balroop singh

Ignorance is Bliss?

Published on July 15, 2014 by balroop singh27 Comments

This phrase – ‘Ignorance is bliss’ was coined by Thomas Gray in one of his poems – ‘Ode On a Distant Prospect of Eton College’– always gives me great solace. It takes me back into those corridors of life, which were happier mainly because I was less aware; I didn’t pine for things I didn’t know about.

IT KEEPS US HAPPY:

When I was young, quite young, I had no idea that so many books contained so much of knowledge that could be beyond our comprehension. I was happy with whatever reading material I could find and felt that I had all the knowledge of the world.

When I gained some awareness about the vastness of this globe, I had no time to read much. I loved books and during my flights of fantasy, I could see myself writing. I would consciously tell myself – one day I would write my own book.

But I had no time!

IT INTRODUCES SIMPLICITY:

Life became so busy and hectic that I forgot all about reading… writing was a far cry!

As I moved on, balancing various duties of a wife, mother, homemaker and teacher, I started recording my fleeting thoughts on whatever piece of paper or notepad I could find.

It was so easy to write! I didn’t have to struggle with the haphazard placement of syllables on a keyboard, trying to locate them. All of them could flow so spontaneously from my pen!

However, I couldn’t escape the invasion of technology into my life!

But ignorance didn’t end there. It never can!

IT IS ETERNAL:

At last when I could finally manage to type all those thoughts and organize them, I discovered that I had so many poems they could form a book.

My elation went through the roof. I was going to be a published writer!

I was most thankful to my Mac at this time who told me I could self publish!

I thought I was the most knowledgeable person on this earth. I did all the research how to format, how to publish, how to create a cover and wow! I was ready to publish.

And I published my first book of Poetry: SUBLIME SHADOWS OF LIFE

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EBLWR0A

Once again, ignorance proved to be bliss for me!

Despite all the hard work that I had put in, my ignorance remained to be my best pal.

I basked in the glory of my published poetry but I didn’t know that books at Amazon.com:

Need promotion.
Should have customer reviews
Can’t be gifted as free copies
Very few people like poetry.

A NEW BEGINNING:

It has been a long journey of striving to learn and I am not the one who would give up so easily. The writer in me says: KEEP GOING!

So having elbowed some of my ignorance out, I have made another effort. My second book, which is a Non-Fiction, is ready to get published. This time I am requesting the support of all my online friends to make it a success. Ironically its title is: WHEN SUCCESS ELUDES US… A Step – by – Step Guide to Success, which will be launched on 21 July 2014 at Amazon.com.

It contains the most honest and realistic experiences. Who could have written about it, if not me?

I am extremely grateful to all my friends who have promised to help. I also look forward to the support of all those valued visitors who like my blog.

I am open to all the suggestions and advice, which you would like to offer. Please give your suggestions in the form of comments. I value each one of them.

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Balroop Singh.

Friendship: Why Are Some Friends So Special?

Published on July 8, 2014August 4, 2016 by balroop singh17 Comments

The word ‘friendship’ has trailed me since childhood. I could never find a satisfactory definition of this word. More than friends, I have been fascinated by the charisma of this word – ‘friendship.’

I don’t have any memories of childhood friends and often wonder – did I have any friends? I remember I could never take an initiative to walk up to a person and say something.

I always waited, thinking…do they like me? Will they be friends with me?

Probably I was an introvert, though I didn’t know the meaning of this word at that time. Even now, I have a few friends whom I can count on my fingertips.

Probably my definition of friendship is different.

“Friends are our second selves.”– Aristotle

WHY DO WE NEED ‘OUR SECOND SELVES’?

In childhood – as we realize the need of companionship, we like to be with our friends to play, to feel happy, to connect, to share and we learn from them. We realize that there is actually another self, within us, which we need to discover.

In adolescence –

Friends play an important role in our growth
They become our emotional anchors
Help us feel confident
Improve our habits and behavior
Increase our awareness
Help in defining our goals
Develop competitive spirit
Challenge our strengths
Inspire us
Bring the best out of us.

There are many kinds of friends and we need all of them like the colors of a rainbow. Some provide fun and joy while others are like deep indigo, absorbing all our secrets, all the worries that we share and steer us into the brighter hues. They make us see how beautiful life is!

As adults – when we mature and move on with life, many friends are abandoned either due to circumstances or different direction that our life takes. At this stage of life we realize the worth of real friends, who adhere to us, despite all odds.

WHY ARE SOME FRIENDS SO SPECIAL?

I believe we all have such friends, who hold an exceptional place in our life. We think of them in our moments of joy, more so when we are in a dilemma, when we need an advice and we know that they would be there to help.

The emotions that bind us are so inexplicable that even we fail to fathom them. Such a bonding develops slowly, over the years and gets so cemented that people marvel at its strength.

