When did we suddenly grow up?

Warning - Reading of this post may potentially waste away 5 minutes of your precious day filled with stuff which you planned on doing but probably will end up cancelling.

Okay so once again I've been feeling the mood to write so I thought why not tackle a little issue that I'm sure a few people have been feeling lately or least are itching to talk about. The past few weeks back home in Dubai and this last year in general has been a bit of an eye-opener for me. I got more interested in job applications than what my juniors were doing, swapped day long naps with an evenly (read 'evenly') balanced scheduled and weirdly enough stopped caring so much what some people thought of me. Arguments over stupid things seemed like an irritation that I'd rather avoid and in all honesty I got bored quite fast of what the entire world was up to. When on Earth did I ever start self-reflecting? God knows but I kinda like it. Anyway getting back to point of the ever impending change of our teenage lives.

I'm probably being a hypocrite for writing this but then, it's my blog so what are you going do? Still writing helps me think clearly so I felt it useful that I at least give this piece a shot.

So now for the few of you out there who are like me and seem to find life amidst transition what exactly are you feeling? To me growing up meant the freedom to leave the house at 1:30 in the morning, drive really fast to the beach and just sit down and stare at the ocean. Now typically you'd need a set of extraordinarily trusting parents and a car with an amazing sound system to basically blast your music into. It also meant the change of actually knowing what was right and wrong when it came to making decisions. I started trusting my instincts more and knew that the opinions I held, flawed to say the very least, were at least honest based on how I felt. Focus became an important issue and I desired to take more of life in rather than aimlessly watch the days fly by. True my daily routine got hectic, tiring and I often felt overworked, but I loved every sweat inducing moment of it.

In all honesty I wrote this post to challenge the minds of those who may be still within that cycle of leaving a part of their lives behinds and beginning a new one. What do you feel you need to give up? What exactly brought you down? Did the things you did matter so much?

So a friend of mine lately brought up this rather disturbing piece of news that I won't get into but it somehow drifted towards me turning 20 in a few months time. Now most people are genuinely terrified about entering a new era of their lives but to me it weirdly seems like a welcome change right now. Maybe it's because when I look back at the past 19 years of my life, the problems I've faced, the person I used to be and genuinely what I've become I can confidently say, at least to myself, childhood well spent.

Now if you can give me a chance to go through a bit of a memory trip, I have a little challenge for you. Take out a little piece of paper and jot down the numbers 10 - 19 on it. For each year write down one defining moment in your life be it good or bad and appreciate the fact that you're still standing after all of it. If you can do that, then trust me when I say this, it's going to be alright. For the younger ones, try and fill up till the point where you are right now and aim to fill each remaining space with a memory that actually will withstand the passage of time. For you, the greatest gift of all is what can be.

Well that's probably all I have to talk about right now. I mean it's not much but I kinda like how my thoughts seem to spell themselves out into words. It seems to make everything, a lot more human...

Till next time.

The Brilliance of Life, Understanding it... and other Shenanigans

I seem to enjoy posting at the most awkward of times it seems like. I mean practically most of you must be in hibernation mode with your nose stuffed into books as if they were providing you with life giving oxygen. Still it's been a while so I thought why not. Since the final term of university is upon us and with year one coming to a close I thought I'd look back at some of the things I've learnt and draw upon why they mattered.

For starters, I know for sure that this year I lost nearly half of my high-school friends to the unfortunate passage of time which slowly eroded any relationship that I might have had with them throughout our teenage life. It seemed saddening at first but then I realised that it was a necessary change to occur. We as individuals don't realise that sometimes we make friends to maintain the social convenience rather than actual mutual interest with each other. The so called 'gangs' we had as teenagers seems as if a thing of the past. Truth be told there was a lot of tension within those gangs and it seemed natural that after a while the ties which held us together slowly started to fade as we realised the insignificance of them. What was that irritating line in frozen ? Right 'It's funny how some distance makes everything seem small'. So with all of us so far away, the stress of trying to always fix things didn't come to me and I felt liberated by the fact that if things were meant to happen this way... then they happened for a reason. Not that I don't miss each and everyone of them though, the friends I made in highschool were a great bunch so it does sting that we've grown so far apart.

