What is "Forgive" and "Let Go" mean and How?

Yesterday for some reason, Siya was very angry with one of her friends and my suggestion to her was "Siya just let it go and forgive and forget about it". She precisely asked me what does "Forgive" mean? I really was lost and found it difficult to explain her. Decided to give a thought and write about the same today... (Seems like Siya is a big motivation for me to blog everyday :-) )

All of us, in some phase of life has been hurt by another person, we were treated badly, trust was broken, hearts were hurt. Many a times this pain is normal, sometimes that pain lingers for too long. We have a hard time letting go. This causes problems. It not only causes us to be unhappy, but can strain relationships, distract us from work and family and other important things, make us reluctant to open up to new things and people. We get trapped in a cycle of anger and hurt, and miss out on the beauty of life as it happens. Finally, whose loss is that?

We need to learn to let go. We need to be able to forgive, so we can move on and be happy. This is something I learned the hard way. I surely helped me to be happier. Trust me, forgiveness can change your life.

Forgiveness does not mean you erase the past, or forget what has happened. It doesn’t even mean the other person will change his behavior — you cannot control that. All it means is that you are letting go of the anger and pain, and moving on to a better place.

It’s not easy. But you can learn to do it.

If you’re holding onto pain, reliving it, and can’t let go and forgive, try the following:

• I would realize that I am hurt and I would wake up every morning and tell myself that "you need to forget it for your good". I would put in conscious efforts to let it go. I would think about the pros and cons. What problems does this pain cause me? Does it affect my relationship with this person? With others? Does it affect work or family? Does it stop you from pursuing my dreams, or becoming a better person? Does it cause you unhappiness? Think of all these problems, and realize you need to change. Then think of the benefits of forgiveness — how it will make you happier, free you from the past and the pain, improve things with your relationships and life in general.
• I would realize that I have no choice. You cannot control the actions of others, and shouldn’t try. But you can control not only your actions, but your thoughts. You can stop reliving the hurt, and can choose to move on. You have this power. You just need to learn how to exercise it.
• Try this: put yourself in that person’s shoes. Try to understand why the person did what he did. Start from the assumption that the person isn’t a bad person, but just did something wrong. What could he have been thinking, what could have happened to him in the past to make him do what he did? What could he have felt as he did it, and what did he feel afterward? How does he feel now? You aren’t saying what he did is right, but are instead trying to understand and empathize. Try to figure out how you could have been partially responsible for what happened. What could you have done to prevent it, and how can you prevent it from happening next time? This isn’t to say you’re taking all the blame, or taking responsibility away from the other person, but to realize that we are not victims but participants in life.

So, today is my day when I will be trying to explain Siya what is meant by forgiveness. Forgiveness is like buying Happiness for yourself !!!

Is there a better way of explaining her the same? Do let me know.

Doubting yourself ? This is what I do...

Self doubt has been something I’ve struggled with all my life, from debating whether I could be a good mom along with a great career!!! Self doubt also makes me feel alone. Sometimes I think that I am the only person in the universe who suffers from a crisis of confidence, and you wish that I could be more like my neighbor.

When I go through such a phase, this is what I do:

Remember the past: I make sure I first recognize that I am loosing on confidence. The moment I start doubting myself, rather start feeling insecure I start thinking about my achievement in past, how did I overcome all big problems, how did I handle my bosses, etc. That itself make me feel a lot lighter.

Constantly write: I have this bad habit of writing down a lot and all kinds of things from personal to professional to many. When I go through a phase like this, I pick up the oldest book and start reading the same. (Now since I will be blogging regularly, hopefully could read the same)

Spend time with Vipul and Siya: Often, our loved ones can see our lives much more objectively than we can. They act like cheerleader for me and feel much better to just be with them.

Celebrate your successes: For me, every small achievement is a success. I love to dream and dream big!!! That actually gets me going in life. I live my life as if each day is a celebration. You ought to believe that when you wake up in the morning, you are awake to contribute to the world. And hence it is really worth celebration. Many a times I do come across to people as if "I think no end of myself" but that is not true. It is just that if I would not have done this work, it would not have completed and hence I have filled in a gap. Is that not worth celebrating?

Upbringing of a child in today's generation

A few days back, I watched 3 idiots and was truly touched by that movie. It is just so true that life today is nothing but a race. Be it for a kids or be it for professionals. And it is really very sad to see myself being a part of this race. Siya got her report card last week where she managed "Above expectations" everywhere except "Dictation" where she got "Just met the expectation". My instant reaction to that was "I need to work on her dictation". That is just so unfair, how could even I think of the same. Apologies to Siya for the same.

