The best way to start anew is to start simple yet big! Simplicity is attractive in any form; whether it is the simplest form of an idea, design or even a human being. It carries with it the power to affect thousands when complexity restricts itself just to a handful. There are numerous examples around us where a simple idea became a big time hit! Whether it was Apple's iPod, Google's home page or Indian "jugaads". Ideas like Mahatma Gandhi's non-violent movement, Nelson Mandela's efforts on reconciliation (forgiveness) or more recently Juan Mann's free hugs campaign were simple yet powerful enough to carry their effect through the human biases. The inherent infectious nature of these real simple ideas leaves us happily vulnerable to unknown outcomes that always follow them.
As I welcomed 2011 into my life I was asked by someone whether I had any new year resolutions. A confession here, I am not a resolution kinda guy. But that set aside I thought why not make resolution(s) that are simple yet big! I thought hard for anything tangible but ended up with nothing after some sessions of mental delirium. But then, eureka! I decided to make a couple of ideas as my resolution. Just to think, it looked like a very easy resolution but it turned out that to remember something is tougher than quitting smoking. The next step was to zero in on a few ideas that could go in my kitty. It is always good to dig past in such cases.
A while back in 2010 I saw an interview of actor Mark Ruffalo on Inside Actors Studio. He talks about how his acting teacher Stella Adler impresses on elevating yourself to the level of the character you're playing instead of dragging it down to your level. He talks about a scene where he was "sucking like a dry wax sucking". The line was about realizing to "live" because "you go the graveyard and they're dead". He adds, "So this was a very simplistic idea of a big idea. We learn from graveyard to live!" (Eventually he was able to raise himself; out of fear to hold onto the idea of living). Now that's a simple idea that "I am alive". But I seem to have forgotten the relevance of my breath. The minute I realize "I am alive" most of my fears and prejudices take a back seat. I realize I have been failing to tap to this life energy all this while. It fills me with hope and restarts my dream machine. To keep myself reminding that I am alive is my first resolution for this year.
Sometime back I wrote about writer's block and quarter-life crisis. Both these topics represent a state of mind. But more importantly both also represent the discontentment and fear that takes hold of mind. The root cause appears to be the loss of happiness within. I don't seem to feel happy about me instead I am looking for something out of me to provide happiness. I have forgotten that reaching in gives happiness. Maybe happiness never left me I just managed to bury it within layers of fears and biases. Julia Roberts said something similar in one of her interviews, "The easiest way to live with yourself in this big, scary world is to love yourself. If you love yourself you will forgive yourself, right? You won't bury yourself within heaps of self-doubts, expectations and denials." So my second resolution is to keep reminding myself "I am happy with me" and the key is within me.
These are two simple yet powerful thoughts. They have the divine power to free me of myself so I can look at the stars shining for me (that's my blog's headline).
An essay by
Pushkar Bajpai
As I welcomed 2011 into my life I was asked by someone whether I had any new year resolutions. A confession here, I am not a resolution kinda guy. But that set aside I thought why not make resolution(s) that are simple yet big! I thought hard for anything tangible but ended up with nothing after some sessions of mental delirium. But then, eureka! I decided to make a couple of ideas as my resolution. Just to think, it looked like a very easy resolution but it turned out that to remember something is tougher than quitting smoking. The next step was to zero in on a few ideas that could go in my kitty. It is always good to dig past in such cases.
A while back in 2010 I saw an interview of actor Mark Ruffalo on Inside Actors Studio. He talks about how his acting teacher Stella Adler impresses on elevating yourself to the level of the character you're playing instead of dragging it down to your level. He talks about a scene where he was "sucking like a dry wax sucking". The line was about realizing to "live" because "you go the graveyard and they're dead". He adds, "So this was a very simplistic idea of a big idea. We learn from graveyard to live!" (Eventually he was able to raise himself; out of fear to hold onto the idea of living). Now that's a simple idea that "I am alive". But I seem to have forgotten the relevance of my breath. The minute I realize "I am alive" most of my fears and prejudices take a back seat. I realize I have been failing to tap to this life energy all this while. It fills me with hope and restarts my dream machine. To keep myself reminding that I am alive is my first resolution for this year.
Sometime back I wrote about writer's block and quarter-life crisis. Both these topics represent a state of mind. But more importantly both also represent the discontentment and fear that takes hold of mind. The root cause appears to be the loss of happiness within. I don't seem to feel happy about me instead I am looking for something out of me to provide happiness. I have forgotten that reaching in gives happiness. Maybe happiness never left me I just managed to bury it within layers of fears and biases. Julia Roberts said something similar in one of her interviews, "The easiest way to live with yourself in this big, scary world is to love yourself. If you love yourself you will forgive yourself, right? You won't bury yourself within heaps of self-doubts, expectations and denials." So my second resolution is to keep reminding myself "I am happy with me" and the key is within me.
These are two simple yet powerful thoughts. They have the divine power to free me of myself so I can look at the stars shining for me (that's my blog's headline).
An essay by
Pushkar Bajpai
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