Letting Go

This one is for you my dear friend

Have you ever wondered what happens to some relationships? Have you ever wondered why relationships twist, change, evolve and confound? Is it because change is inevitable? Is it because change is always for the better? Is it because people grow tired of sameness? Can't some feelings stay the same? Can't some relationships withstand the test of time and distance?

It seems like just a few hundred miles that separates people. And with today's electronic connectivity and ease of air travel, a few hundred miles translates to a couple of hours and a few hundred dollars. But the distance can still seem a world apart , especially since we have been so extremely close to each other. With the teary eyed goodbyes came promises to call everyday, countless whispered miss you's,  assurances to maintain the same bond, and plans to meet.

But I know for a certainty that the time will come to pass when life overwhelms people like it so often does. The sands of time will slither through your hands to be lost forever as new experiences, friends and events slowly fill your life and spread through your time like ink on blotting paper. I know that you will get caught up and swept away with everything happening in front of your eyes that you will seldom have the chance to reflect upon things happening yonder. And before we know it, the calls will start slowing down, the endless hours of gossip and mundanities will dwindle to minutes.  Vivid memories of all the times of togetherness will fade into fond remembrances that seems like vague dreams of a far-off place and time. And I know that sometimes the best I can do is let go.

And so the time will come when I will feel hurt because I know that I might still be clinging to the past. My greatest fear is that I would start to hold our bond, our friendship  and camaraderie so close that it would actually start getting out of my hands. I know people make new friendships all the time but I need to be reminded often that the true old ones are never forgotten but always cherished and celebrated. Despite that, I feel an infinite sadness that threatens to crush my soul and make me yearn for the olden times.True, you might no longer have time for me or no longer call as often but that doesn't necessarily mean that you do not care for me or love me the same way you used to. I realize that we have very different lives now and that we can no longer exist in the same bubble together cause sooner or later every bubble pops.

That time is around the corner. And so, I just want you to know, how lucky I am to have known you for this short time. And before it's too late, I want you to know that you were the best thing that happened to me in this strange, faraway land, and that, despite the numerous misunderstandings, fights and problems that we have been through, I would never, ever regret one moment of our friendship. I am sorry for the times I have been a lousy friend, for the times I have hurt you even though I never meant to, and for the times that I've let you down. Goodbye my friend. Wherever you go, whatever you do, I will always wish that you stay happy and live life to the fullest.

The little joys of life

Life is not always about getting that 6 figure salary, buying that fancy sports car, marrying the girl of your dreams or becoming a millionaire. Sometimes the small things in life, the little moments that most of us don't even notice, can be worth more than anything else we can ever gain in our life.

  The aroma of the first raindrop on dry earth.....

A steaming cup of coffee on a dewy, sunny morn...

Letting your feet slowly sink into the sand as the waves bound over your 

ankles at the beach

 

The pensive silence of hanging out with yourself at the library......

Whispered jokes and snide remarks in class

 

The days of quietly slipping out in the middle of class to gossip at the corner tea stall

Sipping hot chai in a dirty glass at the edge of a ramshackle tea shop barely sheltered from the rain

The random conversations with strangers on a bus

 

Driving through the winding smokies with one republic booming out of the stereo

  Huddling together by the campfire on a cold, fall night, drinking and singing.

  

The sweet smell of a brand new hard cover novel

  

Random late night drives with best buds.

 

  Sleeping in when it is pouring outside on a sunday morning.

  

 dancing like no one's watching

  Lying down outside and staring up at the heavens

The night dive - Diving in the keys - Day 2

Day 2 - Betty's Reef    

The Team

Day 2 started with an early 8 am dive at Betty's reef. The early morning air was a tad chilly and the seas were a little more choppy. In fact by the time we got to the reef, I was feeling a little queasy, so I had to wiggle into my gear fast and get in the water pronto. This was a deeper dive than the first two and visibility was reportedly a little low - about 20 ft. Our dive profiles were pretty basic - get in the water, bottom out at 45 ft, complete a skills check, ascend with one safety stop. The descent was pretty fine, but I again had to stop and pop my ears more than a couple of times before I was able to get to the bottom.

