Contemplating LIFE

Detach yourself with past...
Sort your thoughts in mind...
Heal yourself from inside...
Start afresh each time...

When your goals and happiness align...
You reach purpose of life...you're born for...

Simple and true...

Have you?

RELATIONSHIP ADVICE TO NEWLY WEDS

***Relationships, especially young marriages, may turn out bigger chaos than we understand them to be. Few tips that can help build a strong marriage at the outset, are penned as under:-

1. Understand that a successful marriage takes alot more efforts than you have put-in so far.

Separation is easy and should be understood as an act of coward. Difficult is to live the relationship, make adjustments, ignore faults, accept responsibilities, grow as a person and commit yourself in totality to that special person, you decided to marry that day.

(There are certain acts that can't be forgiven, sexual harrassment, physical and emotional violence, to name a few; marriage in such cases are better ended than sustained).

2. Respect for the spouse is the essence of marriage. You have to respect your spouse, not just pretend, but from within, from heart, deep down.

Respect his/her feelings, respect spouse as being, for what s/he is, as partner... respect him/her for all kinds of needs, opinions, inclinations and value systems.

3. Give first, before expecting a similar behaviour from spouse. Do those small little things that you surely know will make your spouse feel good. Caring...is the key.

4. Finances, sometimes create enormous confusion in a new relationship.

Money and status are the last things a person should be bothered about, when it comes to relationships. Ironically, 90 % of our life and efforts revolve around these two.

Sit down patiently, talk out your concerns, rather than keeping them locked inside you.

Remember, financial transparency resolves half of the tussle and should be followed at all costs.

Your spouse should be the last person that you want to do business with. Don't worry about ensuring financial securities. Everything will work out fine.

5. Once you are married, you broadly have to develop yourself (or divide) into three program modes to deal with three important relationships.

One, which is a private relationship with spouse; second, relationship with your family who brought you up and third is, relationship with your in-laws.

Now develop an interface in these three modes of self...carrying these relationships in workable, amiable, harmonious manner.

Remember, your in laws, in most cases, will never become your parents and you can never become their child. But you can certainly work out a way to keep things going, rather smoothly.

As someone said,"If you can't make it, just fake it". The idea is to keep things light and under control while keeping the peace inside you alive.

6. Keep a rational approach! Keep yourself in your spouse's shoes before making any assumptions.

7. Don't rub on the wrong side! Couple generally knows (should know) each other's sensitivities. Make sure you don't poke each other on issues that hurt the most. Because that really makes a relationship sour.

8. None is perfect! Our parents and siblings are humans that most closely relate to our genetic and temperamental compositions, but do we align with them completely? NO! For spouse, it's a totally different ballgame. S/he might have had an entirely different upbringing, peculiar struggles and unique set of challenges.

9. Learn to sacrifice! It is what it takes for a successful relationship. Your spouse soon is going to recognise your efforts, your stand, your commitments, your gestures; only to reciprocate in more profound and passionate manner.

10. When in chaos breathe deep, sit down, relax, work your way out together. There is no place for ego. And it won't take much to say sorry, thank you and I love you. These three words are quick fixes for number of damages.

11. Don't leave dents so deep that you find difficult to repair at a later stage. No matter what happens, resolve your issues that very day (with spouse or within yourself) and sleep peacefully. Wake up to a fresh day being grateful for what you got.

12. Learn to move on! What's gone is gone. Take a pledge, whatever happens, you won't let the past re-surface in your present. Learn to live in present. Learn to forgive. Learn to carry on.

13. Remember, you are not working a marriage but you are building your support system that will see you through ups and downs, happiness and sorrows, goods and bads...make sure that the foundation is strong...

14. Try to fill your relationship with values, respect, love, sacrifices, care and commitments...because it is in this space, your future generation will be born and brought up...ensure that you build it right...

15. And lastly, give it time! Over a period, you two will be able to find a middle path for everything that you currently have a clash head-on.

Stay blessed and well wedded..!

Lots of love..!

