Quarter-life Crisis

It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there are many things about yourself that you didn't know and may not like. You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two, but then get scared because you barely know where you are now.You start realizing that people are selfish and that, maybe, those friends that you thought you were so close to aren't exactly the greatest people you have ever met, and the people you have lost touch with are some of the most important ones. What you don't recognize is that they are realizing that too, and aren't really cold, catty, mean or insincere, but that they are as confused as you.You look at your job; and it is not even close to what you thought you would be doing, or maybe you are looking for a job and realizing that you are going to have to start at the bottom and that scares you.Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what others are doing and find yourself judging more than usual because suddenly you realize that you have certain boundaries in your life and are constantly adding things to your list of what is acceptable and what isn't. One minute, you are insecure and then the next, secure.You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life. You feel alone and scared and confused. Suddenly, change is the enemy and you try and cling on to the past with dear life, but soon realize that the past is drifting further and further away, and there is nothing to do but stay where you are or move forward.You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved could do such damage to you. Or you lie in bed and wonder why you can't meet anyone decent enough that you want to get to know better. Or maybe you love someone but love someone else too and cannot figure out why you're doing this because you know that you aren't a bad person. One night stands and random hook ups start to look cheap. Getting wasted and acting like an idiot starts to look pathetic. You go through the same emotions and questions over and over, and talk with your friends about the same topics because you cannot seem to make a decision. You worry about loans, money, the future and making a life for yourself... and while winning the race would be great, right now you'd just like to be a contender.We call it the "Quarter-life Crisis."

Life is a Journey

Life is a journey filled with lessons, hardships, heartaches, joys, celebrations and special moments that will ultimately lead us to our destination, our purpose in life. The road will not always be smooth; in fact, throughout our travels, we will encounter many challenges.

Some of these challenges will test our courage, strengths, weaknesses, and faith. Along the way, we may stumble upon obstacles that will come between the paths that we are destined to take. In order to follow the right path, we must overcome these obstacles. Sometimes these obstacles are really blessings in disguise, only we don't realize that at the time.

Along our journey we will be confronted with many situations, some will be filled with joy, and some will be filled with heartache. How we react to what we are faced with determines what kind of outcome the rest of our journey through life will be like. When things don't always go our way, we have two choices in dealing with the situations. We can focus on the fact that things didn't go how we had hoped they would and let life pass us by, or two, we can make the best out of the situation and know that these are only temporary setbacks and find the lessons that are to be learned.

Time stops for no one, and if we allow ourselves to focus on the negative we might miss out on some really amazing things that life has to offer. We can't go back to the past, we can only take the lessons that we have learned and the experiences that we have gained from it and move on. It is because of the heartaches, as well as the hardships, that in the end help to make us a stronger person.

The people that we meet on our journey, are people that we are destined to meet. Everybody comes into our lives for some reason or another and we don't always know their purpose until it is too late. They all play some kind of role. Some may stay for a lifetime; others may only stay for a short while. People will come and go into our lives quickly, but sometimes we are lucky to meet that one special person that will stay in our hearts forever no matter what. Even though we may not always end up being with that person and they may not always stay in our life for as long as we like, the lessons that we have learned from them and the experiences that we have gained from meeting that person, will stay with us forever.

It's these things that will give us strength to continue on with our journey. Memories are priceless treasures that we can cherish forever in our hearts. They also enables us to continue on with our journey for whatever life has in store for us. Sometimes all it takes is one special person to help us look inside ourselves and find a whole different person that we never knew existed. Our eyes are suddenly opened to a world we never knew existed- a world where time is so precious and moments never seem to last long enough.
Throughout this adventure, people will give you advice and insights on how to live your life but when it all comes down to it, you must always do what you feel is right. Always follow your heart, and most importantly never have any regrets. Don't hold anything back. Say what you want to say, and do what you want to do, because sometimes we don't get a second chance to say or do what we should have the first time around.
It is often said that what doesn't kill you will make you stronger. It all depends on how one defines the word "strong" It can have different meanings to different people. In this sense, "stronger" means looking back at the person you were and comparing it to the person you have become today. It also means looking deep into your soul and realizing that the person you are today couldn't exist if it weren't for the things that have happened in the past or for the people that you have met. Everything that happens in our life happens for a reason and sometimes that means we must face heartaches in order to experience joy.

Irresponsible Indian media

Varun Gandhi , Son of Late Sanjay Gandhi (Indira Gandhi’s Elder son ) is in news and the reason is his controversial speech in his debut election. Before going ahead, I would like to make clear that I am completely disagree with what he said and being a responsible educated Indian citizen what he had said is completely wrong and unacceptable.