There are some unique qualities, which such friends possess:

They love unconditionally:

Like mother’s love, they never hold back anything; they never raise any questions. Real friends don’t have any expectations – they just value friendship. Their affection comes from the heart; it flows naturally like a waterfall. They never doubt your intentions even when they are instigated against you.

They pick up the vibes:

They don’t need to be told that you are distressed or disturbed. They just look into your eyes and know that you need them. They can read your heart, understand your anguish and provide succor with their touch. Their soothing words can relieve all your worries. Such friends may be very rare to find but fortunately I have seen them.

They are consistent:

They don’t change with the seasons of life. They don’t have excuses when you call them. They are so steadfast and trustworthy that people may gape at their sincerity! They uphold the old values propounded by Socrates: “Be slow to fall into friendship, but when you are in, continue firm and constant.”

They have invincible faith in you:

They don’t need to check what others say about you because they know you and believe their gut feeling. They stand by you when you need them the most, when all others abandon you under some kind of pressure or fear. You can call them at midnight, without any qualms.

They criticize you:

Real friends possess the power to point out your weaknesses. They say what is true and not just nod their heads in affirmation when you need to be corrected. They don’t hesitate in saying what might hurt you because they know how significant their words are for you. They can mold you into a positive person.

They really listen and understand:

You can share the most frightful secrets of your life with them and still feel at ease. They don’t have any pretensions, would never betray your trust or let you down. They may not have a word of wisdom to erase those memories but they surely lighten your burden.

Now the question is – how do you know you have such a friend?

The answer lies in your heart. If you can be such a person, you surely have such a friend. How aptly has George Herbert answered: “The best mirror is an old friend.”

I dedicate this post to my old friends, who have always stood by me, provided me encouragement to go on unwavering, with head above all the storms and hurricanes of life.

Have you got such friends? How did you meet them? I would love to hear your views.

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Thank you for your support. Please add your valuable reflections, they are much appreciated.

Balroop Singh.

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How Much Do You Expect From Life And People?

Published on July 1, 2014July 1, 2014 by balroop singh19 Comments

Expectation is a natural human instinct – a child expects attention, love and care. If he doesn’t get the basic care, his expectations don’t end there. He seeks it elsewhere.

Those children who grow up in misery and penury don’t get immune to expectations. Their eyes are always at the sky, anticipating all that they yearn for!

Our expectations flow like a stream that keeps widening as it touches the plains.

The seeds of expectation are nurtured at a very early stage of life by our parents, teachers and friends.

We expect so much from life…we assume our life would be good, virtuous and comfortable.

We hope to be successful with a lot of money; we visualize the home of our dreams, bursting with loving faces and fountains of love and peace all around us.

“We love to expect and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting.”—Samuel Johnson

All great thinkers and writers advise: “keep your expectations low” WHY?

This question keeps haunting me – why should we keep our expectations low?

Do we encourage the growing adolescents to aspire low?

Don’t we boost their efforts when we tell them that their goals are achievable?

Life would be so dull and dreary without expectations. Hopes are very closely related to expectations, while we keep our hopes alive, how can we lower our expectations?

How much do we expect?

EXPECTATIONS IN RELATIONSHIPS:

Do we expect more –

If we want mutual respect and honesty?
If we just want love and affection?
If we just want to be heard patiently?
If we expect security and kindness?
If we wish our children to be well behaved?
If we expect them to be focused?
If we want them to be happy and successful?

EXPECTATIONS AT WORKPLACE:

To be treated fairly and equally
To be respected and understood
A positive working environment
Trust, empathy and flexibility
To be paid well.

Do we expect too much?

SETTING A STANDARD:

While it is essential to set high expectations for students and young aspirants, it may be quite absurd to do so in case of relationships. All relationships cannot be perfect and experience teaches you how much to expect.

Many times we feel let down by the people we love…it is natural human disposition to expect people to be reasonable, to be respectful, to behave in an expected manner.

So it may be very hurting when they are indifferent or don’t reciprocate in a warm and sensitive manner.

Anger, frustration and negative thoughts grip our mind when things don’t work out according to our expectations. Low self-esteem looks us in the eye and challenges us.

While we can’t control the words and behavior of people around us, we can train our mind to tune off and become immune to their reactions.

Don’t let people become a big disappointment of your life. DON’T EXPECT anything from them. Here I would agree with all those erudite thinkers who have warned us against expectations.

“Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.”—Alexander Pope.

HOW TO MANAGE EXPECTATIONS:

Lower them. Try to understand that people have their own life and they may be considering you and your needs as their second priority. They might realize their responsibilities towards you if you keep yourself busy elsewhere.

