready to make a change in their lives. It’s hard to see people jumping over a cliff or harming themselves needlessly but as the quote goes, “until you get lost, you won’t find new ways.” Anonymous.

Touche.

 

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Apr 30

Choices

choice and context

choice and context (Photo credit: Will Lion)

I don’t always do the right thing. I realize that we each face moments every single day of our lives where we have a choice to do the right thing.  We could eat better. We could exercise. We could be better friends, lovers, and the list goes on and one. I know those are choices yet somehow as I get older, I find some choices easier to make than others. There are days I just don’t feel like eating or exercising right, but with people its different. I see now that if I choose wrong then there are consequences. When I choose to ignore my friend’s need to be heard, I take a little piece out of our friendship away. When I say a not very nice thing to a family or a partner, I cut into their trust and love for me.

Choices run my world. And I am lately seeing a pattern that I am not liking about myself. I am less friendly. I make unkind remarks off the cuff. I am not the Sanjay that many have known me for many years.  The only explanation I have is that my recent surgery have made me less certain of who I am. Whats the point of eating and exercise if I still had to get brain surgery? What’s the point of being patient when I see other make the silliest mistakes?  How can I stop loved ones from continuing on the wrong path?  Why are some people continually on the path of getting hurt when all they have to do is step back? On and on in my head, I see so much wrong, and I want to fix it all, but I cannot.

I forgot that it is a choice we make when we are around others. We cannot make others do what we want them to do. Intellectually, I know that but emotionally  I have lost patience. I no longer want to let others be, yet that is not something I should be involved in. I try to remind myself of that everyday.  I know I have to choose the right thing, yet more often than not I am struggling to do that. What was an innate part of my personality is something now I have to struggle to do.  I also know that is my personal battle. I cannot control anything or anyone except myself.

I have to choose to be me even though lately that is the hardest thing to be.

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Apr 23

Small Details

Image representing hulu as depicted in CrunchBase

Image via CrunchBase

It’s the small details in life that make up so much of our lives. I saw that yesterday when I finally got my Hulu Plus subscription. Netflix had spoiled us with 8 seasons of Greys Anatomy that we rammed through in 6 week, but put us on edge when we realized that we were missing the current season. I had my great friend Sandeep Kumar gamely burn me a DVD but for some reason it didn’t work. Then one of my cousins recommended Roku and another Hulu Plus, and it suddenly dawned on me that somewhere along the lines, I had fallen behind. I no longer kept up on the current news or the latest TV shows, or for that matter anything remotely entertainment related. Somewhere, I lost the desire to buy the latest technology or watch the hottest show, and although I thought I was better for it. I lost a bit of myself.  Small details that chipped away at me where suddenly now I am flipping through channel with no idea on what to watch.

Yet, I have always had help around me. I just don’t ask for it very often. Or at all.  Small details that I consistently fail to notice. My big-hearted cousin helped set up my Apple TV which has grown dust on it since I bought it last year ( I still love my old Apple TV, that thing is a beast!), and suddenly we have a whole new world open up to us, and it hits me that I always seem to fail to call the ones who have never hesitated to help me.  It never even occurred to them to expect a thank you from me, and that made me realize that I have allowed too many small details to pass me by.

I have never been alone, yet I constantly choose to fight some battles alone.  It’s not about TV or HULU or for that matter entertainment, it’s the idea that I am surrounded by loved ones who reach out in a second, and yet I still hesitate to ask for help.  I just wanted to say thank you.  Small details …

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