How Laziness can improve your life

Ooh, controversial topic here! What with the big proverbs that you learn in school like “Hard work is the key to success” and being socially conditioned to work hard at all times…but in truth, we don’t really like work. When you hear people tell you “I like my job a lot”, it’s mostly because they don’t really work that much, and end up spending their time in the office on Facebook or Twitter. And who wouldn’t want that job? No wonder people end up in front of computers in IT companies, with unlimited internet access…

But let’s leave the “workers” to their work, and get back to the topic. Now, laziness is something which comes under a list of “frown-upons”, the other frown-upons being eating too much, playing loud music, not answering your eager mother’s questions after a tiring day, and so on. And so, a lazy person is berated in society for being…well…lazy! I mean, look at the lazy guy, he wouldn’t dare to go out to a shop and buy vegetables, instead, he’d order them online! And lazy people would not do things unless they were really necessary. Like, a lazy guy wouldn’t care to defuse a bomb, till there were only 5 seconds for detonation. And to be honest, I’m a lazy person. And that’s why I’m very much able to make you understand what lazy people would do.

Yes, yes you were. Just like me ;)

However, I want to blog about how laziness can improve your life. So, I (hopefully) won’t criticise laziness myself. And since I’m too lazy to think of various uses for laziness, I will just list a few defining traits of lazy people, and explain how useful these characteristics are to society at large.

The “Due tomorrow, do tomorrow” mentality

“It’s Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday, everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend.” – Rebecca Black

(Yes, I just quoted Rebecca Black.No, I don’t like her. And no, I don’t like Justin Beiber either. Just making things clear here…)

That was added just in case you still didn't believe me...

So, it’s Friday, and you have a long weekend to “chillax” (I used to love that word, till it got used in a song in a Vijay movie. Jeez, why am I mentioning a lot of hated people in this post?). However, there’s a tiny little thing that gets in the way of your chillaxing, and that’s a little Math homework. No issue, just 5 sums. So, why start early? Wake up on Saturday and do it! And the day you actually open your book to do it will be Monday morning, exactly five minutes before your teacher enters the classroom. And hopefully, I’m not the one experiencing déjà vu here.

Now, what’s so good about this? Research says that the brain needs stress to perform better and exhibit more creativity at times. And what better stress than an extremely strict Math teacher about to walk in any minute? And it also gets bragging rights! The nerd who says “I took the whole week to finish my Math homework!” is bested by the lazy guy who says “Well, they all know how lazy I am, and I could finish it in five minutes!” Awesome, isn’t it? This makes me think. If lazy people know how to do things more quickly than others, this would mean they would have more time on their hands! As Corey Ford says “I put off things, and that’s how I get those things done!” And maybe you would doubt whether the quote is correct, but I hope you are too lazy to check. ;)

I love this guy.

The question “How do I do lesser work for more results?”

Yes, work takes time. If your mom told you to buy eggs and milk, you don’t go to the store, buy the eggs, come back, then go to the store again, buy the milk, and come back again. You do both at the same time, to avoid the stress of going a second time to the store. That is basically how a lazy man’s mind works. “How do I do it more easily?”, “How can I reduce my workload”, and “What are the unnecessary things I’m doing?” are few of the questions that run through a lazy person’s mind.  And so, the lazy man is less tired than the active fools who do truckloads of work just to achieve the same results. For example, my mom gives me some clothes to place on a table while I watch TV. The walk from the TV to the table is a strenuous length: four feet. So, what do I do to avoid the walk? With my perfect aim, it just takes one good throw, and the clothes are on the table, and I don’t even have to take my eyes off from what I’m watching for more than a second!

Did I mention how much I love this guy?