Making temporary snow cones - Like a boss

Another thing I feel I must point out is that university is a lot about balance. Honestly this lesson took way too long to learn but it felt good when I eventually did. I mean in all honesty it's all about bringing as much of your life's old routine back into your university life. Be it as simple as a game of football with your friends, or waking up early enough to actually have breakfast and lunch. Balance is an important part of our life even if we don't realise it. Bring back what was once good for you, take on those that improve you and discard those that don't. Most importantly I finally found a place where I can truly relax and feel as if I'm not simply living in a place that I'm here for temporarily but rather the potential for a permanent home. In all honesty I did rob that last line from one of my history lectures wherein the countries that the British invaded either prospered or collapsed depending on whether or not the migrants wanted to settle or simply rob the place of its resources. Funny how education comes up in the weirdest of places

Finally I felt humbled for the first time in my life to be a part of something so large and brilliant. University truly gives you the channel within which you can witness the world from a safe haven. Honestly I can come across as cocky, arrogant and even downright crude sometimes, but I'm learning to change, and one of the most important factors that caused that it is realisation that without the desire to improve, you're always going to be bested by others who do. You can sit on your laurels of the past and gloat about your glory days, but I'd much rather fall down multiple times, dust myself off and get right back up and face any challenge. Whether through life's successes, or personal development in the case of me, humility through gain and most of all a desire to keep fighting, this is a journey that I have yet to even reach the fork roads of. 

What I do believe though is that there's a lot more left to learn and I plan on cherishing every moment of it that I can. Summer is nearly here and there's a lot left to do. Till then...

To New Beginnings (Part 2)

I'm going to start this week's post with a story. It is a true story but I'll be using attributes here and there from people I know.

There was once a very, very lonely boy. He spent all of his time by himself completely disconnected from the world around him. He thought he could never trust anyone around him since he was always the one getting picked on. As a result he thought he didn't require friends; he believed that people were fools if they felt that they needed others to help them get on with their lives.

The years passed on and this boy grew up lonely and miserable. His joy came from degrading others since he felt he was superior to them. He was the king of his own world yet he didn't realize that the population was only one. As the years passed his hatred was channeled towards other things. His greed to prove himself better at everything made him work harder than anyone else at everything he set his mind to. He prospered, and for a little while he was happy at the top. However, he soon realized, that when you're better than everyone else, there isn't anything left to chase after. Unhappy even with his new found success, the boy vowed to change himself.

He first tried being a person of multiple personalities. The air of mystery surrounded him and people were curious as to see who this person was. However personalities are only as good as their consistency and the constant lashing out to his friends pushed them away as he tried to once again dominate a group he felt he was better than. He didn't realize that there were aspects to life that even with all his determination he couldn't become good at. So he fought and argued and pushed those who cared for him further and further away; so much so that whatever concern his friends had for him was dissolved into a sea of hate. Clearly things weren't going the way they planned so the boy abandoned these people and chose a new group to find.

For his next attempt at climbing the social ladder, the boy chose a different route. He made a great success as a mentor to others, using his knowledge to make friends with those he felt his intellectual equals. However his jealously grew whenever he was outperformed and a rift was created that he felt wasn't worth repairing. He engaged in gossip as a hobby and found great happiness in interfering in other peoples lives. This would be okay to an extent if the reason for inquisitiveness was out of genuine concern rather than the boy's selfish desire to know more about others than everyone else did. His smug look of all-knowing was what brought fear into many of his friends who were afraid by what he could do with the information he knew about them. However, once the gossip was used up, the boy grew bored and moved onto the next group of unsuspecting individuals with a different idea as to how to be popular amongst them.

For his final try at popularity. The boy chose to be the complete opposite of the person he actually was. He tried to seem friendly and kind to those around him, and was perfectly willing to open up about his life to anyone who chose to ask him. Yet no one could actually say that they truly knew what he was thinking. Nobody could understand what sort of person the boy actually was and to an extent that intrigued those around him even more. He was mysterious, fun at sometimes, and quite appealing to anyone around him. However, there were those times when he seemed unhappy for no reason whatsoever and when questioned by his friends the boy simply blew them away telling them it was nothing at all. Now since a relationship is a give and take job, those around him were unhappy by the way they were being treated and chose to distance themselves from the boy. Depressed by how everything in his life seemed to be going wrong, the boy cursed the world for bringing this upon him and chose to simply abandon everyone and start anew.

Our story ends here.
If you're wondering what happened to the boy, twenty years down the line he was found by all three groups of his old friends and they were amazed by how he had changed. For the first time since they had known him, they found the boy happy. Genuine happiness, the kind without a single drop of greed, hatred or envy hidden underneath. When asked what brought about his drastic change he simply replied, " I stopped trying to be what others wanted me to be and simply chose to be myself".