This reef was characterized by a huge bowl shaped depression that probably measured a good 200 meters across. The fine, sandy bottom of the depression had an abundance of small, colorful fish but an odd eeriness because when u reached the center of the depression, u really couldn't see the bowl's rim properly. If you squinted you might catch a shadow of the rim amidst the gloomy blue-green murkiness. So there we were at the bottom warming up with some mask remove-replace and buddy breathing exercises all the while communicating in hand signals. It was easy when we were first training in 5 feet of water in a swimming pool to come up and communicate verbally what we wanted to do but it's a whole new ball game when you are in the middle of the ocean and under 45 feet of water. Suddenly those underwater hand signals from the course book din't seem silly at all. In fact, at first, they practically seemed woefully inadequate to convey the plethora of things that could go wrong down under. But then like the instructor said the hand signals did suffice as he signaled to us to start what was probably the toughest skill to learn and perfect in scuba - underwater compass navigation.

 It involved setting a course on your wrist compass to a distant landmark and then following the course just by looking at the compass needle and not the surrounding. Each of the students were asked to navigate a course from a point on the edge of the bowl to the opposite side with a dive master in training - Tyler blair who also happened to be a good life guarding friend of mine. I was the last to do this skill, and when I begun, the instructor got started with the next set of skills with the other students myself and the dive master to join them after completing the navigation skill. So off we went, me following the course with my compass and Tyler monitoring my progress. I worked up a good pace and was at the opposite rim inside 5 mins. Now I turned back, reset the compass and started on the return leg. By this time all nearby divers had moved on to different areas and the students were off doing the next skills check. When I reached, what I thought was the starting point, there was not a soul there. The dive master was confused too. He started in a direction hoping that the others were just a little bit farther from the starting spot. After a couple of such false alarms I realized with a sinking feeling that we were lost. It was a fleeting thought given that I was with Tyler who had logged nearly 50 dives and he was entirely calm and composed. There was also the fact that if we were truly lost we could always surface, hail the boat and get our bearings back. But the mind, being the funny thing it is, doesn't always think that logically when you are under 45 feet of water in the middle of the ocean but still I recovered my composure in a minute. Anyway, Tyler started navigating a course to get back to the starting point and after what seemed like hours of swimming around in circles (which in reality was only 5-8 minutes), out of the gloom there appeared the shadowy shapes of our certification group. The instructor appeared surprised to find us coming from another direction and signaled to ask if we were ok.

The better part of our skills check was over and we just had to do an emergency ascent and a couple of buddy breathing exercises to wrap up the certification. That done, we had a good half hour  to explore and look around. For the most part we followed the instructor, tried to fine tune our buoyancy and become comfortable with it while observing several eels, some sea urchins and helluva lotta fish. Soon, the instructor signaled for us to ascend and we did so as a staggered group rising slowly as if in a trance. We made a 3 min emergency stop at 15 feet, clinging to the guide rope because the sea was really choppy at this  shallow depth making it difficult to maintain neutral buoyancy and position. At long last we were back on the boat, excited, tired and elated to have finally become open water certified divers!.  We went back to tavernier for lunch and a little close-eye before returning to the dock at around 5 pm for what would decidedly be the highlight of the trip - my first night dive!.