The graciousness to “give others a chance”

My favourite one, here! Imagine that your younger sister is into drawing. What better way to cultivate her drawing habit, than to let her draw the diagrams in your biology classwork! Maybe that’s what the people in the 19^th century were thinking: “Who cares about light bulbs? Let Edison make them!” And poor Edison slogged hard, experimenting with different materials, failing thousands of times, while these people enjoyed candlelight dinners till he finally succeeded! Well, Edison got the credit, and maybe some monetary rewards. But what did he do? Other research! And so he slogged hard at the gramophone while other people entertained themselves with live bands, and then slogged hard at the television while other people watched plays. In essence, Edison got the credit while the other people got…everything else. Well, that’s exactly what you get from being lazy and letting other people do it. “Work hard, and reap the rewards. Be lazy, and reap everyone else’s rewards.” - Me (Yes, I quote myself, not because I’m a wise guy, but more because I’m a wisecrack.)

And add a caption to this pic as well, please?

The wisdom to “put off things till the right time”

Well, a lot of things in life depend upon timing. For example, if the examiner gave you the answer paper at the stroke of the bell instead of a good five minutes later, you would have finished the paper by the stroke of the final bell instead of being unable to complete it. Well, a lazy person’s life depends so much on timing, and for those of you who mutter “That’s preposterous!” hold your horses because I haven’t explained this one yet. There is a difference however, between a normal person’s sense of timing, and a lazy person’s. A normal person will estimate how long it would take to finish the job, while a lazy person will estimate how long he could POSTPONE the job till…someone else does it (or helps him do it, so he can make that someone “take over”), or till it never really needs to be done.  For example, if you are too lazy to rearrange the files on your computer into neat and ordered folders, you put it off till you actually remember where everything is, so that you can navigate things easily even when it seems cluttered and disorganized to someone else. I know a lot of people who have extremely messed up desktops, and I assume that one fine day, they would have thought of rearranging their desktop to look a bit more presentable, but, they were too lazy to do it, and now, they are much more able to figure out where is what on their PC, than me and my super-efficient-highly-organized-classified-and-stored desktop! And I also mentioned that things could be put off till they could be done with help from others (and by “help from others”, you must know what I really mean). How, you ask? Well, if I leave my room untidy, and I’m frequently asked to clean it, and I don’t, there will surely come a time when a guest would decide to give only half-an-hours’ notice before dropping by. Then, my mom, for fear of becoming a social outcast because her son has a room that looked like the Bhopal gas tragedy had started in it, would be sure to concentrate her efforts on my room, and within 29 ½ minutes, the room would be so spic and span, you’d think you were in the furniture section of Big Bazaar instead of my room. And I didn’t even raise a finger!

Wish my mom would take that for an excuse...

Laziness has its perks, but to tell you the truth, it isn’t a good habit. Though it might be fun to be lazy, in the end chronic laziness will only be your downfall. Yes, I painstakingly wrote this article because I admit, I’m not exactly the type of person you’d see with Adidas© shoes and an iPod© jogging the whole length of the Marina beach and back, and I purely meant it as a tongue-in-cheek endeavour, just to make you read and relate and have fun. My request to you is not to take this seriously, and then be lazy and quote from my article when you are apprehended for your laziness, because I’ll end up in trouble! Oh, and I also wrote this article just to test my limits, whether I can write the boons of a subject which has a lot of banes. Well, it was going extremely well until this last paragraph…

True story bro...or sis.

Nevertheless, hope you enjoyed this article! Thanks for listening to my begging on Facebook, and reading this blog. I’ve been held back from writing because I was too lazy to write. ;) But I’m back in form (that is, if I had any form in the first place), and will keep updating, so you’d better keep reading, awright? J

My Take On…Playing Other Musical Instruments

Whenever you are asked to write an essay for an exam or a competition, you are almost always given a couple of choices. What I gravitate mostly is towards topics like “Importance of good character in life” or “How to eat an ice-cream” or something like that. Not because I like those topics, but because I lack knowledge on topics like “Pollution”, “Deforestation”, “Education for the Differently Abled” and such.  And in school, if you have no idea of the topic, you are given zero marks, even if there was a lot of creative writing in that essay. Now I’m not saying to forget about knowing your topic, because only if you know your topic, you can actually have the authority to say something on it. For example, it’s very fair for my chemistry teacher (why am I roping him in my blog) to talk about hexamethylenediammine cyanide compounds, but it isn’t fair for me to say a word about organic chemistry as I don’t really understand it.

