Never too old to start

Life, even with its ups and downs, will settle into a usual rhythm. You will not enjoy the sunshine outside if your inside world is flooded with dissatisfaction and disappointment. You might complain to yourself continuously that world is full of unfair changes. This unfairness, you will only remember when you are in the middle of the whirlwind of change. Perhaps you may decide to be a spectator instead of a fighter in fear of getting into trouble.  Taking the change in the stride or changing its shape to suit you is entirely your choice.

Don’t be scared to change your attitudes and opinions, even if this means changing your entire outlook to life. The change comes with the experience and the difficulties you have gone through in life. It is perfectly normal to dislike someone whom you have respected all this while. It is perfectly alright to look up to someone whom, you all this while, took to a villain. Don’t be scared when you are able to see through the people whom you thought had superior judgment and strength to thrive in hard times. It is not the discovery of the century, when you can see the stupid mistakes they continue to make while ignoring the outcry. The transparency of their characters is not a result of a new disease. Only you have begun to see things more clearly. But, this does not mean you have the super power to enforce your opinion on the others around you.

Never hesitate to admit the fact that you were not the best judge of characters. Being deceived, let down, trampled and abandoned by those whom you trusted most will only teach you not to place absolute trust in anyone; because nor human being is absolutely perfect.

Have no strings attached to your worktable. Ethics might demand you to be married to the mound of files on your desk or the heap of spreadsheets and project proposals in your computer. The truth is that a file can go from one hand to another, and even if you see that it is not being handled the way it ought to have been done, it doesn’t fall within your line of duty to instruct or authorize the proceedings.

A world awaits you beyond your cubicle walls. If you shut the office doors against its beauties, you are a fool. If you are one of those people who take office- trash home, it is high time you have bigger dustbins near the work exit to avoid littering in your world of tranquility.

You deserve your share of sunshine and it is nobody’s business but yours to lift your face to the sun. Just remember, sometimes even a chocolate-taster can get sick of his job! And you are never too old to start all over again.

Flying in the rain

An untimely rain was falling against the inflamed, mid-day Colombo streets.  And a shade-less bird was flying against the shamelessly heavy skies. Looking out from the third-floor office window I thought a shade would do very little for the already soaked crow. Yet it kept twitching its heavy wings against the grey clouds and soon disappeared.
Long after it went out of sight I kept wondering why the crow didn’t take refugee of any of the high rise buildings that crowd the Colombo skyline. Like anyone else, did it have a specific place in mind to rest? As a kid I always wondered where all the birds went when it started raining all of a sudden. I always wanted to find out whether they took shade under random trees until the rain stopped or they kept flying in the shower until they found their nests.  For some strange reason, I felt every one of us had been or will be in the situation of the crow which kept flying in the rain.
Perhaps, if someone knows what awaits him or her at the end of the journey, keep flying in the rain would be the better thing to do, rather than stopping under unknown trees. The sky is sure to break into thunder many times and the winds will change its direction without prior notice. The speed and the size of the raindrops will vary from time to time. Perhaps it will rain throughout your journey or you may come across sunny skies in its course. This does not guarantee that the sun will remain shinning till you finish your journey. So, while you keep drying your soaked wings, keep in mind that sky will change its mind any moment and you will be back on the square number one.
But the silver lining of it will be that, you have covered half or three quarter of your journey and the toiling has energized you so much that even if you have to start from the very beginning, you will have the strength and the courage to see the end of it. Sometimes, it is okay to take the long route which has more trees and buildings to cover you from the wind. Sometimes you will need a minute to breathe because your journey has been a long one. Sometimes there will be people who envy your wings and hate their strength. Sometimes no one will raise their heads to look at you because you are just an ordinary bird devoid of shiny peacock feathers.
But always keep in mind that your journey is always for your sake, and it’s the nest that was built for you and your efforts awaits at the end of the trip. If others applaud it, be happy. If others want your wings or try to step into your nest, after making the long trip, you will know you can always make a better and stronger one!