India today needs "Thinkers". We need to get our kids to thinking more. Every child needs to be appreciated for the curiosity they are born with. Most of us will shut them off completely or be reluctant to answer their queries. We need to appreciate the fact that a they are THINKING. That itself will do a lot of wonders in the future.

Even in our professional lives, we have gone made to win a race. We just don't accept the fact that someone can be better than us, we have something to learn from them, we should be happy that we met them else who would have taught us the same. We need to kids all through out our lives where there is no ego, lots of questions and of course lots of thinking for themselves. What we are are thinking most of the times is "How do I beat her/him? How do I win the race?". This is just so wrong, every game has a winner or a looser, the question is how well you played the game and NOT who won....

Juggling between multiple things

Last Sunday when I went to college, was having discussion with my professor who is recently back from Harvard as to what is the difference student in B-schools there and in our college. Her reply to that was "it is not students who are different but it is the culture which is different. We Indian believe a lot in multi-tasking and handling more than one high priority task at a time. Hence the focus required really not achieved. While in the case of western countries, people do every bit of their day to day routine with a lot of passion. They will just not allow their family time to interfere with their office time and so on. That is one of the reasons they are really able to manage a neat balance between work and personal life.
On the same day, when I was chatting with one of my friends in the night, he said that he has always seen me multi-tasking. When I sit back and think, it is just so true. My day starts with cooking breakfact, lunch and dinner, followed by Siya's school, getting myself ready for office, handling more than one team in office, picking up Siya from some classes, take up her studies, listen to her stories, study myself, attend college over weekend, etc etc etc. Whoooaa!!!

I guess only a INDIAN WOMAN can do that :-)

My Home

Here is the story of my house hunt.....
I have some good 8 years of experience at work of which I have leaved for 6 good years on rent in Mumbai city. I earn decently well to leave a middle class life(with cost cutting and adjustments) and still manage to pay heavy rents staying in South Mumbai. When people would ask me "Why don't you buy a car, microwave, start your own business, etc?", my reply would be "Let me buy a house first and then all will fall in place". Why is so important to have your own house, is it not finally a materialistic possession?
"My Home" are two magical words. Using them:

• Gives you a sense of security
• Relieves you of stress
• Gives you a feeling of belonging
  
• Feels like you have won a big battle in your life

Mumbai city is just so expensive that my income levels never happen to match up with the prices of the market. Also, because of my daughter Siya, I really cannot move beyond South Mumbai. All I can get currently this side of city is 250 sq. Ft.

Wonder if I can crack this :-(

Can you be rich and still be a king?

I am sure everyone who is on the journey of entrepreneurship would go through this kind of a dilemma. This question came to me when we were discussing "Brand" for SME's. Of course these two topics have no connection but that is where we actually landed up.

There is a kind off irony here. You become a entrepreneur because you have the thrist of creating your own identity, you have the urge to innovate, venture out, try things that you like, be responsible for your actions and last but not the least, be in the control of your organizations goals and visions. You inspire to be a entrepreneur so that you can live a KING life.

And then comes a phase where you grow big and there is too much for one to take care off. You tend to loose your pace and find yourself dis-organized with things. So you move towards a step where you want to run your organization with professionals. You tend to move out of a family managed business to a professional corporate. This decision is taken only because you want to grow rich (generate profits). Because of this move soon you will find yourself not a king but a team player.

Are you contradicting the reason why you want to be a entrepreneur?

National Identification Project

We all have heard already about the national identification project. 2 weeks back, I had attended a conference where this project of National Identification was discussed. Curious to know more about it, I did come home and google about it immediately. In India, there is no formal national identification number unlike the US where we have the social security number. The closest India could come was with a PAN number generally used by the income tax department for tracking purpose. Govt has established Unique Identification Authority of India to issue Unique Identification number to each citizen of India. This Authority headed by Nandan Nilekhani, a former CEO of Infosys. This Authority will issue the first unique number within 12 to 18 months of its creation.

Reading this, I was truly impressed and wanted to be a part of the same. I need to be a part of a huge project like this to understand what does it take to be this huge. I am very sure that this will not be a easy way. I also want to volunteer myself to work on this project. But I am not sure how do I go about it. When I searched about it, did not get anything related to the same.