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... :)
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15 comments:
Excellent piece of observation and indeed one has to experience such situations in life atleast once.
What if.....(For keeping the ethics (?) of blogs)
Do you think that 'whatever' will become weak if you become stronger ?
What you experienced is one sided wherein the situation is the other side is dumb and something related to non-living things.
How wud you tackle a situation with personalities who create such a situation ? Do you become stronger ?
Thank you Ravi sir, for reading my post and responding :) and I will make an attempt to answer your points.
Do you think that 'whatever' will become weak if you become stronger ?
Sir, I believe that whole universe runs on theory of relativity, everything in the world is relative, we can see that we are moving only if we can look some other reference object which is stationary or moving with different pace. We can realize good only if we have something bad to compare with. This fact is by and large true and acceptable. When we become stronger the 'whatever' becomes weak relatively. I would like to mention very small and good old example here. When we have a line and if we have to make it shorter without touching it, we draw a bigger line next to it.
And also the word 'Stronger' is comparative :) some times it also means that we have become 'stronger' than our own self earlier.
How wud you tackle a situation with personalities who create such a situation ? Do you become stronger ?
I believe we always tackle really with the situations whether they are created by people, or by non-living things. We have to become internally strong to face anything or anyone. Strength always has to come from within and only then it can sustain, if it exists because of some 'X' outside us, it might disappear when 'X' goes off.
And once if we face a situation, we would have done something to come out of it.. unless it killed us... :) if it did not, then we learned at least one way of coming out of that kind of situation.. again created by people or things.. :)
and Sir, I also faced tough situations in life deliberately created by people.. :) and I do say confidently that all those times taught me so many valuable lessons which made me stronger than earlier.. and I believe that the experience I quoted of my friend Preeta is from a non living thing but then, it is about being internally strong and to show the attitude of not giving up or giving in.
Thanx for taking my comments in right spirit. I was worried if i have told something which will hurt you.
here goes my counter..
Actually in reality "Whatever that doesn't kill you should make you more tolerant".
You countered..
When we become stronger the 'whatever' becomes weak relatively. I would like to mention very small and good old example here. When we have a line and if we have to make it shorter without touching it, we draw a bigger line next to it.
By drawing a bigger line you are only satisfied that you have made the other line shorter. The other line will now wait for an opportunity to make you small. Instead 'tolerance' is more important and
Thanx for taking my comments in right spirit. I was worried if i have told something which will hurt you.
here goes my counter..
Actually in reality "Whatever that doesn't kill you should make you more tolerant".
You countered..
When we become stronger the 'whatever' becomes weak relatively. I would like to mention very small and good old example here. When we have a line………….bla…..bla….
By drawing a bigger line you are only satisfied that you have made the other line shorter. The other line will now wait for an opportunity to make you small. Instead 'tolerance' is more important and let the lines be as they want in their place.
I would quote that a ‘twig that bends is more stronger than the one that is stiff’
By emerging 'stronger' you are giving the opportunity for the other side or the situation to come back to you.
All these words 'stronger' are only temporary. It is closely related to 'ego'. I would rather prefer a person should be more tolerant to situations like this and 'a tolerant person emerges more stronger' than a person who is 'stronger' in select-situations only.
These so-called 'stronger' persons do not share their failure with anyone but a tolerant person never hesitates to share his 'weaknesses' with others.
One has the ability to turn philosophical only if he is ‘tolerant’ and not when he is ‘stronger’. He always wants to win over the situations which is just a ‘myth’. No doubt, this attitude is required to face situations but there is always an undercurrent.
By being ‘tolerant’ and ‘adjustable’ you can win more friends. You quoted your friend and admired her quality. Everybody has got his own ‘fundas’ and we must be original in our thoughts and my view is that being ‘tolerant’ you can drive the vehicle of life more easily. I believe till now that ‘NOBODY IS PERFECT’ and you always cannot thrust your opinions or ideas on everyone. ‘Situational Ethics’ is the quality which is needed for a person and if you are strong in your convictions you will be prepared for any situations and that is what your friend had.
Bye and lots of luv to dear PRAN(KSTER)AV…
the first four paras got repeated maybe due to some error in the blog. May be the 'software' wanted to read my comments twice to understand it better......
Sir, your comments did not hurt me but then I guess the essence of the post is mistaken. The words 'Strong, Strength' do not mean, physically strong or being stubborn and not to bend. It is about being stable and not let the situation make us go down with fear or make us fall apart psychologically.
And I constantly said 'facing the situation' not 'fight back the situation' which seems to be the inference taken out of my post, unfortunately which is not intended.
'Facing the situation' means to hold oneself and sail through the situation and actually 'deal with it' in some way or the other. One of the ways could be being tolerant to it, as you mentioned, and come across.
I did not intend to say 'try to kill' or 'win over' it. How can anyone win over a natural calamity like heavy rain fall or floods? May be the words I used like 'achievement' and 'triumph' suggested these inferences out of my post, but I meant about being holding oneself together and being strong within and not be 'stronger' than something or some one else.
And if someone is self confident, strong from within and composed while facing situations, why should it be considered as 'ego'? Ego is about imposing your strength on others, I believe.
And all these words :
One has the ability to turn philosophical only if he is ‘tolerant’ and not when he is ‘stronger’. He always wants to win over the situations which is just a ‘myth’. No doubt, this attitude is required to face situations but there is always an undercurrent.
By being ‘tolerant’ and ‘adjustable’ you can win more friends. You quoted your friend and admired her quality. Everybody has got his own ‘fundas’ and we must be original in our thoughts and my view is that being ‘tolerant’ you can drive the vehicle of life more easily. I believe till now that ‘NOBODY IS PERFECT’ and you always cannot thrust your opinions or ideas on everyone. ‘Situational Ethics’ is the quality which is needed for a person and if you are strong in your convictions you will be prepared for any situations and that is what your friend had.
I did not understand why my post made you feel like this.. my post in no way suggested anyone not be tolerant or adjustable and Sir, I do have many friends :). And the post was not intended to make anyone philosophical either :). Moreover I did not preach anything wrong or discouraging, it is only about being positive about everything in life and honestly there is no attempt made to thrust my opinions on anyone, and finally, "of course I am NOT perfect" :)
Thank you once again for all your responses :)
I agree "the essence of the post is mistaken" and withdraw my comments please.
Thank you for all the comments Sir, I learned few new things.. :)
I am glad that you read my blog and my posts and take the time to put forward your comments. I am honored Sir, thank you so much for that :)
Very thoughtful one Prabha garu. Whenever I am in a dilemma to take a decision, I just ask one Q - "What worst can happen?" That really helps me to take a bold decision. Now I will think of your blog line to forget unpleasant experiences and face the situations if I come across any.. :)
Haritha
thank you and way to go Haritha.. :)
baagundi prabhagaaru, mee post and mee comment. I feel that Sirivennela must get a doctorate for his songs on positive thinking! (Not that he needs or wants one :) )
very well said Sandeep gaaru :) We can use his songs as material for Personality development and therapy classes.. :) no exaggeration :)
I read many posts...buts your's are inspiring...motivating...making me think for a while...simply awsome...wish u luck and wanna have some more from you....
Thank you very much Manoj, for reading my posts and commenting. I will do my best to put across all my thoughts into my blogs, please keep reading :)
so prabha ur world is filled with pranav we also love him soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ............................ much.sridevi
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