Whatever that doesn't kill you makes you Stronger...!!!

I read this little thing way back in 2007 in one of the forwarded emails.. I don't remember exactly who sent me that, but when I read it my immediate reaction was.. "wow.. perfect.. very well said..!!" Actually there is nothing new in it that I never knew or went through, I guess, not just me... none of us... but then when I read it, it seemed more like a properly put forward statement and has a punch in it.. :) Off late I have been thinking about so many things around this little line and finally arrived to the conclusion that they made enough material for me to compile a blog out of it.. :)

Yeah, so very true right.. like when you have something to deal with in front of you and it seems to be the end of the world, as if you are standing at the edge of huge sharp cliff top, or you are at the verge of drowning into a deep sea with water until your neck level, or the very next foot step will get you into huge valley of raging fumes, or you are just about to get sucked into a deep black hole and feel like you can never see light.. sounds familiar to many of us... the point is, we might have felt this way more than once in our life.. but the most important thing is, I am writing this today and you are reading it now, means we actually were not at the edge of the mountain cliff or in the deep sea or anything scary like that AND we crossed that situation somehow and made it through...

Ah, that indeed gives a sense of achievement, doesn't it? :) whatever made us feel like that, or scared us to death is no longer a big deal... next time when we are at similar point, we can bravely say.. "---yeah yeah.. I know you,..'been there.. done that'... thats easy... " yup it feels good... :) and thats what is termed as "experience", right?! Be it in career or in life when you are amidst tough times and believe me, everyone will find some solution or the other to come out of the crux and after that if you look back.. we feel "yes.. we did it.. that is behind us now... " and that leaves us with a valuable lesson which we can carry for life and share it with others who need it..

Just the way our body becomes immune to any disease when it attacks, we also become psychologically immune to tough situations and probably we ourselves wonder..'oh did we do that? so we could really do it?.. '

I want to share one wonderful experience.. I met one of my colleagues, Preeta, back in 2005 who worked for Mumbai branch. She visited Hyderabad for our annual meet and that was the first time I ever saw her. She was slim built and barely 5 feet tall like me. And that was just few weeks after the deadly days of heavy rainfall in Mumbai. Then I asked her.."how was it for you guys, how could you manage to get to home that night?" she said, "two of us girls were caught on the road as we already left work for the day and then we had to just walk for 8 hours all through the night with 4.5 feet water, all dark, no lights anywhere, ... and with no idea what we are stepping on, in the water, anything sharp, anything deep and in the continuous heavy rain. We just held our hands together all the way and I had to hold my neck upwards all the time as I am short and I have water until my chin.. finally we reached my friend's home.. yeah it was a scary night but we did it and today we are here.. " she smiled gracefully.. It literally awed me, and I had goosebumps all the time when she was narrating the incident.. but I saw her face calm and composed, looking through the incident with a sense of triumph.. :) I said.. "Preeta, I must tell you, you are a winner, it needs so much of courage to go through this situation, I mean we are not trained army people to sail through this kind of things, but you did it, and that is no simple thing, I appreciate your attitude of not giving up and just hanging on till you reach the destination..." and I requested her to speak few words to our team at our weekly cultural meet.

See now, for her, anything would be less than that night... right?!!

My guru (Sri Sirivennela Seetarama Shastry gaaru, a great and renowned Telugu Poet who pens lyrics for Telugu film songs. I am an ardent fan of him) aptly said the same thing beautifully in one of his songs and I love these lines..

"apuDu apuDu gatamE vetuku... suDilO paDitE salahaa aDugu.. gaDachina rOjulu talavaDamenduku Em laabham anaku ..

E dikkulu tOchani chikkula daarini daaTina naaTi smRti.. chUpada nee pragati"

(this song is the title song of MAA TV serial ammamma.com, please do listen to this whenever you get a chance... :) )

I am particularly impressed by the line I put in bold.. "when you actually were at a point where the way out was not so obvious and you felt direction-less but finally you put it behind you, and that memory, that experience.. doesn't it show your progress... ?" Oh yeah, couldn't agree more... (marokkasaari paadaabhivandanam guruvugaaru.. :) )

So, when we are actually facing a tough situation in life, it indeed gives us a great opportunity, either to learn a brand new lesson or to test our lesson learned earlier :) Oh! we could do this once, and so we can do it again probably better, and with more ease..

Every day is so beautiful offering loads and loads of exciting stuff.. enjoy it thoroughly... :)