Into the darkness

This was just going to be a single cylinder dive on davis reef - the one we had done earlier -  for familiarity purposes. The ride out was timed so that we would reach there at dusk so as to allow us to setup our equipment and get into the water when there was still some light left. The boat charted a course due northwest and the peppy breeze caught our hair in a frenzy. Overhead, the scattered clouds scurrying towards the horizon as if seeking refuge from the impending darkness, were tinged and smudged with the orange fieriness of the sun, as if small clumps of cotton were set ablaze. There weren't a single boat around us, with most of them heading back to port with the setting sun having done the day's worth of diving, snorkeling, cruising and whatever else. We finally reached the reef with the sun hanging dangerously low on the horizon as if it might slip over and fall off the sky at any instant. The captain started his routine briefing on the reef, explaining about the ledge that started just behind our boat and went roughly north west for a good half a mile or so. We were also advised to dive against the current starting out so that we could save both energy and air while heading back. I took it all in a kinda semi-trance, basking in the warm glow of the last rays and  mesmerized by the million golden sparkles in the 3- foot high waves as the sun finally went down like a floundering ship.

We now did final gear checks, and decided what teams we were diving in. The five of us rooming together - tyler, chris, jenny and another girl decided to dive as a team. Powerful handheld dive lights and glowsticks (color coded by team for recognition down under - we got blue!) were handed out and the latter, we attached to the back of our gear so as to be easily visible.The boats bright running lights were switched off and red diving lights and a flashing halogen light were turned on. By the time we got into the water there was still a little bit of light so we could orient ourselves a bit. My dive buddy was chris, and together with the other 3 we had worked out our communication signals and patterns  underwater since night dives require more caution and slightly different hand signals. Finally we began our descent and as we did, the darkness suddenly seemed to curl, twist and grow around us enveloping us menacingly. 

The Turtle!!

The descent was one of the most stunningly surreal experiences of my life. The scene was both beautifully eerie and forebodingly ethereal at the same time - a bunch of shadowy shapes with fuzzy multi-colored lights on the back drifting down, with only the hiss of the regulator to keep company. The smoky beams of flashlights, danced around and lit up microscopic life, dirt, fishes and coral alike painting them in vibrant splashes of color (something that you won't experience during a day dive because the depth and the refracted light washes out the colors making for a rather bland palette the deeper you go).  It was almost like a scene straight out of the James Cameron film, Abyss or maybe the Michael Crichton book, Sphere - Fantastical, and mystical but with some unseen evil lurking just beneath the surface.   Visibility was under 15 feet and a strong current kept pushing me back so I had to swim to keep my position. The groups split off and headed into the gloom as we were the last to reach the bottom and orient ourselves as it was hard to recognize people in the low light. We soon found the edge of the ledge and started to follow it due north west, peering under the ledges and in between cracks in the coral to spot the nocturnal fauna. Almost immediately we ran into a nice, big hawksbill turtle that was meandering a couple of feet over the ledge on the other side. We avoided shining a light directly into its eyes but swam around it and played with it making sure not to touch it or alarm it. Continuing on along the reef, our flash lights playing out a wild choreography of movements, we saw several big lobsters hidden in the deep recesses under the coral ledge, that wiggled and shook their antennae when we shone a light on them, as if annoyed at have been disturbed from their sleep. I constantly had to turn my eyes away from the reef or double back a bit to make sure my buddy and the rest of my group was with me. The blue glowsticks that we carried helped quite a bit to keep track but there was another group a little further off that had the same color glow sticks. And so we drifted on in that eerie world, the dim bluish halo of the moon's rays filtering through the water, the soft blotches of the glow sticks and the scintillating beams of the flashlights the only sources of light. We finally reached 1700 psi on our gauges and started to turn back, tracing our way back along the ledge to the dive boat. Floating along with the current proved much more relaxing and we got to see a bunch more lobsters, urchins, a blue parrot fish and stingrays. Soon, the pulsing, red and white dive lights of the boat were visible on the surface as smudges of color and we made a slow, steady ascent to the writhing surface. 

The whiff of fresh air at the surface was heavenly even though the choppy seas meant swimming back to the boat was a tad tiring. We were back in the boat by 7 pm and changing. The ride back to port was beautiful with the stars out in full force adorning the heavens like pinpricks of light, a light breeze and calm seas. It was one of those serene and peaceful moments that inspires nostalgia and makes you reflect on life's little joys. Life gets its real meaning in moments like these.