However, this is a blog! And many people have told me to write whatever I feel like, so I don’t really need to know the facts to write about something now, do I? Now why am I speaking about not knowing facts and knowing facts and all? It’s mainly because the topic says “My Take On…Playing Other Musical Instruments”, and I don’t know how to play other musical instruments. I just know guitar, and I still have a lot to learn! That’s the beauty of music…

“Learning music is a lifelong process, man.” – Timothy Sabu

Yep, Timothy (Timmy) Sabu. Cool guy!

For those of you who don’t know him, well…I’ll write a post on him. For those who do, Timmy is enjoying his life now by doing Sound Engineering, and hopes to make it big in his field. Man, I miss him…

So, onto the post! Yeah, even I’m shocked I haven’t started. I really ought to stop writing so much…

Hmm, where do I start? OK, Keyboards and Piano! Most kids in Chennai at least have parents who are A.R. Rahman fans. So, the kids are made to go to keyboard classes in the hope (whose hope? Don’t ask) of becoming a great musician in future. Now, I wanted to learn guitar, and so I never really learnt to play a keyboard. However, I just found out which key is used to play which note. So, to play a chord (a combination of notes hit at the same time, always used in making music), I had to search every note, and ended up hitting a chord…after 5 minutes. Now, most songs on your mp3 player take 5 minutes or less…so, I may find the first chord only after the song ends. This goes for all those people who have said “Oh, you know music? You must be a keyboard player then!” Mostly well-meaning aunties. And so, I have deep appreciation for keyboard players, as they can find those chords way too easily. And another thing, as keyboards have the programming to sound like trumpets, violins, flutes and all, there are some keyboard players who are very expressive and make it sound like there’s an accomplished trumpet/violin/flute player. That requires exceptional talent and a thorough study of even those other instruments. Amazing, isn’t it!

This is Nora the piano playing cat! Look her up on Youtube! 

And I'm serious, she really DOES play!

Now, drums. I really wish to take a minute to applaud every drummer that ever existed, from a beginner to a pro. Imagine moving both your arms AND both your legs…at wildly different times, in a rhythmic fashion. Drummers do that, and pound on those drums for 5 or so minutes, at a stretch. Some of us don’t even have the strength to open a Pepsi© bottle! I sometimes attempt to play a beat, and it sounds way too simplistic. I’m not hitting enough drums at a time! The best drummers do “independence” exercises. These require you to free your limbs so that all your limbs can do different things at different times, to combine to form a single, full-sounding beat. Mind blowing to us, but it’s just another day in a drummer’s life. I actually have trouble with just moving my two hands together on a guitar just to play some notes clearly, and they move all their limbs with precision, making the music feel less like “a combination of sounds”, and more like “a groovy vibe” that you can even dance to!

Woah, even I can't play "Ba dum tss"!

Now on to bass guitars! Some say bass guitars are for those who fail at playing electric guitars. Dumbest.Statement.Ever. Bass is something which contributes to the music even though it’s felt, rather than heard. Ever felt like dancing to music at times? Ever felt like music gets your heart pumping? It’s because you can feel the vibrations of the air (which is sound), and they feel good…Bass does that to music. And the best bass players are not the ones who can play 80000 notes a second, but those that contribute to the vibe with just one solid tastefully played note! It’s easy to play (just remove the 1^st and 2^nd string of your regular guitar and tune those strings 12 steps down, it’s somewhat like a bass), but tough to master. And if I can, it’s something I’d really like to learn. How well can I play it? Well, let’s just say I’m a beginner who checked out basic online lessons.

Abraham Laboriel, one of the best bass players in the world. 

What puzzles me here is, is he constricting his face 

because he's "feeling the music", or because he's pulling his pants? 

The right hand behind his bass guitar doesn't help, either..