Quit self-enhancement bias. We may consider ourselves as all-important and rightly so but that may not be true in connection with your near and dear ones. Their own self and their work is most important for them.

Redefine your dreams. If your life has revolved around those persons whom you considered all-important, you have to move on. It is the time to fulfill those dreams, for which you never had time. It is the time to expect more from your own self.

Eliminate unrealistic expectations. Have you been mired in such expectations, which could be unrealistic? It is better to discard them before they distress you any further.

Analyze unmet expectations; it is better to let them go. This could be a golden time for self-analysis. When your own people, your dearest friends disappoint you, it is better to smile and move ahead. Probably they are too busy to pay any attention to you.

Work on realistic expectations with renewed fervor; change your perspective. You can be answerable only for your own actions and thoughts.

Abandon toxic and indifferent people. Such people don’t add any significant virtue to your personality. They may be a cause of unwanted, unexpressed heartaches, which can be abdicated without any guilt.

Never try to change people. You can never change the basic traits of a person. If he/she doesn’t understand the warmth of relationships, he never would. It is better to detach yourself from them.

If we expect more from life and less from people, we can have a smooth sailing. I don’t mean to say life will not disappoint us. We know life is an amalgamation of failures and achievements…one step up and one step down and the battles of life continue.

The more the merrier – expectations from life can be infinite because we possess a great potential to deal with life. Only relationships weaken us.

Must read: Why Relationships Go Sour?

What are your expectations? Have they ever disappointed you? I would love to hear your views.

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Balroop Singh.

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Seven Secrets Of Arrogance

Published on June 24, 2014June 24, 2014 by balroop singh27 Comments

Arrogance is the big brother of ego; she likes him, pampers him and lets him have his own way. The overbearing pride that he carries around him keeps him in his own world of illusion.

A random statement of my friend who felt – almost everybody is arrogant shook me and I tried to analyze. Starting with my own personality, I realized how much arrogance I had shed, to change myself.

We all possess a certain amount of ego and to put it more mildly, we call it self- esteem. We can’t tolerate even a little bit of shove till we learn to live with the realization that feeling superior is a human trait, a way of the world.

“Young people are arrogant because they always associate with their own peers, those who are all really nothing but who would like to be very important.”—Friedrich Nietzsche.

Are you Arrogant? – a checklist:

You judge people, without actually knowing them.
You think you are more talented, more successful.
You think you are always right.
You like to be your own boss.
You like to discuss your own achievements.
You are a bad and impatient listener.
You find pleasure in domineering.
You like to assert your view on others.
You look down upon humble and gentle people.

If the answer to even half of the above statements is true, you can be considered arrogant. Don’t worry, you can change yourself, if you wish to.

It is only when we associate with all kinds of people, when we face the harsh realities of life, when we come to know how big the attitudes can be… that we try to tame down our own ego.

We don’t want to be the same kind of persons, we detest!

Ego also gets humbled by the experiences of life, by the unforeseen turbulences, by the behavior of your own dear friends and siblings.

However, some people never try self-analysis, they don’t accept that they are arrogant. They secretly nurse their imperfections and put up a brave front.

1. Arrogant people put up a charade of being strong:

I got an opportunity of peeping into the hearts of such people who think they possess the best brains and can wield their power and authority to intimidate others. Actually they are very weak at heart, they get easily hurt, they hardly have the forbearance to hear even a difference of opinion.

2. They like to control through bullying:

They think bullying can easily scare others and rightly so. Some weak and even mentally strong persons accept subservience due to circumstances or their own compulsions, which reassures the arrogant bullies that they are the bosses and they can accomplish everything through superciliousness.

3. They are emotionally imbalanced:

Arrogance of thoughts and feelings greatly hampers the development of emotional quotient. They don’t believe in emotional attachments, as they don’t want to lose control over others…even their own emotional anchors. They refrain from showing their emotions and therefore their love never comes to the surface.

4. They are very lonely:

Such people pretend to have a lot of friends and even like to surround themselves, all the time with them but they know in their heart of hearts the loneliness, which they face, which they never share with anybody. It is this loneliness, which converts them into bullies. More than hatred, they need our compassion.

5. Aggression and anger are their weapons:

They get easily provoked and can get very aggressive. Anger is their favorite weapon, which they can use very effectively to frighten their victims. They don’t like to give any opportunity to anybody around them to clarify their position. They pounce upon them and can even get physical.

6. Self-love rules them:

They are very self-centered; their obsession of becoming the best and acquiring everything they want, rules their hearts. They never grow out of adolescent self-love. They are very insecure about their closest relationships and don’t like to give them even the basic freedom of expression. They are so much immersed in self-love that the desires and cravings of the other person seem insignificant to them.