For this story there are 8 different people I've used for inspiration. Each of them had their own personal share of demons and these have been molded into the story that I've created.

If you're wondering why I'm writing this post it's because for many of us a new year is dawning. As we know every year we promise that this one will be different. Yet halfway down the line we give up on our promises and resort back towards our old comfortable versions of ourselves. After all if change were that easy, then staying constant wouldn't be considered a word.

However, I'd like to give you a bit of advice that a lot of people have told me over the years.

Be 'humble'

There's not much more of itself I can say. Seeing as humbleness is the most difficult thing to achieve in this world, it's no wonder so many of us claim to have achieved it. Let me tell you something, if you thought to yourself after reading the above line, that you were humble, then definitely you are not.

Being humble comes without realization and it is probably one of the greatest gifts one can receive. While I am by no means an expert on this particular topic, heck I'm not even a novice, I do know what happens if you aren't humble and trust me it isn't all that great.

I wanted to write more but I think I'll stop now. Seeing as most of you probably have school the next day, I've probably made you late for your first day. Still I'm glad I could share this with you, seeing as the true significance of this post is far more than what it appears to be. Till next time.

The Pursuit of Happiness

Been a while hasn't it? I'd say welcome back but we all know that no one is desperate enough to continue to come back to this site. So instead I'll start of with a friendly 'hello' and hope that what I'm probably going to write right now will seem interesting enough for you to spend a couple of minutes on.

So earlier this week results came out. Now these aren't your regular end of term 'next-time-I'll-do-better' results, this is the real life-deciding deal; and for many of us they weren't what we expected. So now how do we deal with that? I could stand here spouting all sorts of bull crap about how things will get better, and of how life has set you on a new better path, but we all know that I'll be wasting your time with complete and utter nonsense.

Let's face it. This sucks. Definitely if your future was suddenly taken away from you, you wouldn't want consolation. You'd want to smash things; curse the world for being cruel; maybe even go on a wild rampaging spree... anything basically besides listen to someone tell you that it's probably for the best.

As a person who's been on both sides of the roads I know how frustrating it is from either point of view. If you're the one being consoled, you're seriously considering ripping out the throat of the one consoling you. If you're the one consoling, you know that if it were you in the opposite person's position, you wouldn't even wait around to listen to your shit.

So now what? Well to me I feel there are 3 stages that people in this situation go through.

First is grief - The eternal sadness of not achieving your dreams has finally hit you. Waves of guilt, vulnerability and most of all pain overcome you. You seem lost for a few moments as you contemplate 'what now?'. The thing that hurts most probably is if you're a self conscious person like me, you will always wonder whether people will now view you as a failure. This is your biggest challenge that you'll face, and you have to overcome it if you even plan on moving on

Next is blame - You've finally accepted your current situation and now you're on the warpath looking for someone to blame for what has happened. Maybe it's your friends who insisted you keep on partying late into the night. Or your parents for taking you out constantly when you felt you should have studied. Lets be honest (say the first two words fast) you are the own freaking boss of your destiny. Do not forget that you agreed to most of these things whether knowingly or not. Call it peer pressure, family pressure or any other pressure, you gave into it rather focus on your goals and now you're paying the price. When you finally realize this, you'll seriously wish that the price wasn't so high.

Finally is revival - This stages could come frequently in-between the other two former stages, but you'll know it's real when you finally start to let go. When you decide that enough-is-enough and moping around won't help anyone, you've finally started the healing process. What is soon to follow is the desire to do better. Changes to your lifestyle could either be radical or they could be slow and progressing. Whatever they may be it is important to realize that these changes do not guarantee success in the future. They could be obliterated as you settle back into your old habits, or simply not strong enough to make a difference. However they are something you're willing to try out for the time being. Therefore you've opted to take a different path, preferably a brighter one as you move out of the shadows and back into the sunlight.

So now that I've basically written out my life-story in these few paragraphs I'm hoping you'll at least be able to relate with me and what I'm talking about. True, disappointment sucks but you're only making it worse by letting it take a hold of you. We're only human for god's sake. Mistakes are bound to happen but that doesn't me that we let them take us down. We simply get up, dust ourselves off, and get back on the trail to find happiness.

In all honesty, the 'pursuit of happiness' is a battle, and if you're not fighting, then it isn't happiness that you're looking for.