There might be a million more, like the clarinet, the ukulele, the bassoon, the xylophone, the violin and what not, but let’s just say that was covered in the keyboards section. ;)

Well, this post wasn’t just to reveal I know next to nothing about most instruments, it also reveals I know those instruments only well enough to appreciate them and say  that people who know these instruments well are really worth their stuff, because they took the time out to master the instrument to the ultimate goal of making beautiful music. And as Timmy said, it’s a lifelong process, so learn it well, learn it always, or you’ll be bad for life, and not know why. So, here's to unending learning! :)

Renewal

This came to my mind while staring at a night sky...thought I'd expand upon the idea. It's a short story called "Renewal".

The night was dark. It was cold and as bleak as a pig’s prospect of flying.

He took his chances. Tossing a coin, without wishing upon the outcome, he surveyed his options, which were not many, and all without redemption from the present circumstances he faced.

“Why, Sammy boy, how many times have I told you that you don’t have to figure out your life? Discover it, son, discover it!” He heard his father say. Then he mumbled “Yeah, dad, just like how you ‘discovered’ that mobster. And how you ‘discovered’ he had a loaded gun. You didn’t discover your life, dad, but you sure found its end.” And then his father’s voice faded away.

“The day you died, father, I died.” And he tossed the coin away.

Never a truer sentence had been spoken. For Sam Fletcher had done way beyond what he was required to do to see his father’s murderer avenged. Court cases, private detectives, public campaigns against gang violence, rundowns with some of the underworld’s biggest mobsters, bribes to some of the politicians to find the killer and what not, only took advantage of his anger, and rendered him bankrupt within the span of 6 months. And yet, he seemed so near, but he knew he was so far from the killer.

“Tony Guiseppe, you will pay. This comes to an end only when your life comes to an end.”

“Only sheer insanity is driving you toward this madness!” said his wife. Being a teacher of English, she certainly had a way with words. Each word made sense, painful sense. “We have children, and the neighbours are needlessly gossiping unwanted things. Give this up, will you? At least for your own good…” And tears. But no, he was too cold to be moved anymore by tears. At least, that’s what he thought.

Back then, when she said those words, he slapped her, and stormed off. Now, each word slapped him in the face, and tears welled up in his eyes. He was more confused than even the time when he received news of his father’s untimely demise.

He decided to walk into a pub to drown himself in alcohol, numb his mind from the pain. He was raised to be a clean person, just like his father. But when the role model died, the protégé pretended as though the role model never existed and turned to self-destructive habits.

There was a dark alley just two blocks before the pub. He just passed by it as though it never existed, and then…

Gunshots! Jittered out of his gloomy aura, Sam hid in the corner just before the alleyway. He heard footsteps moving quickly in his direction. He peeked inside the alley to see a dark figure panting as it moved closer to the exit.

A loud bang was heard. The gunshot had made its mark! The person who had been running out now slumped to the ground with a moan, and for sheer fear of his life, he crawled with all his might toward the now faraway exit from the alleyway. Sam got up and ran towards him without hesitation, and hoisted him upon his shoulders. He stopped running only when he entered the pub.

“This man needs medical attention!”

A table was cleared, and a waitress ran to a payphone to call the ambulance. The man’s leg had been bleeding profusely. A bartender tended to the wound. The ambulance came, and praised the bartender for administering the required first aid.

Sam jumped into the ambulance along with him for reasons best known to no one, not even him.

“Hey man, you’re gonna be okay.”

“Thank you sir, thank you! Those guys were chasing me because I didn’t pay them any protection money for my store. They ransacked it, and then came after me. My son died by their hand…” His panic-stricken voice now became sordid and remorseful at the mention of his son.

“I’m sorry to hear that, sir. These gangs need to be severely dealt with.” Sam began to prepare himself to launch into a story of gang violence and gangs not coming to justice.

“But you can’t blame them…they too are dead men, on the inside.”

“Wait, what? But sir, that doesn’t mean they can have a free rein to do whatever violence they wish to do!”

“Of course it doesn’t. But they think that this can somehow help them. That they can be free from their sad situations by ganging up on other people and intimidating them. I too was a gang member, and I admit that I too have killed.” Tears began to well up in his eyes. “This didn’t set me free! It only trapped me in something even worse! Do you think that guilt will get killers like me or them to stay in peace? Not at all sir, not at all.”

