Time - 6th element

Eight out of ten people always complain "Oh, I didn't get time" or "I am short of time" and they run in the 11th hour to finish their task. This is so common among everyone. We feel even 24hrs are not enough in a day to finish all the tasks we want to. Ever wondered why does that happen to us! Why do we pray to god or wish secretly that we had the control over time and we could have stopped the clock or fast forwarded our life.

Lets see some funny situations. During school days as a kid I always used to play after coming home and then after having food I used to go to bed. Next day morning I used to remember about my homework and then I used to tell my mom "Mom, I didn't get enough time to complete my work. Could you pls do it for me?". These things repeated and after that my mom gave me a lecture for how to utilize my time to do both homework and other activities. Sadly, after that I was not allowed to use this excuse to not to do homework.

After getting admission in engineering college, first thing I was concerned about is time management. It is very much required in order to cope up with every day tasks and in the competitive environment. It is essentially the 6th element in our life after water, air, fire, earth & spirit.

These are some steps with which we can achieve time management skills:

Prioritize your work - When you have lot of assignments and tasks to do, then prioritize your work and allocate time accordingly. Start with something which is very difficult since you are fresh and you can dedicate more attention in that task.

Postpone unnecessary activities - Postpone unnecessary activities until you are done with your tasks. These activities might divert you from your work sometimes. This can be challenging as it might be one of your favorite pastime like watching TV serial. These activities will be more fun when we dont' have any tension in our mind due to exam, assignment etc.

Identify your resources - No one is perfect in this world and we might need help of a friend or a guide once in a while in problem solving. Just figure out the right resources and approach them in time.

Use your free time - Most of the time we are free and we don't do anything constructive in that free time. This is evil. We should plan ahead if something is going to come up and work on that instead of running at the last moment. This is applicable in academic side as well as in our personal life. Most of the time we kill our free time by sleeping unnecessarily or by watching movies. Use internet only when you need it. If you are just doing timepass than it can be evil. We can do some weird stuff like talking to strangers on the internet or surfing wrong websites. So, stay away from the stuff like this.

Developing time management skills is a journey and it requires lot of patience and commitment to work.

Image courtesy

This post is written for Thursday Tales

Sound of the windchime

Wind chimes are known to us from a very long time. Its size and appearance is different from that age to this one. But there is one thing common, the sweetness of the music that we hear when the wind blows and disturbs the chime.

I got this wind chime to hang it outside the porch in my house. One of my Chinese friend thinks that Wind chimes bring good luck to us if they are hung near the main door. I started liking the cool music these chimes produced every time the breeze blew. Whenever i was angry or upset about anything I would go out and stand for sometime and the sweet music of the chime would make my mood better.

The reverberating music of the chimes are so beautiful and it can give magical effect to the babies. My thoughts seem to be floating in the air whenever i hear the music. It feels like out of this simple object the world is recreated and purified. I started enjoying my garden more because of the chime and slowly my garden was flooded with trees of apricot, mango, lemon etc. I grew up some vegetables like tomatoes, spinach etc. The flowers in my garden seem to be growing big and it is believed that even plants feel good with beautiful music around them. I started buying more wind chimes and hanging it to my garden. Slowly, the area outside my house became so beautiful and colorful that neighborhood children started to visit and wander in my garden. I realized that these chimes brought back the much needed color in my life. I started enjoying nature and plants. These chimes can play the music that can be eternal to your life.

This post is written for Thursday Tales

Image courtesy

The way I see your world

Today when I went to the Sears tower with my friends, I got to see the view of the world outside. Many thoughts came running in our small little minds. I would like to elaborate here the differences between my world and your world i.e. the world which we are seeing from this glass window.

Image courtesy - Bin's corner

My world is perfect, all of us are like the happy tree friends who hug each other, love each other and cuddle with each other. At times when anyone is scared we hold hands and calm down the fears. Everyone sticks around to wipe each other's tears.

But in your world, everything is artificial. Love has lost its meaning and wandered to a dead end road. No one cares about other's feelings. At good times all the fun and frolic happens along with friends and relatives, but during tough times everybody disappears ! I don't like this world which is full of mean and bad people.

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In my perfect little world, we care and share with each other. We live to love and easily forget other's mistakes and we are back to our friendship. Everything seems to be perfect here, no problem and no tension.

But in your world, you always have to strive on greed and crave for unnecessary things. You step on other's feelings to go ahead in your life. I don't like this world which is full of lust and misery. Life is so painful here. People are like the wandering evil witches & vampires who suck other's blood for their own benefit.

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In my world, everybody is treated equal. We are loyal to our friends. We always give value to friendship and trust.

But in your world, there are no real friends. Everybody puts up a fake artificial smile on their face and are eager to back stab their friends. Courtesy and mutual respect are the words that have disappeared from their dictionary.

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Seeing the world outside, we've lost all our hopes, goals and dreams. The world looks like an astonishingly beautiful hell, but I prefer to stay in my mother's lap than to enjoy the world outside. I don't want to enjoy doing any malicious acts and thrive on other's anguish.