Big Chapters Are Sometimes Hard To Close

Been a while since I wrote a post so I thought that it'd be nice to return with a banger of a piece. Now that I've embarrassed myself by saying the word 'banger' (that and the fact that I couldn't spell embarrassed without spell-check) lets get on with what probably is going to be a sad post.

See I even give warnings before starting my piece so that at least you have a heads up for what you're probably going to get yourself into. So now that you've foolishly decided to continue reading perhaps it's time that I actually started talking about today's topic instead of dilly dallying around.

Okay so a while back I wrote a post regarding the tiny chapters in our life. The little mini memories that aren't significant enough to cause any change, but are still worth remembering. Chapters like school trips, summer memories, fights with random people... the list goes on.

However this is different. There are times when major changes occur in your life; Changes you may not expect; Changes you may not event want. Yet they will occur and when they do it's best to realize it, rather than foolishly try and fight for something that was lost long ago.

Sounding rather cryptic aren't I? Well sometimes the closer you look the less you see (Yes I ripped that line off from 'Now You See Me'). Anyways getting back to the original topic. There will be a point when you will find yourself wondering how on Earth did you end up in this situation, with the walls backed up against you and the suffocation setting it. It is at that point that you know you're done, and maybe it's time to sign off from this part of your life.

Sometimes though you don't have control of how a chapter ends. While the norm is for you to have veto power as to how and when a chapter concludes; what happens when someone shuts it for you? In most sense, I as a person know how that feels, and let me tell you, it isn't a good feeling.

Sadly what can you do? Wishing things were different probably won't help; Fighting to keep something that has already ended won't help either. In fact probably the easiest thing to do is to just let go. When you bow to the inevitable, the inevitable becomes the expectation. You knew this would happen and when it did you prepared yourself for it. Perhaps things didn't happen the way you expected them to, but they did for a reason. Now while I'm sorta insane and don't actually know what that reason is, I do know that eventually I will learn to accept it.

To round off what is sure to be either a very confusing or incredibly clear post to all of you out there, let me say this; A chapter is a chapter for a reason, when one begins to close, it signals the start of a new one. So I guess all I have to do is wait now; wait for my next chapter to start.

To apologize for the inconvenience I may have caused by depressing you with this post, here's a Pikachu eating a lollipop. Cheers! 

Emotional Foreplay

Arousing title isn't it? Or maybe not... hey I bet this is like word-porn for Grammar Nazis. Moving on from that rather disturbing mental image that is now stuck in my head (I'll describe it for you if you ask nicely) I think it's time I admitted something that I personally have been a part of, and I'm sure many of you out there have been as well.

So Emotional Foreplay, funny kind of thought and even funnier how it is seems to actually make sense. We're all human, so we all have our own flaws, be it physical or mental. This time I'd like to talk about the mental part (don't worry I'm not insane... much) and how sometimes without realizing we abuse the powers of emotions.

Being a teen in his prime (yeah right) definitely hormones are going to be raging (don't take that sexually) and the brain is at it's most vulnerable at this time of our lives. We can read signs wrong, freak out over minor issues for no reason, even do things we're sure to regret in the later years (I know I have). Yet we still push on, confused and disorientated, but without a care in the world... Now the only issue here is that, what happens when those problems catch up with us?

Lately I've been thinking of my past (going to get all deep down here) regarding my life as a bubble, and the more I think the more I wonder how on Earth that bubble hasn't popped considering what all I've done. If you're like me and are awkwardly blunt about your opinions of others, then I'm sure there are moments where you completely regret what may have just said. This problem had unfortunately gotten so bad with me, that literally five seconds after saying something stupid, I'd realize I was an ass and wish I hadn't gone so far. Sadly words can't be taken back once spoken.

Getting back to the main point of this post, I wanted to ask you to think of how you've used emotions for your own purposes. Have you toyed with someone's love? Have you merely pretended to be close friends with a person who trusted you? Have you ever realized that what you're doing right now is wrong? I'm by far the worst person to be asking about this, mainly cause being hurt time after time gives you a sort of surrealistic approach to life. Right now, at this point of time while my fingers brush across the keyboard, I know for a fact that sometimes you've just got put on a brave face. It sucks to always be someone's target, but listen to me and I tell you what I've told nearly everyone who've asked me for advice (god knows why)... 'Let it go, because sometimes... they're just not worth it'.

Anyways that's my view, my perspective and my opinion. Its significance to you I'll probably never know but if it does help... then (and I say this in all honesty) I'm glad I could be of some use. In the mean time lemme show you the people who sometimes are worth fighting for... let's hope I'm right.