Me, Myself and My Asus

     It is amazing how much we take today's gadgets and devices for granted. If it weren't for some bloke in the 1950s in some university saying " Hey! you know what  - I can use these transistors to do calculations" and if it weren't for other bunches of eccentric geeks who managed to put a whole lot of these transistor ( 1000s of them back then , billions now) thingies on to silicon chips we wouldn't have had any of these gadgetry and technical wizardry that we use every minute of our day. Consider the amount of time a revolutionary technology usually takes to evolve from inception to maturity. For example the wheel was conceptualized and evolved over centuries of research and development. The same goes for airplanes which became what it is today over a period of 90-100 years and telephones which again have developed over a century and a half. Now, computers have done the same thing in about 3 - 4 decades! From the 1960s to 2000s computer technology has grown at a blinding pace. And one of the spinoffs of this rapid growth in computational power is the advent of smartphones and tablets. Sci-fiction novels and movies imagine worlds where robots rule man. Whether that will come to pass is anyone's guess but right now and in the near future we can be sure that gadgets of all kinds, sizes and shapes will rule over man.

That said, the plethora of smartphones, computers, and laptops available nowadays means that there is something for everybody. Customization and personalization has become king, from the hardware aspects to the software and appearance aspects and its no surprise that people of all age groups are wielding their gadgets not only for communication but also as a fashion statement. Personal expression and connection to the society on the move is now possible thanks to the stunning advances in mobile technology. Each day more and more applications are released for smartphones to enable configuration, ease of use, and users are finding ways to express themselves emotionally, professionaly and personally in a way never before possible.


But, I digress. I like to think that my first laptop is essentially an extension of myself and my personality - kind of like Harry potter's wand if you will. "The laptop choses its owner my dear boy! Not the other way around". Anyway, I bought my Asus G51-VX laptop a little less than 2 years back when I first came to the U.S to do my master's. I had been an avid gamer before then and badly wanted a gaming rig and so my first laptop was a decent gaming system. It was love at first sight for me and my laptop!. It's sleek, futuristic design with a glossy white finish and lid lights turned more than a few heads. Me and my laptop soon become practically inseparable. I did all my school work on it (while most of my friends prefer to go to the college lab) via remote computing. Despite weighing in at 8.5 pounds and measuring 15.6" I still lugged it almost everywhere. In between exams and projects I blew steam off with hour long gaming romps playing crysis, gta 4 etc etc. The HD display and decent speakers made it ideal to watch movies as well.


It astonishes me even today how uncannily similar my laptop is to me. Like me, my laptop is a wee bit short-tempered and gets heated up sometimes when running demanding applications and needs to be cooled off with a cooling pad!!. If you have been a student and have used your computer/laptop for your projects and school work then you'll agree with me when I say that the PC has a nasty way of screwing things up just when it's most important. It could be anything from a simple OS crash to the earth-shattering Blue-screen-of-death. And it always seems to happen at the worst possible time. So, I take extra care in ensuring I have the latest anti-virus software running, perform regular updates, defragment my drives and generally keep everything running smoothly if not perfectly. The spring of 2010, disaster befell my laptop as my GPU managed to conk itself out somehow. I still had a manufacturer's warranty and so, sent the laptop in for a new GPU. As always happens with these " so called latest technology", the repair process took more than 3 months. Those three months were hell for me as I had to struggle to stay connected to the world, do my projects and homework and generally felt like I had lost my right arm. Finally, ASUS service center sent my laptop back with and I felt whole again. It's been two years now and I continue to spend almost 80% of my waking time with my laptop, either at work or at home. When the time finally comes when my laptop's hardware becomes obsolete and I finally decide to sell it, I think a part of me will die.