“I see, sir. I too am a dead man. No more to my family…no more to even my father! He wouldn’t have wanted me to end up like this…” came his choked reply.

“I haven’t entered jail for that crime. They should have had my mugshots by now. Prisoner #9087, Tony Guiseppe! But it’s by grace that I’m still not caught. Maybe I didn’t need jail to be broken on the inside…”

But at the mention of “Tony Guiseppe”, Sam’s head reeled with six months of pent up anger. Here they were, the killer and the victim’s son, in the back of an ambulance. When he felt far from achieving the impossible task of finding Guiseppe, fate decided to put him at close proximity to the killer, without giving him time to think of what to do or say.But then…

In his mind’s eye, he saw his father, who had been unruffled by any situation in his life. Even when his best friend cheated him of the family’s business, his father only wished him well, and started working on re-earning those bamboozled riches that the business could have provided. His father forgave his friend, and worked hard on his fledgling of a new business, and retired a rich and peaceful man.

In his mind’s eye, he saw his wife. She knew everything he faced and felt. Heck, she might have even had a word for everything. She never meant any harm. She knew he was going to crash into a wall of unforgiveness that his father didn’t even have to see. Hence, she could only use the words that she could muster just to make his see the error of his ways.

In his mind’s eye, he saw Jesus the wounded saviour on the cross. “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

In his mind’s eye, he saw Jesus the bright light in front of Saul. “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” He then saw that Saul, who had been against Jesus, had been forgiven already. And Saul ended up as the man who took the name of Jesus to the nations.

In his real eyes, he saw Tony lying on a bed, with a broken leg, and a broken heart. “He did not know what he had been doing when he pulled that trigger. Now he knows. But does he deserve to suffer even more? Just so I could have my revenge?”

“Sir? Sir, are you OK?” Tony was concerned for Sam’s disconnect from the outside world.

“I wasn’t, Tony. But now, I am. And I want you to be OK too.”

“Huh?”

“I forgive you for murdering my father, Tony. I forgive you.”

And forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us. - Matthew 6:12

The Day when EVERYTHING went wrong…and I was okay with it!

Some of you who read this might probably know how my Sundays go. For those who don’t, well, let’s just say that for the past three years I have (mostly) cancelled EVERY Sunday plan that you might have, and let’s also just say that I am not always able to finish weekend homework and have to rush with it on Monday mornings…basically, I’m booked the whole day at church.

Well, what I assumed would happen that Sunday was that I’d wake up that morning at 4:50, reach church at 6:30, play guitar for the first three services in Sunday school (for kids), attend the fourth, and play guitar in the fifth service for which I had been preparing and practising the whole week.