Disappointment... And why Imagination is better than Reality

Clearly I've realized that most of you have probably gotten bored with my whole 'depressing post' syndrome but this my blog so I'll say to you what I say to everyone else who criticize me, 'Deal with it'.

Now that we've got that out of the way let's move on with why I've decided to go all Devdas and write this ridiculous piece. Feeling disappointed is natural I guess, especially to teenagers who often complain about life not being fair. Truth be told some of us really don't realize how lucky we are because we choose to whine about the little things that we feel seem to matter. Now don't get me wrong, it's good to care about the little things, but making a big deal about a tiny problem won't solve anything. Someone once told me, 'Keep low expectations for everyone, cause in the end they're all going to let you down'. I don't think he realized how significant that one sentence would become or whether or not he too had played a part in it.

So now I'm going to take a slightly different route to this morose post and question why people get disappointed; perhaps the answer lies in the image we expect to be created, and the harsh reality that soon follows. To be honest (wow never thought I'd say that), a major contributor towards why we feel low is because of what we had hoped would happen.

These fantasies we devise, the scenarios we create and the pictures we envision are all grossly over exemplified and lack the discord that reality brings with it. Think about what I've said here (if you can understand it), haven't there been times when you were excited for something solely because of how you anticipated it would be, only to be let down when things didn't go the way they were planned? If that's the case then join the club, for everyone and anyone has at some point of time been deceived by their own imagination.

So now what? I for one really love immersing myself into the visions I can create inside my head, oblivious to my surroundings and free from all the negativity. Sadly though I can't stay in my dream world for very long, and sooner or later it's time to face to perils that reality brings with it. So from this I'll leave you with a piece of advice...  while imagination is good, and creativity is sometimes necessary to add a bit of mystery to your life, you should never let it take control of how you perceive life and how you decide to live it.

Change and why you miss the past

I've probably lost my mind right about now by taking on a topic so vast and unforgiving, but yet I feel that at least to me writing is the only way that I'll remember what I've learnt over the years. True to the point change is by far one of the most terrifying things a person can experience. What's even scarier is that usually we don't realize it.

I came upon this 'nugget' of information when I glanced upon (okay stalked) the ways in which so many of us have evolved from what we once were. Some like me have escaped from the suffocating shell of the lives we once led. Others have taken on a new personality that gives them the potential to be what their parents always knew they had inside of them.

So then why do I catch myself reminiscing about the past? Why does looking at old photos bring such a smile to my face? Truth is I don't really know.

They say human beings were put on this Earth to evolve. Yet why do our parents keep on wishing for the good old days? You know it's funny of how while writing this post the answer suddenly came to my lips, but I'll save that for later.

Now many of us can only see change as a physical aspect, something that seems different to us. True while in many cases changing one's inner-self may lead to a drastic change in our appearance, that is not always the case. In fact many a time I look back at my old photos wondering who I've become in these past few years . Can I honestly say, without a moments hesitation that I am better of than when I once was? 

True change is inevitable and life does need to go on, but consider the fact that time is endless and without consent it will  carry on. The trick though is how to utilize it. As I said earlier there is a reason out parents yearn for the good old days of their childhood... It's the only proof they have of a life well spent 

Dusting off old memories

It's weird how much I've wanted to try to do this again and yet been unable to do so for so long.
For all of you out there who are as perverted as I am, I was referring to starting a blog.

It's no secret that my last attempt at writing a blog was an epic failure, mainly because ; I'm lazy, I accidentally tried to rip off Adsense and I realized that I was posting articles about pets. So basically I had the writing capability of a toddler and trust me you do not want to write like a toddler. Still I have plenty of good memories of writing on that site (I forgot what it was called) and so I thought why not try it again. Yet something kept holding me back, the fear of opening up is one of them. I mean you can't expect any of us to actually be eager to share our thoughts and feelings to the general, now can we?

Despite what people say, no one & and I mean no one is an 'Open Book' even though they think it. There's always something to hide and there's always a hidden agenda between every action. So how do we sort the truly open from those who merely use it as a means of deceit? The answer is; how the hell am I supposed to know. If you think an Eighteen year old knows the answers to questions such as these, then clearly you are mui loco.

That said and done I think I'm going to like having a blog. Don't expect a new post every day or even every week because trust me sometimes you have absolutely no idea what to write about, and since I don't want to bore you with endless facts about guinea pigs (which I own 2 off) just relax, take a seat and maybe I'll tell you a story or two once in a while. Till then maybe it's time for me to sign off