It's a disconcerting fact that humans nowadays are more attached to gadgets than other humans, and our personalities are, in whole or in part, reflected on the gadgets we use in our day to day basis. Despite all this, technology has undoubtedly helped man ( and here's where peace activists protest that technology has only brought war and destruction) and advanced our civilization to a great extent. I would, in fact argue that all this new technology, if nothing else, has only brought people closer together. We no longer need be anxious about a relative 2000 miles away in another country when we can log on and connect with them instantly. We no longer have to stand in mile-long queues to book tickets. We can reconnect with all our old friends in an instant, network professionally, buy and sell stuff with our smart phones, and all the umpteen number of things that would never have been possible without gadgets. And this change, for once, is a welcome one.

Please Note : This blog is an entry for the Dell Inspiron "Change is Easy" Contest. Feel free to check out the Dell Inspiron range of products .

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Scuba diving in the keys - Day 1

If you, like me, have always been fascinated by the ocean, the swaying swells, the fathomless depths, the other worldly aquatic life, the soundless tranquility, the serene feeling of weightlessness. If you, like me, crave adventure, want to mock death and go where very few men have gone before then it's high time you experienced scuba. Its quite simply one of the most life changing and exciting experiences you will ever have in life. The feeling when you first discover that you can breathe under 30 feet of water is , in my opinion, akin to setting foot on another planet.

So, there I was, in the keys to get my open water scuba certification. There were about 20 of us on that trip, mostly open water cert. students like me, a couple of advanced open water guys,a master diver and a dive master in training. We were diving with conch republic divers off the coast of tavernier, FL which is on US 1 about 40 miles from Florida city. It was december- near freezing cold in georgia, but a pleasant 72 F in the keys. Weather was a major player in planning dives and even 4 foot seas could ruin/delay or abort dives. So all of us were kinda praying for sunny, clear skies for the duration of our trip.

The first day we were diving 2 single cylinder certification dives. The mercury was a breezy 74 F with water temps around 71 F. We had 3 foot swells but nothing that was going to get people sea sick or ruin our dive. We had all our equipment setup at the dock, and pretty much were just deciding how much weights we needed on the 45 minute ride to davy crocker reef. The ride out was pleasant enough with the sun beaming down on us and yet the mid morning air was a tad chilly. Once we wiggled into our wetsuits though it was warm enough. We reached the spot finally and the captain gave us a safety update and the lowdown of what to expect down under. Soon, we started getting into the water with feet first stride entries. I stepped off the boat into a swaying, blue swell, the cool water refreshing me. I cleared my mask one last time, checked my air, signaled to my buddy and started descending.

It was one of the most vivid memories of my life - that first descent. The water was a gorgeous turquoise and the visibility was amazing - almost 35 feet down to the sea floor. I could see the other divers already at the bottom, clutches of bubbles emanating from their regulators glinting in the sunlight filtering down, tinted in a mesmerizing bluish gold. I had a little bit of difficulty equalizing my ears to the pressure at first, but got it under control soon and touched down on the sandy bottom - 26 feet under water and ..elated!!. It was an intoxicating feeling - floating weightless, drifting alongside shoals of fish and coral, and actually breathing under water.The steady hiss of the regulator, the glug-glug of the bubbles and the occasional clank of some diver tapping his cylinder with his dive knife, were the only sounds in this silent, beautiful world. On the dive we ended up monitoring our air, checking our depth gauges and performing basic certification maneuvers. We also experimented constantly with our buoyancy and fin movements to achieve good mobility while conserving less air. That pretty much wrapped the dive and we ascended slowly without problems and got back on the boat. The captain then took us to the next dive site called the Davis Reef. We switched out our cylinders for new ones and checked our gear again - it was tough doing it on a rocking boat with wetsuits on. We were back in the water soon and heading to the bottom. This reef was much more colorful, and filled with multi-colored coral and a plethora of different fish species. We encountered a couple of brain corals whose mesmerizing, maze like patterns on a spherical surface left us spellbound. This dive required us to perform some more certification skills, like buddy tow, and emergency ascents. The fleeting feelings of fear and discomfort that was present on my first dive all but vanished on this one and I thoroughly enjoyed the 45 min dive.  