Lessons you keep learning

At one point of your life, you come to realize that when you stop worrying about your health, your health stop worrying about you.  Every time you prod down foods contaminated with preservatives, you make your tongue your friend, but the rest of the body, your enemy.  Just because you run for your day-to-day things with so much, never come to the conclusion that your body tolerates your fickle eating habits. Like the nature, it will show you its fury when you exceed its tolerance levels.
Exercise is not as torturous at it sounds. It is rather fun, once you get the taste of it. You need not have expensive exercise machines or gadgets to keep you fit. If you are an outdoor person, the road is the best machine you can find. If you are an indoor person, yoga will  be a better option.
Don’t mess with your sinus. If your doctor advises you to keep away from cold beverages, ice-cream and cold showers, it’s better if you listen to him. Midnight or early morning showers may sound very romantic, but the repercussions are not so. Your mother knows your medical history better than you do. So, understand that   she has a point when she insists that you drink lukewarm water and forget about the comforts of iced water.
Skip lunch if you want, but never skip your breakfast. It doesn’t have to be a regal meal with thirty-two dishes, but something that is enough to put your gastritis to sleep.
Eat fruits in their natural condition-straight from the tree, rather than straight from the tin. Pick them over cooked snacks such as fries and pastries. Indulge in chocolate, but don’t become a chocoholic. Fall in water.
Keep your mind healthy to keep your body fit.  Stop worrying about things that are beyond control. Be it a great happiness or a sadness that hits the very bottom; don’t take it too much to  the heart. Things are subject to change and nothing remains the same in life-sometimes even the memories.  Try not to get hurt when you are being let down by the people whom you trust the most. When you fall of short of challenges you tried to overcome, don’t beat yourself up for the failure. You cannot put right the hypocrisies of the people which were encouraged or ignored by their parents and respective environments since childhood.
Live for yourself and make others live happily through the life you are gifted with

Love a girl who thinks

Love a girl who thinks about others more than she thinks about herself. That’s the kind of a girl you need when you forget to think of yourself. Fall in love with her empathy and caring nature, for, after your mother she will be the only woman who will have a genuine interest to find out how you are faring.
Love a girl who thinks about little things. She will know how you want your evening tea and when to leave you when you start biting your nails, watching the final quarter of a heated football match. Love her for taking seriously your stupid childhood passions and understanding how much these trivial things matter to you.
Love a girl who thinks about the present. She will never compare present with past and future. She would never complain about forgetting her birthday nor will she ever remind you of the surprise birthday party you threw for her in your first year together. Love her for her sensibility but do not take it for granted.
Love a girl who thinks about crazy things. Listen to her when she says how she caught a man in the bus wearing pink socks with leather shoes. Laugh at the cartoons she sketches, for there’s so much to laugh about even though she can’t draw half so well as you.
Love a girl who thinks out-of-the-computer. For she will still prefer making a card for your anniversary rather than sending an e-card, and when she has to break the news about the new arrival to the family, It will never be a mere SMS. Love her for not getting swept by the currents of technology.
Love a girl who thinks the story of life is written by the person who lives it. She will make you feel that the stars you kept reaching for, have finally fallen into your backyard. She will stick with you through thick and thin and show you nothing indeed is impossible.
Love a girl who sometimes thinks of nothing. She will see the brightness of your eyes in the raindrops drooping down from the kitchen window. She will think of your smile when she cooks your favourite dish for dinner. She will meet portions of yourself in the fictional heroes she admires. she will boast about you among her girlfriends.
Love a girl who thinks about you. She will still love your hair even on the days you run out of hair gel. She will know what is best for you, when you don’t know it yourself. And she will keep loving you despite your blaring temper. The next time when you say, you do not want her, she won’t take you seriously at all!

Fickle faithfulnesses

Loyalty is not something that can be bought for money. If one thinks loyalties are buyable-then the quality of such loyalties are questionable. Loyalty is something one has to earn, win, or deserve. Such loyalties cannot be bought for money, nor can they be easily changed.
Be it in a relationship or in an institution, a lot depends on faith each party has in the other. In fact, a strong loyalty is not a work of a day, but a gradual development over the years. Trust is built on reliability, care and the feeling of safety in each other’s presence. This reaches to a point where one will put the other party before his or her own self ; this can be called loyalty.
No matter whether it’s a relationship between parents and children, siblings or between two lovers, loyalty is a strong emotion which makes one stand up for the other, and be there for himself or herself irrespective of whether they are right or wrong. Loyalty assures the long run of a relationship.
What makes someone to change their loyalties may be a question with many answers. It can be a little misunderstanding grown out of proportions with time. It can be the inability to reach mutual grounds when two parties are involved in an argument, or it can simply be the fact that one has exhausted his or her tolerance levels in the attempt to immerse into the other party’s way of living.
In an institution, loyalties of the employees are considered a long lasting assert. These loyalties also change for many reasons. It can be anything ranging from lack reachability and concern on the part of the employers to de-motivation of the individual.
All in all, these loyalties, once lost are very hard to be restored. New and powerful packages may be strong enough to keep them bound to their chairs. But very rarely does one forget that, by offering those who tried to fly, an arm and leg, those whose integral loyalties that never made them complainers, only feel sidelined and belittled.