7. They feign happiness:

Do you think such people can be happy? They appear to be, as they socialize a lot and like to make a lot of friends but soon all of them see through their behavior and their real self stands exposed. Real happiness eludes them as they leave many emotional scars behind and move ahead, without addressing them.

“The arrogance of men never ceases to amaze me. You all think everything has to do with you, and every woman has to desire you.”—Robert Jordan

Do you know arrogant people? Do you like them? How do you deal with them? I would love to hear your views.

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Balroop Singh.

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Cultivating Patience… Is It Your Priority?

Published on June 17, 2014June 18, 2014 by balroop singh23 Comments

Patience is the inclination to control the racing mind, which wants to jump ahead. We have to win many thrilling races of life but this one, which calls for a brake is no less challenging.

Do you have the quality of bearing provocation, the ability to suppress annoyance, the capacity for calmly enduring pain?

Developing patience is an enormous learning experience, it acquaints us with what is life, how we have to wait at each step, each phase, without getting agitated, disappointed or distressed.

While moving ahead on the path to accomplish our dreams, we have to keep patience and wait for the right opportunities, for the leading benchmarks to reach that horizon we have visualized.

While we try to analyze and understand whether our endeavors conform to our aspirations, we have to keep patience and wait for the results.

“He that can have patience can have what he will.”—Benjamin Franklin.

Patience can be cultivated with practice, with restraint and by balancing our emotions. Despite all the efforts, it is learnt slowly, with time and experience.

Have you noticed how suddenly do we get upset when we encounter some delay in one form or another… whether it is waiting to catch a train or a flight or we get stuck in traffic? Annoyance is a natural emotion at such a time but those are the situations, which apprise us with the value of patience, which train us to think rationally and sensibly.

ABSORB PATIENCE FROM MOTHER NATURE

If you want to learn patience, look at Mother Nature – the slow and steady growth of the fruit tree you plant…the way you have to nurture it, admire it with every passing day and wait for spring…to see it sprout with new shoots, waiting eagerly for the blossoming of flowers, the formation of fruit and wait again for the warmth of sun to fill that fruit with sweetness so that it becomes palatable.

LEARN IT FROM CHILDREN

If you want to learn patience, have children around you.They can give you some profound lessons just by running around and refusing to eat what you offer. Ever tried to feed a toddler? You need to wait and wait till they decide to open their mouth to oblige you!…ask a new mother! That is how young women become patient when they have to deal with their loving sons and daughters. When they grow up, the bigger test of your patience starts at that time. While you think about new strategies everyday to deal with them, you too learn. That’s why William Wordsworth must have said… “Child is the father of man.”

REAL PATIENCE IS – SELF CONTROL

I too learnt real patience from my children and MORE of it from my students. Initially I was quite impatient with them but soon I realized that it is just like pulling my own hair, losing my own serenity and concentration. Slowly I started listening to them, getting less angry, learning to control my emotions and becoming patient.

One student who had outgrown all kinds of adjectives from ‘impolite’ to ‘unruly’ [being used by his teachers] was brought into my room for a more effective reprimand. I just gave him enough time to explain himself, spoke politely and respectfully to him and waited. This so called notorious and uncontrollable student had tears in his eyes and apologized but he also emphasized that none of his teachers tried to understand him, not even his parents.

Such is the power of patience! It got ingrained in me through the honest confessions of this boy.

“Have patience with all things but first of all with yourself”– Saint Francis De Sales.

ACQUIRE PATIENCE FROM YOUR PROFESSION

When you have to wait outside the room of your boss, when you have to wait for your colleagues to catch up with your speed of work, when projects get delayed, when you have to wait for your next promotion…there are many such opportunities that instill patience in the most natural manner.

I had to wait everyday outside my classroom…an expected courteous step so that the teacher who had been teaching before me could step out but some of them kept on and on, oblivious of the fact that the bell had rung for the change of class and somebody must be waiting outside, in the sticky July heat or the students need a bit of time to breathe before settling down for the next class.

Some times when the door had been closed by a very conscientious teacher, it was real fun to watch [from that little rectangular hole in the door, made for peeping to keep a check at both the students and the teachers] those students who were apparently distracted or bored due to a long day of packing of all those facts and formulae into their brains and longed for some refreshing change, which English class brought through discussion of real and human issues!

IMBIBE IT FROM THE ELDERLY

Learn patience from the elderly and ailing members of the house, whose insecurities and expectations keep growing. If you love them, their demands can’t irritate you. One of my friends, who was living in a joint family with a mother-in-law and a grandmother-in-law, who had Alzheimer’s had to keep herself calm…her capacity of forbearance was so unprecedented that it amazes me how much she had changed.

“A man who is a master of patience is master of everything else.”—George Savile.

Have you mastered patience? Do you think you need to work on it? I would love to hear your views.

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Balroop Singh.

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