Davis Reef, Tavernier, Florida



Tommy and Martha

          Tommy led Martha out of her downtown studio apartment into the bustling streets below. He noticed she barely squinted in the bright sunlight outside. " Time to go to work Tommy  ", said Martha with a smile. Martha worked as an elementary school teacher at a public school that was five blocks away from her apartment. Every day it was Tommy who took her to work. He knew she followed a routine every day on her way to work. They would leave the apartment at exactly 7:45 a.m. walk down their street to the Dunkin' Donuts at the corner. She always ordered the same egg,cheese and sausage bagel and a coffee with cream and sugar.They spent precisely 18 minutes eating and continued through the nearby park to her elementary school. Tommy and Martha arrived at her school at 8:25 a.m after negotiating the clutch of pedestrians who always pushed and hustled past others at the intersection in front of the school. Tommy was often disgusted by some person or the other enough to almost snarl at them to watch where they were going.

         Tommy stood outside watching Martha go in to her class and address her students. He watched her chestnut hair fall lightly on her shoulder, her deep blue eyes dancing with a joy that reflected the true, unbridled happiness in her heart and realized how lucky he was to have her. They had been together for 8 years now. He had absolutely adored her from the moment he first set eyes on her. She meant the world to him and he had always been fiercely protective and possessive of her.  Martha in turn rarely went anywhere without tommy by her side and loved him so much that she could not bear the thought of a single day without him. School got over at 2:30 for Martha and she stepped outside to find Tommy waiting for her. She hugged him and they both started to walk outside when a man hailed them from the steps of the Victorian era main building of the school. Not Mr.Barney again , thought Tommy. Mr.Barney walked over to the pair with a pasty smile.

" Hello Ms.Cooper!. How are you doing today?" , He asked with exaggerated hand motions and a fake childishness.

"Oh Mr. Barney. I am excellent.", replied a genial Martha.

"What is the latest tale from the principal's office?"

" The usual you know. Signing off on a dozen meeting minutes, telling off a couple of brats." , Barney said in that off hand manner.

"And how are you doing today, Tommy , big boy!!"

Tommy grunted. He hated to be called a boy anymore. He wandered off a bit to let them have their conversation. After a few mins he felt Martha's hand on his shoulder.

 " I know you don't like him, Tommy but let's not waste a beautiful evening by sulking." She said as he looked at her with mournful eyes.

They made their way back to the park and found their usual bench to sit on. Tommy knew this was her favorite spot in the city. Every day after work, they spent an hour at this park just sitting and taking in the sights and sounds. The sinking sun shimmered off her jet black hair making it glow like gold. The laughter and delighted screams of children filled the air and made her laugh merrily. The smell of the lilies and roses in full bloom teased her nostrils and painted vivid images in her mind. She rose, and spread her arms out, feeling the gentle evening breeze caress her body. Martha then stepped forward reaching out with her hands. She walked gingerly forward whilst Tommy watched with concern. And then her hands touched a tree. She knelt down and moved closer feeling the striations on the bark, her hands moving swiftly and smoothly feeling out intricate patterns and details.

