Tag: Student

Brownness

Goals (on Turning 40)

Sanjay Sabarwal
University of California, Los Angeles; UCLA
University of California, Los Angeles; UCLA (Photo credit: COG LOG LAB.)

NWA’s ” Straight Out of Compton” turned on, taking me right back to my freshman year at UCLA.  I am at the gym, leg pressing 300 pounds, arm curling 50 pounds feeling like a beast.  I was 18, a wanna be mustache dancing on my lip, Gangsta rap in my blood. I felt bad ass as I pushed out 10 reps.  2 more circuits to go.  That was then, this is now.  I push out 540, and curl 100 but the gut sticks out, and my 40 years feels like 400 on me.  I am not UCLA Sanjay anymore, more like Useless Sanjay but that’s just my self-pity talking.

A few years ago, I had the same goals as I did today, but the only difference was passion.  Whereas, before I just wished to be in better shape, I now WANT to be better.  I know I can get to a six pack, the only regret being that it would be 22 years AFTER the fact, but you know what, it’s how it makes me feel NOW that matters.  Everything else is just mere whining.  Turning 40 can work miracles for someone like me who quite honestly has been quite comfortable for quite a while.

I start each day knowing that one day closer to my goal of being in the best shape of my life.  The real reason: I don’t want to die needlessly. I don’t want to die because of something I could have prevented, but most of all I don’t want to die before I really do accomplish all that I want from my life.  It really is that simple. I want to live my life not live day-to-day.

Why do you wake up each morning?

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Myself, Writing

The Rules: A Blog Post

Sanjay Sabarwal
Cover of "These Are the Rules"
Cover of These Are the Rules

I admit, I am a bit hurt (aren’t I aways?) at the near total silence about my last post.  Maybe I did come off as a complete wacko to the blog readers but it was a sincere letter sent to friends and family that perhaps a majority of them either didn’t read or didn’t care.  Then it hits me that yet again I have made it about me, so I breathe out slowly, get into the present and have been reading voraciously. Acknowledge, breath, let go.  🙂

Been away for a few days now and felt the tug of the words in my brain as of they were already imprinted.  Finished reading if “Life is a game, these are the rules”  by Cherie Carter-Scott, PhD. basically 10 truths we all know or should know because we forgot at birth.  I won’t bore you with the details (I probably will)but , in a nutshell the 10 rules are :1) You will receive a body (love it or leave it) 2) You will be presented with lessons (repeatedly and constantly) 3)There are no mistakes only lessons (really liked this one since it involves Compassion, forgiveness, ethics and honor 4) A lesson is repeated until learned (you are doomed to repeat your “lessons” until you pass the test) 5) Learning does not end 6) There is no better than here (again be present, gee where have I heard the before) I am constantly being reminded of this lesson in pretty much every way as if the universe is conspiring to beat down this lesson down my throat  But it’s hard as hell to be present.  It really is hard to just approach, appreciate, take in what’s around me without thinking of what it meant before, what I should do about it or in general not even notice what’s in front of me.  Oh wait, I am way off track (see?) 7) Others are only mirrors of you(fascinating idea that what you like or dislike about others is what you like or dislike about yourself.  8) What you make of life is up to you (pretty self-explanatory 9) All the answers lie inside of you (this one I found hard to believe until I realized It consisted of listening, trust and inspiration, the 3 things that are helping me write and cope with her cancer) and finally 10) You will forget all of this at birth (just have faith that it’s there). When I looked at the rules like this, it hit me that the author purposely may have written the book backward so he could impart the life lessons to us as we are now, assuming that we need those first.

So done with another gift from Santoshi and now off to finally crack open my Ipad and read The Art of Choosing by a blind sikh girl (whose name for the life of me I can’t remember. Wish me luck.

 

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My Past, Myself

I Remember

Sanjay Sabarwal
A mathematics lecture, apparently about linear...
Image via Wikipedia

I remember knowing that I would be a success one day. I remember that success coming from writing and also from reading. I remember the confidence I had that the words coming out of my made absolute sense and were contributing to the welfare of society The sense that what I wrote mattered, that I would a writer of consequence. Instead of small burst of letters and barely thought of words, I would produce stories of vivid imagination and longing.

I remember my first computer, and being the first among many junior high schoolers to get one, and promising them I would make them a spanish book for $20 a piece and getting $200 from 10 of the honor students and then realizing that I wouldn’t have the time to make or print out individual copies, I went to Kinkos and made 9 copies then submitted the folders.

Mrs. Cano liked what she saw. Neatly printed out, well put together and everything in Spanish, this was what she expected from her best students A great template for others and so the first folder received an A. She then moved onto the next one, and marked it down for missing pages and lack of imagination, then after several others she saw something familiar, almost like a template and it struck her that this was the same folder as the first. Perhaps, it was a reprint by the same student. A quick look confirmed that the notebook had different names, so she pulled it out of the stack and put it aside to deal with later. But then the next folder was the same, and Mrs Cano knew this couldn’t be a coincidence, and did a quick scan through and found 7 more identical folders, but the surprising part was the fact all the names belonged to honor students. What was going on?

I couldn’t decide what to do with the $200 that was cradled under my mattress, It was the most money I had ever earned, and although I was proud of my accomplishment, I knew I couldn’t tell anyone. I couldn’t believe how easy it had been but I had small flutter in my conscience that I would get caught but I ignored that small voice, convincing myself that nothing would go wrong.