• To increase your chances of waking up early, it’s best you sleep early. As usual, I almost obeyed this rule, and then proceeded to ignore it at the last second. I prepared myself mentally to sleep the previous night at 11:30 (which is WAY TOO EARLY for me), and was so engrossed in watching music videos and guitar lessons and Facebook AND browsing guitar-related stuff online that I slept a little before 1:30.
• So I was lying on my bed and set up the alarm for 4:50 (I thought of setting it for 5:15, but that day, all my better ideas became bitter ideas). Then a message came on my phone “Time left for alarm: 3 hours and 38 minutes”. Being a stupidly optimistic person, I brightened up and I thought “Cool! I have three and a half hours of solid sleep!” What was I thinking?! So I kept the alarm a little away from my bed, and I slept…
• When I woke up, I saw a bright light. Not from the Son (of God), but from the sun. The sun had risen (no pun intended). And from my calculations, I deduced that the time was…too late. Something was sharing my pillow with me. It was my phone! And when I saw it, my mind deduced the modus operandi: it had rung at 4:50 and I had taken it and stopped the alarm IN MY SLEEP, and kept it near my pillow. I had found the victim’s body lying on the pillow. Me. I had also found the criminal. Me, again. I took my phone and saw the time. 6:08 A.M.
• Being way too late, I messaged a Sunday school co-ordinator that I could make it only for the next service. She was (thankfully) okay with it. I lay on my bed, dejected with my sleepy self and was reminded of Jesus shouting at his disciples for sleeping while he was praying in the Mount of Olives. To worsen things up, my brother suddenly woke up and exclaimed “Woah, it’s 6:15! So late!” and then I said “Yeah I know.” He then said “Oh, you’re awake!” and then slept as though he had never woken up.
• Oh well. I then woke up, got ready, and got to church by 8. I went there thinking I’d be playing guitar for Sunday school as me and my friend were the only ones who came for practice the previous day. Well, guess what, there was another guitarist there holding the guitar all set for playing for that service. Since I was his friend (and that he was a LOT better than me), I didn’t mind him taking my place and went to attend regular service.
• At regular service, I’m just there, worshipping God, and then I feel a knock on my head. No, nothing fell from heaven. Another friend of mine (I have a lot of friends at church) hit me and called me to sit with him.
• And next to him, sat a friend whom I hadn’t seen in two whole years! Reconnecting was cool (not awkward like how reconnections mostly are), and we all decided to go out together to eat breakfast after the service. But, my head said “No sir, no way, you have a Sunday school to be playing in!” I was wondering how I’d make it up, since it had been two whole years since I had seen my friend. Then, after the service, the solution to that problem came up. Mr “Better Guitarist” was still holding that guitar! I was free for the next service, and went to eat with peace of mind.
• However, to eat food, you need money. I forgot my wallet and remembered I did so only when we were ordering what to eat! Well, another friend who had come to eat, revealed his stash of “black money” (I’ll ask his advice and then post it all under the title “How to stash away black money and make it look like your parents aren’t giving you that much”!) and saved us from dishwashing duties at the restaurant!
• I was supposed to attend the fourth service, but since I had attended the second service (with my friends) and went to eat in the third service, I played in the fourth service for Sunday school (Mr “Better Guitarist” had to go anyway). And guess what? A teacher who hadn’t come for practice was going to sing! So we had to change scales according to his ease and all that jazz. The songs were easy however, and things went on without much of a hitch.
• Well, after that I had lunch and went on to practice for the fifth service.  The keyboard player and the drummer were the only ones who had come. We had a basic run-through of the songs and then, since the bass player had already played the same songs in previous services, we wrapped it up pretty quick, an hour before the service was to start!
• We had a new acoustic guitarist, and he didn’t know he had to bring his own guitar. So we used the guitar that was in Sunday school, and I spent the one hour that was gained in the previous point to run him through and show him what to play for the song.
• Well, another problem cropped up. When you practice a song, it’s not as easy. There are intros, endings, instrumental parts, hooks, riffs, rhythmic syncopations for that particular song and many other things to follow. Tiny things like, when the guitars should come in, when the drums should play the whole beat or lay off, when to not play anything and let the vocals take over and so many other “seemingly simple things” are absolutely necessary to make a song actually, sound like a song, and not a boring repetitive “loop”. We didn’t define all that in practice. So, it went really crazy, and I was really confused! I flopped in certain intros, and the vocals suffered, and to add to the confusion, we didn’t sound check either! And so, I couldn’t hear the drums, the rest of the band couldn’t hear me, and so the sound engineer had to keep coming on stage and keep adjusting volumes and changing microphone positions and all. Any worse and I’d be thankful for not wearing a white shirt because rotten tomato stains don’t go easily.
• And then, I came off the stage, expecting to feel bad, but then my mind went “It’s okay, the people were able to worship. Didn’t you see them in front connecting with God? That’s your point, isn’t it? Whether you play well or bad, they should be able to use that music you make as a tool to connect with God.” And then I was okay with it, just as I was okay with everything else that day…

Yes, bad days happen to even the best of us. Thing is, everything happens for a reason.  And so, it’s actually okay for things not to go ‘as expected’.  And maybe I made a fool of myself on several occasions and got more than my fair share of daily required mini-heart attacks. But it was okay to let things go on and enjoy what God unfolds for that day. And I really enjoyed that Sunday with all its mishaps, mainly because I saw myself taking each mishap in my stride, and not really worrying, and solutions came just as automatically.