But the issue is about the role of Indian media. I really do not understand why this much publicity is given to statements made by Varun Gandhi. It has become customary of all Multi National news channel that whenever a leader makes an pro Hindu statement, they are ready to pounce on it and devote majority of their time in discussing and debating it. Even some news channels have started showing video clippings of late Sanjay Gandhi (Varun Father) as well. Sanjay also had been showing hatred to Muslims and what he did during the emergency. Like father, Varun having the genes of Sanjay also shows the 'non-secular' qualities.

I am completely agree that in a democracy like India where half of the population is uneducated and below the poverty line, the statement what Mr. Gandhi had made is completely unacceptable. This is what not expected from a educated person like him. Mr. A. R. Rahman had won the first Oscar for India; half of the Indian film industry belongs to Muslim community, many of the good doctors, engineers, Scientist coming from that part of society only. He has no right to use such words against a particular part of society.

But at the same time, I think that Indian media don’t have any problem with what Mr. Gandhi had said but with his sir name and moreover that he comes from majority population i.e a Hindu. I want to ask why the statements that Mehbooba Mufti (PDP leader in Jammu Kashmir) and other Kashmiri leaders used to made against this whole nation never highlighted. I had seen several interviews of her, where she bluntly used to say that Kashmir is not the part of India and support Pakistan. Indian media never had shown that several time on Lal chowk of Sri Nagar the Indian Tricolor burnt in presence of thousands of people. It’s never ever had shown that in many parts of Kashmir 14th August is treated as Independence Day and 15th August as black day There are several places in Kashmir and even in rural areas of Bihar/U.P national flags of our "beloved neighbors" are flying high. Such things will never be shown in these news channels.

Being the youth of India I just want to convey to the others that they should use their minds and should not go on what media is showing to them. Because all these channels are more or less biased against one or another party. We need a government that should take the problems of recession, unemployment and security of the nation on top priority. We don’t want a home minister for whom changing the clothes are more important while the capital of nation was rocked with blasts and we also don’t want the people who again want to use the policy of divide & rule. So this election, use all your mind and thoughts before giving your vote.

Let's start a new Journey

Next year is still somewhere in the future and doesn't really exist yet and with only a couple of days left before the next party, it hardly seems worth starting anything. So I feel like I am in limbo which according to the Oxford English Dictionary is "an intermediate state of condition awaiting decision". The term decision reminds me about the New Year resolution. The New Year is a good time to make resolutions. Every year most of us take some decisions and make promise to our own self that we will work on these. Many of those were completed and some remains only in books. Someone has very correctly said “It’s paradoxical that the person on whom you have the most control is yourself, yet the hardest person to change is yourself ".

Life is never as simple as it seems. Our priorities, our taste and our relations changes with time and so as our resolutions. A New-year resolution if defined in basic manners is “To take a new decision, setting one goal and start working to achieve that”. But is the decision making is such a simple process? Many of time in our life we got stuck somewhere and it’s really hard to take some concrete decision on that. One of the most common theories in the field of decision making is the expected utility theory (EU). According to this theory, people usually make their decisions by weighing the severity and likelihood of the possible outcomes of different alternatives. The integration of this information is made through some type of expectation, based calculus (cognitive activity) which enables us to make a decision..We generally stuck on decsions when we are actually biased towards the failure side. Most of us don’t actually want to feel the hard face of life and the ground reality. Actually in such cases we want to live in the moment only and don’t want to face the future with giving the argument that destiny is already decided. I do agree that destiny is already decided and no one can change that. Then what we can do – we can make our life easy by taking right decisions at right time. Life is full of choices but the important thing is to make the right choice.

Last week a very good friend was arguing with me on why to plan for future. According to her “we spend our entire life on thinking that this is wrong, this is right, we have to do this and that .but when Destiny has to do something, it happens and all our dreams and plans just scattered like playing cards” Bitter truth of life. But thus this means that we stop thinking about future. No, Life is all about new start. We just can’t stop thinking of future because we have bad experience in past. Whatever happened in past is just can’t be reverted back. But we can change our future by making change in our present.

In this New Year let’s make a new start by taking some new resolution and checking the ground reality. Let’s not think only alone about ourselves but for the people in our surrounding as well. Lets give them the reason to smile and proud on us. Lets see all the options and directions available in life and find out the best among those, not only for our own self but for all for whom we actually matters. Let’s just not care only about someone feelings but the aftermaths of the decision as well. Hard decisions always give the pain in the beginning. But in the end always leads for better future. Let’s start a new journey with new hopes. Wish you a very happy and prosperous new year!!!