Indeed there is a great difference between the two worlds and I refuse to stay in the other side of the glass world !

This post is written for Thursday Tales

The breakup

Many times you feel restless and hear all wierd noises in your head. You feel the darkness around you even when the moon and the meteors lit up the sky. You feel the pain in your heart and tears don't stop embracing your cheeks. I felt the same when I broke up with James today. I went to the Brooklyn bridge where he told me that he loves me for the first time and proposed to me with a ring. Tears are welling up in my eyes. It was late night but I lived in New york - city that never sleeps ! I took my car and drove near the bridge. There was meteor shower today and they were illuminating the city like fireworks. I stood up there holding the rails of the bridge and watched the meteors fall on the city.

Pic is taken from here.

I felt like I am trapped in this world of pain. My heart was pounding as i removed my engagement ring. Why did i fell into the relationship which left me in despair? Does everyone who is in love has this kind of brutal ending? Truth is always bitter. My mom and my friends were right. My intuition that kept nagging me was right. But I didn't want to stop and listen to them. Look at me today, I am standing right on the bridge with my engagement ring with a feeling that I am the dumbest fool in this world for believing him.

But seldom does anyone realize this that the sweet lips could vent out the venom inside; how can you figure out that you are living in a fictitious world where you dream't about having a long lasting relationship where nothing could go wrong? How could you not trust the enchanting words that could lure you to the extent of having a dream about the ' invincible love '?

There were many signs, but I chosed not to look; many times i heard the voices from my head who asked me to walk away, break your heart yourself rather than he breaking your heart but I refrained myself from taking that step. There were times when i cried so much that my friends started advising me to break up since I didn't deserve that kind of relationship. There were innumerable nights where I would lay on my bed and convince myself that everything's gonna be alright, but somewhere deep down in my heart feeling a sense of insecurity.

Now, when I stand near the bridge I feel only if I hadn't given so much, trusted so much and cared so much, the pain would have been bearable. With all these thoughts I dropped the engagement ring in the water and walked away towards my home !

This post is written for Thursday Tales

Sea Sickness

Since childhood i suffered from acrophobia and of late i came to know that I have developed sea sickness as well. I would rather say I was scared of going into the ocean or a sea, 'sea sickness' was just a hi-fi term i used to cover the actual fear. But one day I thought its now or never. So, in order to overcome my phobias I signed up for a snorkeling tour with my friends in the summer vacation.

We headed towards our boat. The captain asked me if I had a problem with sea sickness. "I don't know", I told him. The waves were crashing across the bow of the ship. Okay, I was terrified right at that moment. I saw the sky, it was clear and sunny that afternoon. After sometime the Captain started the engine and soon in a short while we went into the ocean. All my friends were busy in taking pictures but I was carefully monitoring the ocean waves and the water. It was all blue everywhere ! The sky, the ocean .. wow it was really amazing to see the nature like this. It was the time to get into the water for doing some underwater adventure.

My friends started putting the snorkel gears and diving into the water one by one. It was my turn now. The captain saw me and said " Aren't you going inside? It is totally a different world !" He said with excitement. I told him it was my first time snorkeling. He assured that I am going to love it like anything. I prepared myself mentally to dive into the water. I was feeling a kind of rush inside me before diving. It's a mixture of fear and excitement. It's a feeling of not knowing what is under my feet, inside the water. I was experiencing the same thing before my first dive in the ocean that removed my phobia from my life. The captain gave me a all clear sign and I plunged into the water.

Bubbles swirled around me. I started scanning the area around me. Its all blue and beautiful. I have seen this in many movies and many videos. A group of small fishes passed besides me like a stream of bullets. I could see their scales clearly and even touch them. They were quickly disappearing in the underwaters of the vast ocean. Wowww.. I got excited by looking at them. My friends were ahead of me. They were enjoying and taking pictures. I saw the aquatic plants like red algae. I saw the sea horses at some distance. The ocean was very calm today.

Image Courtesy - Deviant Art

I was loving each and every moment I spent under the water. I opened my hair and let it flow freely. I felt like I don't have any tensions in my mind now. I felt weightless inside the water and I started swimming everywhere and touching the rocks. The slight bits of the underwater plants were touching my skin giving a tickling sensation. I heard a slow continuous humming sound above me. I saw the shadow of the ship that was passing on the water surface. More fishes appeared in front of me as they swam out of some long sea grass.

The captain had told us not to touch the big fishes or do something crazy near the aquatic animals. It was the time to head up to the boat. The captain had a rope which my friends used to go up to the surface of the water. I was so happy to finally overcome my under water phobia ! Yayy I felt like I have conquered the water kingdom.

I can never forget this wonderful day. I thanked the Captain for encouraging me and I was happy that I joined my friends for this wonderful short underwater trip that wiped out my fears/phobias. Sometimes we need to fight back with ourself in order to achieve the unachievable.

This post is written for Thursday Tales