Hope you had a luckier day. ;)

And that sums it up.

Dying Twice

Hey readers,
This is THE FIRST TIME that I had written a poem...and actually liked it. Otherwise, my poetry skills are pretty much next to nothing. I won't type an example of my poetry skills, so that I don't pull down the value of the poem I'm posting now...
But enough of my rambling. The poem is called "Dying Twice", and I'll leave it to you for interpretation.

Dying Twice

Grey scale paintings, monotonous tones,

Brighter hues had fled their thrones…

What was inside, echoed outside,

And from what I heard, his soul had died.

There were better colours in the outside world,

But those, he completely hurled

Away, and chose instead

To fill his heart with wanton dread.

No blacks, no whites…no absolutes.

Just grey, muddy, incoherent half-truths.

His whole world had lost its beauty,

“To restore it, my son, should be your duty!”

Well, I should have told him of life and the love

That’s given for free by our Father above!

But instead, I preferred to remain aloof,

And realised only after he jumped off the roof.

I agree it's a bit short, but it's my first time, so cut me some slack, all right? And, thanks for reading. :)

A Special Essay

Well, people, here’s an essay I put up for the school magazine. What’s special for me about it is:

1. It was the last time I wrote an article for anything when I was in school.

2. I bunked school just to write it.

3. I thought a lot on it, and even worried that it would not appear on the school magazine, as it was kinda negative and dark in tone, not really something you would see in a magazine with cheery articles like “I love my school”, “My ambition in life”, “My Grandparents” and what not…

4. My article had nothing to do with smoking, yet the crazy editor person (or whoever it was) added a picture of a burning cigarette and another picture of a depressed man, adding to the dark tone…bummer, ain’t it?

5. It’s special for all these reasons, but I’m also kinda doubtful whether anyone actually read it. Even bigger bummer. So I’m making sure you guys at least read it. So, read it, I say! *commanding tone*

So, anyways, enough of the intro, let’s get on with it!

Mistakes

What went wrong?

Mistakes. We all make them. No human being on this earth is devoid of mistakes. When we know our mistakes and what went wrong, we will know what to do when we are offered a second chance. Or else, we end up in a cycle of repeating the same mistakes, making the same blunders and wondering what exactly went wrong, when, in reality, we have been inflicting our work with the mistakes of our own hands. However, I’ve come to realise that most of our BIGGEST mistakes come not from anything else, but the faults in our mentality. When we commit a mistake thinking that we were right in committing it, we fall, unable to get up, and curse our situations and surroundings for their “incapability” to cope with us when we do the “right thing”. So, what exactly are our mistakes? What makes us do the mistakes we do? Well, let’s find out!

Fighting too hard:

We have a lot of struggles in our life. The next examination, a competition, a relationship to restore with a betrayed friend and so much more to work upon! However, there are times we fight too hard. We are so involved in certain “important” things that we lose perspective of what we should do. When we fret too much for losing just three marks for a centum, instead of thanking God for actually giving so many marks, we re-evaluate, pull our hair, reject ourselves for it, or even cheat by tampering with the paper to get those extra marks. Is that really necessary? When we start “competing” by bickering,challenging and demotivating the other participants, instead of actually focusing on doing a good job and not worrying about what result comes, knowing that you have done your best, WHAT DO YOU GAIN? Nothing! Just a few broken relationships, all in the name of “competition”. Again I ask, is that really necessary? Are we trying too hard to win something, and unfortunately forgetting God’s command to love your neighbour as yourself? Are we living a life full of bitterness and hate just because of a trivial matter? So I implore you, not to lose focus of the goal, by getting too involved in the wrong ideas of putting down the rest of the competition, using imperfect methods to achieve perfection (which is so overrated, when you know that perfection is measured by the attitude of your heart, not the number of centums or first prizes you have achieved) and working too hard for the wrong causes.

