Tag: Apple

Family, Myself, Random

Walking Dreams

Sanjay Sabarwal

A gray morning. Perfect for my fuzzy thoughts as I pulled Bella along our 2 mile walk (the pedometer on my iphone told me so). I wondered what my obsession was with tracking all that I did lately.  As if the pedometer made the walk real, or it made it more than me just being the valet for my dog to take her shits’ which I dutifully scooped up. Or perhaps it was a way to distract myself from seeing the hurt on my parent’s face as they still processed what someone close to us had done. We don’t mention their names anymore, but that doesn’t make them disappear, in fact, it makes the hurt deeper. Their recent actions now are scrutinized under new lenses, and it makes me wonder when they began resenting or perhaps even hating us to do this.  I want to ask why they didn’t tell us what they wanted, but maybe they didn’t want our input or perhaps wanted to get away from our shadow to mark their own territory.

Yet I know that stepping on someone’s back to get up maybe OK occasionally, but not to break it. Each day, I want to text or email them ranting away, but really it’s just pain I want to get out. The pain of lost holidays, and the loss of seeing their faces. The number of relationships that we thought were made of love now just a shared last name. And Bella keeps tugging, the pedometer keeps recording steps, and I struggle to be grateful for the rising sun, and the slowly awakening street. I as for forgiveness for my unkind thoughts, and ask for the strength to forgive who just threw away a relationship like an empty wrapper.

I turn on the app TuhiTuhi, and I get lost in the voice of Veer Manpreet Singh, and for the next 15 minutes I just listen with an open heart and express my gratitude for being still being on this earth, still having the ability to walk my dog just 9 months after brain surgery. It hits me that I am recording everything because I wish to remember that I am not sitting idle. I am not letting life pass by, but am trying to live it each day to the best of my ability. And at the end of the day, that’s all that matters.

#trust30, Family, Myself

Small Details

Sanjay Sabarwal
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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Myself

Unsubscribing From Life

Sanjay Sabarwal
Yogi Tea logo
Image via Wikipedia

 

by Jemal Yarbrough

 

I have a confession to make.  I have had my Mac Book Pro for about 3 months and I still don’t know how to create folders or save documents in a particular folder.  So much for getting the latest technology.  So I got another thing added to my to do list: learn how to use laptop. Then I realized that I paid for One to One with Apple for $99, and maybe I ought to use it.  so I signed up for a workshop.

Today has been the realization that I have so much clutter in my life because I keep getting things in the wane hope of relieving some immediate pain.  No forethought, no wait and see, just buy/subscribe/enroll/buy some more.  It has become so bad that a quick look at my email inbox revealed it to be 90% spam, but the sad part is I had subscribed to all these newsletters so who’s the spam really, the email or me?

So slowly I began to unsubscribe and suddenly some of the pressure to read each email alleviated.  I started unsubscribing faster, not caring to hear the reasons of any newsletter, and at the end only 2 subscriptions remained that I kept because I actually read them.  One is Marc and Angel, (www.marcandangel.com) usually about creativity productivity or just really good ways to improve your life and The Personal Excellence Blog (http://celestinechua.com/blog/) which currently is about fasting (guys on day 5 of fasting). So here I sit with my Yogi Tea (gotta hit Whole Foods ones of these days), feeling like I accomplished something.  Then it hit me, that I need to go further, I need to reduce all the clutter in my life, so I deleted half the Apps on my phone which I don’t use (actually more than half), then I started making a list of my bills, and I noticed I was spending money repeatedly on dumb things.  So I made a note to unsubscribe from unneeded bills.

You ever wonder if you can just unsubscribe from certain parts of your life?  Well you can, you just have to realize how much they clutter up your life and just unsubscribe from the worry, the guilt, the constant feeling of failing, just unsubscribe.  Many of my friends have noticed a change in me, and some even wonder how a book could influence me so much (Taking The Leap by Pema Chodron), but it wasn’t the book, it was just the right time.  I had over-subscribed to all my emotions, and it hit me that I was completely cluttered up.  So I took 3 deep breaths (something I do whenever I remember throughout the day, part of my “mini” meditations), believed I needed this, had the faith, and took the leap to unsubscribe.

I have a long road ahead of me, and part of me still has the sneaking suspicion that this is too good to be true, but I know that’s the old me, jealous that I no longer need anger and hurt to define me.  I choose love and faith.

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Myself, Writing

The Artist’s Way

Sanjay Sabarwal

It took me quite a while to start writing today namely because my eyes kept wandering over to other sites (flickr/install new mac updates/Mac App stores) and thoughts (I really need to finish watching the Justice League of America Season 2/I need to get a physical/why isn’t my Apple TV synching to the Macbook). It was as I was starved for intellectual stimulation or perhaps because I knew I was already behind on my post a day self-promise.  Yet somehow, it does not sting as much as I thought because I an constantly thinking of writing. However, there is the 900 pound gorilla in the room: what to write about.  As much as blogging is satisfying in that I get to vent, I know I haven’t gotten to the real task: to writing original content.  That’s a new problem because in high school, I stumbled onto short story writing, at UCLA personal columns, and now blogging.  It appears I cannot write unless there is a significant part of me invested into the words, and that’s a bit scary and troubling at the same time because I truly believe if you are a writer, you should be able to write in just about any genre and so with that in mind I am going to attempt to write my first short story in years.

I haven’t decided if I am going to post as I write or when it’ complete, but I know the progress will be noted in my writer’s group (the first such group I ever have joined), and perhaps as a testament to the seriousness of my writing when I start my Writer’s Studio seminar at UCLA.  Either way, I know I need to do more than just whine on here or talk about her friends or my feelings.  I need to produce so I can finally make the transition from would be writer to actually being one.

by Jemal Yarbrough

 

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