Capriciousness !!

The words – irrational, whimsical, capricious; all are branches of the same tree. These words are always perceived in a negative manner. Yes, they may sound negative with the use in our daily life; all of them can be attributed to a single feeling i.e. mood swings.

We often use the term “mood swing” very casually in our daily life. Mood swings are often correlated to as a roller coaster ride. The roller coaster ride still has a starting and an end point, unlike mood swings which don’t have a definite ending.

Almost everybody in this world have mood swings in a way or other. Right from a small child to powerful leaders like Hitler; everybody has their own mood swings. In the lockdown period, it is pretty much justified to have mood swings while we are under continuous threat, stress and depression. It’s often said that women have more mood swings than men; to some extent it’s true as they undergo more rapid hormonal changes compared to men. But, both men and women have mood swings owing to hormonal changes, stress, depression, lack of sleep etc. So are these mood swings pretty much normal and a part of our modern lifestyle?

Well, it certainly depends on the situations in and around you.

Just think you didn’t have enough sleep at night since you were texting someone special the previous night (shhh…. Yes, that will be a secret with me!) and your mom suddenly wakes you up early in the morning. Ultimately, you wake up in a bad mood. Then, you carry out your regular chores – have your perfect cup of tea/coffee (made by your mom), get ready after a cool shower on a sunny day and you feel fresh. After reaching your workplace, you have to attend to your boss and he gives you a list of unlimited tasks to carry out in a day itself. You feel very stressed and annoyed at your boss for assigning loads of work. But then, a short tea/coffee break with your favorite colleague at work provides you the much-needed motivation to complete the tasks. You finally complete your work and leave for the day and reach home (where your family is waiting for you) with no worries of work.

That’s what you would say at the EOD after facing all the ups and downs throughout the day!

So the situations are normal, but are these mood swings acceptable? It completely depends on the frequency of the mood swings and the person you are with. They are normal so long it does not affect you and the surrounding people.

One of my relative was working in a top MNC. She was a humble, sincere and dedicated employee of theirs. Everything was going normal other than promotions because of all the regular politics in a top brass company, yet she was happy as she was doing the job she loved. She went to office the other day and was called on by the boss. She was immediately handed a termination letter without being informed the reason. She immediately called upon her higher ups to know the reason but to no avail. Neither the boss owed an explanation. Thus, she was a victim of boss’ capriciousness.

Mood swings are sometimes good and sometimes bad. If a woman is in her pregnancy and she has her mood swings, it’s considered normal and her man handles her mood swings in a very playful way. Similarly, in a friendship/relationship the other person who has committed to stand beside them in all of their moods and/or situations can handle their mood swings respectfully. But when we are interacting with a third person and imposing our mood swings on them, they might not take it in a playful and friendly way and it may disturb you and the people around you. Also, the mood swings are good till they are not frequent. If they are periodic, it may be a symptom of mental illness or something more serious.
So what can be done?
You just have to stay in a good mood all day?
No! That’s practically impossible. We cannot always be in a good mood, all we can do is:
Lead a good and healthy lifestyle
Don’t be sleep deprived
Take adequate rest
Share your ideas/thoughts with your family and friends

Let me know your thoughts and your mood swings!

Birth-days’…..

What’s on my mind?

Am I going crazy here?

There are no birthdays’, every creature on this earth celebrates only a single day every year –their birthday.

But wait, here I have purposely split birthday with a hyphen. So, Birth-days’ refer to the days after our birth; it may be any number of days which are gracefully inscribed in our destiny or the time we are on earth to make the most of the lovely gift called life.

While I was deciphering above thoughts; a thought came through my mind of the fallen apple on Sir Isaac Newton’s head (I know a very cliché thought but that’s what we have been listening to from our childhood). As history reveals, the apple fell on the head of young Isaac Newton that prompted him to come up with the law of gravity. The purpose of life of that apple which fell on Newton’s head was accomplished. While the purpose of the apple was accomplished, it could happen only after the birth of the apple (from the apple seed planted). The birth of that apple was the beginning of its journey towards its final goal.

Birth- a lovely gift for a person /a thing to begin their wonderful journey!

The growth of a plant from the seed also marks the birth of the fruits that the tree will bear in the future. When a woman gives birth to a child, the birth marks the beginning of his/her journey towards his/her life and hence we celebrate the first birthday, so is the case with marriage anniversaries and so on. Then, the question arises; why do we celebrate it every year? We have already celebrated the beginning of our life. Yes, but celebrating a birthday every year is not just cutting a cake and meeting friends for the sake of celebration, it’s a day between the past and future to remind us the purpose of our birth.

Birth is a beginning,
And death a destination
But life is a journey,
A sacred pilgrimage
Made stage by stage—
From birth to death
To life everlasting.

• Source (from Gates of Prayer: The New Union Prayer Book)

These words also state the journey of life is achieved in stages.

The first birthdays, anniversaries, institution foundation days are celebrated in a grand manner like there is no tomorrow. The celebration observes a decreasing trend as years’ progress which shouldn’t be a thing. When we were young, we were fond of celebrating our birthdays and as we get older, we don’t celebrate since we are afraid we will not be able to live the past again. We should never be afraid of the past yet ready to serve the ultimate goal.

Mythology also reflects the same in a way: Lord Vishnu reincarnated in different avatars to serve a definite purpose. Lord Vishnu took birth in various forms to accomplish the purpose of lives of all the avatars. The only difference in this analogy is that we don’t know the purpose of our life initially, but as the stages in our life progress, we become more aware of the purpose of life.  

We can’t predict how many days we have from the day of our birth, but we can surely make everyday count for the wonderful life and enjoy our birthday every year with the same zeal and enthusiasm. That is the only reason we celebrate our date of our birth viz. birthday and not birth year since it comes each year.

So, “don’t count the days after your birth, make the days’ count”.

Friends – With you, for you and a part of you!

“Friends” – a word which we utter, write and listen indefinitely in our lifetime.

In the 21st century, as we hear the term friends, the first thing that strikes through is the famous web series F.R.I.E.N.D.S. The title of this web series always puts you in a fix. Why there are full stops in between all these words? The title should just be friends and not F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Right? There are many theories to justify the title and every theory is right in its own way.

If you ask me, I would rather relate the full stops to different phases of life. The title thus refers to friends we meet in all walks of our life. From our childhood, to schooling, college, office and retirement; we make new friends one by one but also don’t miss out on our old friends.

It is just like tying the links of a chain and not breaking the chain. All links are equally important to form the everlasting chain. Who will know better what it feels like even if one links of the chain is missing than me! I lost a strong link of my chain, my close friend a year before in an accident. We don’t know when the links will break and go away, but always have the opportunity to create a good chain of links in the first place. That’s what we should be grateful for!

In this era, to find good and true friends is the key to happy life. In this technology driven world, we are surrounded by “many” online(bad) and “some” of our offline(good) friends.

The reason I have quoted good and bad in parenthesis is that mostly offline friends are easy to meet, greet and have a one-to-one conversation unlike online ones.

The success mantra to find good friends is to ensure there is a two-way traffic in your friendship. Your friends are not true friends; If they are not with you in your tough times when you need them the most; if they are only in friendship for the sake of their own benefits and turn a blind eye when they are not gaining from the situations, and lastly if they are not a part of all the ups and downs in your life.
In short, true friends are “With you, for you and a part of you.”

So don’t miss out on any of them!