PS: Wrote as advice to a couple of couples who approached in last few days...

Thought of helping some more...

Lesson-4

HOMESCHOOLING CAN BECOME A NEW NORMAL

School is an ancient established system of learning and educating. Along with, it is believed to help impart social rules, moral values and life-skills to children. It is the first system of organised activities that a child sees, observes and learns from. School helps get children into a routine and inculcate a sense of discipline. Teachers are the first formal authority children understand to respect, obey and abide.

After hunting numerous ones of all class and kinds, undergoing months of confusion, bearing the fussiness, hypocrisy and condescension that generally prevails amongst reputed ones, and changing 8 schools as my son reaches his fourth grade, I have come to realise that our education system has lost it's purpose along the way and is nothing more than a good business opportunity, with efforts directed more towards show bizz, monetary gains, stature, than a value orientated focussed educational approach. However, still, as parents we feel helpless.

[{(Our kind of work makes us shift frequently with log, stock, barrel. Getting admission in a new good school is a battle that we fight almost every alternate year causing much harassment not only to ourselves but to children as well.
Who cares a damn about children though! Every couple of years, at such a tender age, everything changes for them; uniform, identity, classmates, set of friends, teachers, campus, rules, board, publishers & pattern of books subscribed, air, belongingness, competition, language. For no fault of theirs! On top, the entrance tests, that a child has to go through for admission even for KG where the question paper is designed to be application based specifically suited to select a kind of student that the same school might have not been able to produce during last session in that very class.)}]

Moreover, the pace at which teachers leave and join schools, makes parents ponder whether they work for passion, or for pocket money and independence. The decline in value system, responsibility quotient, reliability factor and involvement remain evident in many if not all (exceptions exist).

Parents are the first teachers of their children. They know their child's strengths and interests, lacunas and weaknesses, way better than anyone else. And it goes without saying that it is, to a great extent, the family environment, nurturing and upbringing that make children what they stand as adults; whether it's moral or social values, citizenship responsibilities, crisis-management aptitude, life skills or dexterity in interpersonal-relationships. Homeschooling, thus, can work out to be a great viable option which should be explored further during what better times than these. It is time to rethink about the concept of schooling, exploring another dimension of formal education. However, it will require alot of courage, determination, responsibility and self-discipline on parents' part. Availablity of parents (atleast one) at home is a pre-condition, which is the first challenge of homeschooling.

Parents clearly know where their children would be if they don't involve themselves deeper into their textbooks (again, exceptions do exist). A widely observed behaviour pattern, however, amongst parents is to see school more of a break facilitator from children. It is seen as a routine maker to gain some me-time for themselves. If both parents are working, it is a must, at times schooling begins as early as one and half to two yrs of age for such kids.

What has Lockdown taught us???

1. Homeschooling is possible.

2. It can help parents choose the value system they want to work upon and impart to their children.

3. It makes it possible to give focussed attention to children's strengths and weaknesses, work on lacunas and build on sinews.

4. Parents can save alot of money and resources or just divert them judiciously some place else; hobby honing, donating stationary in orphanage etc.

Devaluing and disbelieving whole system of formal school based education is not the purpose of this piece of writing. Good schools, good teachers, good system certainly exist. Idea is to look into the possibilities of homeschooling or society based learning for our children with proper infrastructure and technical support in place; especially in the times of crisis like these.

Leaving with another point to ponder, to what level?

Lesson:3

MADE WFH (WORK FROM HOME) AN ACCEPTABLE WORK-NORM; MAKING IT POSSIBLE FOR MORE WOMEN TO JOIN THE NATIONAL WORKFORCE IN TIMES TO COME.

Indian women despite being half the population (approximately 924 for every 1000 men), have much lower participation in country's work force...

As per World Bank report published in 2019, the Labour Force Participation Rate is only 23% for Indian Women. This sounds alarming because India has more women pursuing higher studies in comparison to men...

Where are these qualified women then?

Women join the workforce, but are unable to sustain themselves under the social, family and work pressures. With child bearing and rearing, things become even more difficult.