Martha was blind. She had lost vision in her right eye completely and had just about 10% vision in the left eye. She had an eye disease that had progressively worsened her vision over the past 7 years. The world around her started losing color first and then definition. Three years back her family was killed in a car accident. Her parents had perished instantly but her sixteen year old brother had defied death for a month before he too succumbed.To Martha, the growing darkness around her matched the black hole that her family's death had left behind. Martha cried herself to sleep as the world lost focus, and images blurred together. By the time she was almost totally blind she had resigned herself to nothingness. Tommy had been with her from before her disease started affecting her. He had been perplexed at what was happening at first, even got frustrated at taking care of her at a point. But then he had rediscovered how much he really loved her and was determined to be with her almost every moment of her life. He had even undergone special training to look after, communicate and help her move around and live life normally. Over the past two years Martha had found a  renewed joy in life. She had moved away from her family and friends , left her old job as a journalist and started to teach. Tommy had sacrificed a lot of things to take care of her but given another chance he would have always picked Martha. He had watched helplessly as she descended into the depths of despair and had been with her as she picked up the pieces slowly, as she found an uplifting happiness in teaching little children and began to almost approach normalcy in her daily life.

   Tommy padded up to the tree and snuggled up against her. He sensed she was now content - she was glad to listen to the fun and laughter around her, the blissful innocence of the children and the anxiousness of the parents. She was thankful that she had Tommy by her side and for the fact that blindness had shown her an entire knew dimension of the world to her. A dimension where one "saw" through imagination, through dreaming up a beautiful and exotic world with its surreal flavors and sounds and where the ugliness and decay brought upon by man remained forever hidden.

A small rubber ball rolled towards Tommy and he eyed it with excitement. The little boy who was playing with it, stopped a few feet away, hesitating. As Tommy moved the ball around with his feet, the boy piped" Do you want to play with me"?. Martha stirred from her reverie, turned partially towards Tommy with a smile on her face. " Go, Tommy play with the child" , she said as she bent down to undo Tommy's shoulder harness. Tommy's eyes lit up, as he wriggled free and bounded on all fours with the ball clamped between his jaws. As the boy scampered past them screaming in joy with Tommy galloping after him, tears of joy welled up in Martha's eyes as she slowly groped her way back to the bench and sat down.

The human rat race

We begin the race the moment we come into this world bawling our eyes out. In fact we're already tired from winning our first race by beating a million sperms. From day one in this unforgiving world we are nurtured by doting parents, tutored, cajoled, coached to compete, to run the race, and to win. Yep, the goal is always to win, to be the first and best in whatever you do throughout your life regardless of whether you like it or not. We are under constant pressure to excel academically from Ist grade all the way through graduate studies. Every one us gets forced into a rat race throughout our entire lives fighting tooth and nail for one uppance. Be it friends, family or relatives, we jostle, tustle and fight in a mad scramble to edge ahead. It's a shame that we are always running for the next milestone, never stopping to catch our breaths, never stopping to savor the little joys of life, and a shame that we have such tunnel vision with only our next goal visible and everything else being mere happenstance.

Few people, myself included, realize that life is about experiences, life is about the journey and not the destination. It's about waking up to see the sun rise in all its glory, a cup of coffee in hand and taking a few moments to let nature speak to you through the birds, through the whispers of the morning breeze. Instead, almost every one of us wake up with our minds buzzing with what has to be completed that day, the troubles of yesterday and the worries of tomorrow. We are more concerned with where our peers are in the grand race to riches, more worried about society's eye on our "so called" progress in race called life, and more worried about doing things that are socially acceptable than doing stuff that our hearts tell us. We often do not have time for our loved ones, the time to make a random person smile, the heart to lend a helping hand to a distressed soul, or the thought to listen to a friend's troubles. In most cases people are running a race they don't even like. They go through life struggling to make a living and not living a life of their own making. So many of them will stay in the wrong jobs all our life, putting money, social status and savings before things close to their hearts. 

If we just lift our heads up, put our ultra-busy lives on pause for a moment and take a look around, take a look back at our own lives, what we've accomplished so far, what we've really wanted to do with our lives, then I suspect a majority of us would rethink the way we would want to live the rest of our lives. Then, maybe, we would make an effort to come out of our shells and live life the way we want to - doing things we like, the way we like and whenever we like. We need to stop running the race and realize that life is not a race. And then, maybe,  we can start living life and not run for our lives.