Giving up too soon:

All of us have a God-given plan in our life. We have a cause to commit to, a plan to perform and a life to live. But how many of us have given up doing the big things in our life without knowing that we were only inches away from success? Recently, a friend of mine was asked to pass all the exams by a lot of people. In this motivation, he worked hard and actually managed to pass every subject (he actually had all borderline marks! But since he managed to pass…we considered it an achievement). However, he wrote a certain exam thinking he would not pass. In that disappointment, he flunked the next exam. Now, when he got his marks, he managed to pass every subject except the one he purposefully flunked in. Now, he looks back and tells me that if he knew that he would pass every other subject, he would have worked harder for that particular subject. Sad story, isn’t it? When we discontinue from pursuing our God given talents, we give up too soon. When we leave off participating, for fear of losing, we give up too soon. When we get absent for a certain exam for fear of failing, we give up too soon. The saddest part, however, is that we forget the fact that if God has given us this challenge, he is faithful to help us to SUCCEED in this challenge, not even borderline pass it! So, we’d better not give up too soon, and we must not fear any challenge, because we know that God will provide help when we ask him.

Showing off too much:

We all have a need to be accepted, with all our faults and follies and we need to be people who will accept people and show them the love that God has given us. But, we have no need to attract people into believing that we are something what we are not. We may not be that talented, but we move among the talented people and attempt to outshine them. That attitude is so dangerous, that I am lost for words to explain how it is detrimental to the cause. We don’t have to glorify our own selves. We shouldn’t actually. Showing off is for those who are afraid that people will not accept them as they are. We need not be afraid, because God accepts people as they are. What we have to remember is that we must humble ourselves and remain humble. We need to realise that by putting an image of ourselves that is not really who we are, we are at great risk of being exposed and people will consider us as cheats who are insecure and immature enough to appear as “great” people instead of who God really wanted us to be. When God asked us to let our light shine before others, he actually meant the goodness of our soul, not our super-sized egos. So, we need to understand that we need not be the best, but we need to make sure we don’t act like we are the best.

Hating too long:

We have been offended by many things, from the way a teacher shouts at you, to the ugly smelling deodorant your friend was wearing (on investigation, it could have been found out that he didn’t actually use any deodorant). But, how many times have we held on that hurt, that pain and turned it into a sword of hate against that particular person? Hate can destroy many things. It can destroy our good opinions of someone (i.e. your enemy helps a falling kid, then you go ask the kid if his money wasn’t stolen by the enemy. When the kid says it wasn’t stolen, you grumble that your enemy didn’t succeed this time…that’s what I’m talking about), it can destroy all the good that someone has done to you, it can destroy their own conscience, giving them guilt feelings, when actually, YOU should be feeling the guilt because you didn’t forgive that someone for his unintended fault. Do you hate someone for too long? Does the sight of that person cripple your insides with memories of the “grievous” faults that they have committed? Then, go to that person, and apologise for the hurt that YOU are causing him. You may not know how much hurt you are causing him just by your attitude to him. Show that you are also willing to forgive him just as God is ready to forgive your own faults. Don’t harbour pride in your heart and cause him to suffer for that fault. Imagine if God did that to you…now does that keep things in perspective?

“Heart” of the matter:

Now that I’m done (I’m sorry it was long), you might notice a pattern in what I’m saying. It all corresponds to matters of the heart. We live and learn a lot in life. But, some of it remains as head knowledge. We need to “educate” our hearts to be what God wants us to be. We need to remember to keep things in focus, never ever give up, remain humble and love everyone unconditionally. Our heart must be perfect, if we ever wish to be truly perfect. You may wonder why I chose this topic to write about. It is mainly because, every magazine has a big achievements list in it. But are we willing to humbly admit that we have even committed mistakes as well? Just kidding, what I actually meant was that these were common mistakes even I admit to committing, and as I said, remembering our mistakes will help us when God gracefully gives us a second chance. So, that’s it for now, and I hope that we all commit ourselves to doing the right thing and letting our light shine for the glory of God.

So anyways, that’s the essay, and I hope you like it. I’m surely no authority to speak big words of advice and all, but in this essay, I’ve only written what I’ve seen in life, and what I learnt about these situations from my walk with God. Hope this has helped you, and entertained you (at least a bit).