It's a known fact that women have stepped out of their four walls, but the household management and looking after varying needs of family members are still primarily their responsibility. Working for money thus, comes with an additional cost. It gets women the intended confidence, empowerment and financial independence, but often brings along guilt, stress and certain relationship pressures. They often find themselves balancing things and chasing timelines. And when things go beyond their capacity, they quit.

Most women would continue if work from home is permitted when their presence in the house is critical to attend to pressing needs of family. WFH support to women employees is a fairly new concept for organisations in India. So far most women's requests were being returned with a raised brow or turned down with a constipated reply when they talked of WFH.

LOCKDOWN'S CONTRIBUTION?

1. It has certainly helped the organisations in establishing WFH as an acceptable work culture.

2. Understanding of the fact that WFH doesn't make a person elude his/her responsibilities towards the organisation, even during crises.

3. The work efficiency and work production largely remain unaffected when people WFH.

3. WFH will enable more women to join the workforce, bring balance in the system and contribute to India's GDP especially in difficult times like these.

4. WFH option can be extended to men as well (to enable them to share household responsibilities and attend to family commitments). This will certainly go a long way in transforming our societies, family and work culture.

5. WFH can be adopted as preferred work-norm by organisations as well. It can prove beneficial monetarily as WFH will ensue massive cut down in employee's cost to company (uniforms, transportation, food, welfare, office comfort, work stations etc.).

Lesson:1

THE LOCKDOWN HAS PRODUCED MORE CHEFS THAN EVER...

Women...! If you haven't trained your boy as yet...You are loosing an opportunity to make cooking a gender-neutral house-hold chore...

Men...! If you still haven't prepared a meal or more...You haven't really experienced the art and joy of cooking and feeding your loved ones...

Lesson:2

MONEY & RESOURCES ARE MEANT TO BE SHARED

Winters were setting in. I went to buy winter school uniform for my son, and being a working mom with enough money for pooling in resources to my comfort, I bought 6 pairs, one for each day, to save myself washing efforts during busy weekdays...

After a couple of days, I happened to visit the store again and noticed a couple of parents arguing with the shop owner for not procuring winter uniform in size 30 for their children...

Perhaps, those were the only 6 pairs in the size left with the store. Probably, the owner had scaled it at 2 pairs per kid.

Apparently, I had seized 6 pairs at the cost of leaving 2 kids without winter uniform for next 15 days (causing them complex, punishment, embarrassment at school)...to save myself just 15 mins of every alternate day efforts.

For RESOURCES, I had learnt my lesson...

In another incident, I was out on work to another city and happened to collect some official stuff which couldn't have been left behind. I had no weighing machine and hoped like hell my baggage to be within authorised weight limit. I ended up paying 7500/- to Airindia...

My heart ached...thoughts kept me cogitated; this money could have bought a BPL family food for the entire month...

This was my lesson on MONEY...

WE BUY BECAUSE WE CAN...!
WE WASTE BECAUSE WE HAVE...!

The ones who have enough, have tendency to accumulate for themselves... to save that extra effort... to feel secure... or to show it off... and later end up shedding what they can't put use to...

What the lockdown is teaching us...?

1. A roof on head, pair of clothes and three meals a day is all we need to sustain and survive...

2. Money might be personal, but the resources are for all...

3. We have enough not only for ourselves but to feed another family or more...

4. Our pay cheque is more than adequate... We own more than we need...

5. Resources and currency both need to be distributed proportionately, if not equally, as a right to be born...

6. Let's not think twice to share our resources or even money with those who can't afford...

7. Leaving our children with adequate WEALTH isn't as important as leaving them with adequate VALUES...

A few more...

*Let's not give expensive gifts to our people, gift those underprivileged instead...

*Let's not stock our kitchen cabinets, donate the poors instead...

*Let's not stack fashion in our wardrobes, cover a naked instead...

*Let's not invest in four apartments, help a homeless build his shed instead...

So true...