Your Stories

Story submitted on 29th August 2022, by Team Muskurahat

"Most of your friends will leave you eventually, get busy in their lives, and you will be on your own."

I was furious when the campus mentor at Infosys Mysore said these lines.

I was in my early 20s and was not able to digest the fact that my friends, who were sitting beside me, will eventually leave me or maybe I will never be able to see them again in my life.

I was angry with her because she was saying something that my then state of mind, my consciousness did not allow me to take it in.

I left the seminar hall as I could not take her anymore.

Later, I and my friends progressed well in our careers, and eventually, everyone got busy in their lives.

We exchange 'hi' on WhatsApp, call one another sometimes but that connection has been lost. I don't know if we could ever meet again to relive those moments.

Sipping the hot tea, once in Bangalore's rainy weather, on the balcony, I wondered if that mentor had said the bitter truth that I am realizing now.

Like this, there are so many things in life that people realize & acknowledge with their experience and with time.

Even if someone tells you, advises you, or guides you with their experience you might reject them, because maybe your cognition does not see it that way. (Call it a cognitive bias.)

Some people sugarcoat them and some say it categorically.

Sugarcoating hurts a little while it hurts more when said outrightly.

How many times have you realized that "Papa ne jo kha tha theek hi kha tha!"?

***

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The story was originally posted on 19th August 2022 on LinkedIn by Sanjay Mudnaney.

Your children will get wings and fly off some day to chase their own dreams,

with their own life partner,

you may not see them again for years.

The finger that you held and walked,

the fall that you stopped,

the hug you gave,

the tears that you wiped,

the time you spent telling stories,

the struggle to feed that one extra spoon of food,

singing that lullaby before sleep,

the first step,

the first word,

the first day in school,

the first day in college,

the first flight alone,

will be your most precious memories, one day.

You will keep the images of your children in the album of your mind.

You will age,

you will retire,

one day you will find,

there is no place to go to,

no colleagues to talk to,

no ladder to climb,

at home no sounds of children,

no messy room to clean up,

no one to scream at,

no one to wait for in the night,

Emptiness.

No rushing to work,

no purpose,

no meaning to live for,

other than waiting for that video call,

with your children and your grandkids.

You once thought you will live after you retire,

but now you have only medicines and memories as your companion,

your body is not the same,

it has aged,

the insurance will help you pay your hospitalization bills,

your wealth, your medical bills,

but none to share your loneliness.

You will realize

in the chase of life in the future,

you missed life,

those that you loved most have flown away,

finally, you will be left alone,

the house will be empty.

Yes, loneliness is a challenge,

the fear of dying alone is a challenge,

But

the bigger challenge is,

the loss of meaning,

loss of purpose,

loss of contribution, and

loss of community.

This is going to be the story of everyone,

this is the story of your parents,

this is the story of your days to come.

Yet this need not be the story.

Stay young forever. You don’t age with age, you age when you lose your purpose to live.

Age does not kill, lack of purpose does.

***

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Story submitted on 17th August 2022, by Aditi Sen

Recently I attended a seminar where one of the participants asked a question, “I hear a lot from people all around that Money cannot buy Happiness, and the Good things in life are Free. How correct and valid are these sayings in real life?”

The person on stage took a deep breath and after a long pause, he said, “Young Lady, the first thing you need to understand here is that ‘Money’, ‘Happiness’, and ‘the things in life that are free’ are different subsets of our lives. The expectations from them may be different for different people. Don’t you think? Let us try to understand this by a story.”

I sat there, excited, all ears and eyes wide open, to listen to his story.

“Let us imagine a person who is born with a golden spoon. He has all the worldly things anyone could imagine at his disposal. He has a big bungalow, several imported cars in his garage, and a never-ending bank balance. He never goes hungry. His demands are met before he could desire. He always gets what he wants. And he has every opportunity to succeed in life or maybe just live his life happily with all that he has at his disposal. Yet he finds himself sad and alone at times. What could be the reason behind it, young lady?”

Confused, I sat there thinking how could one be alone and sad with all the things that I have always desired throughout my life. I looked at the young lady, who asked the question, reflecting the same emotions as me.

The person on stage continued, “Now let us imagine another person who is born in a family of a factory worker. Since birth, he has been living in a slum, in a room of 10x10 with a family of five – his father, mother, sister, and his ailing grandmother. He and his sister attend a government school. He has his friends to play with and a neighbor uncle who daily brings chocolate to him and his sister. He feels ecstatic whenever his father takes him, on his shoulder, to a nearby Disneyland fair. But sometimes, he finds his mother crying for not having enough money to have a proper house, to send his kids to a good private school, and to treat his ailing mother-in-law. And that makes him sad.”

He sipped some water and asked, “So young lady, where do you want yourself to be placed? Whose life is better according to you?”

I jumped in, before that young lady, and said, “I want to be the first one.”, only realizing how foolish I was to say that out loud.

He laughed off and said, “This another young lady has associated her happiness with the big bungalow and there is nothing wrong with that. Everyone desires to have a good house, isn't it?”

Then he went on to explain the needs and desires of different human beings and the associated tangible and intangible benefits from them in their lives. He also explained how money drives the whole world and how everything in our lives revolves around money.

Later that night, while listening to music, my mind replayed his words in the background, and then I realized that he was right when he said, “Happiness and good things in life are subjective.”

***

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Story submitted on 15th August 2022, by Anonymous

My phase of growing up in life has been easy. Or has it? Maybe Yes, or Maybe No - the answer is not certain. However, one certain thing that I have experienced in this growing phase is that 'it is tougher to unlearn things than learning new ones'.

Having said that, the biggest and the so-called sacred thing that I am in the process of unlearning or, I would say, relearning with amendments is - "Find happiness in other’s happiness".

This is far-fetched to the point, while I have been growing up, that it is comprehended to find your happiness ONLY in other's happiness, because the thought had been fed to us, since our childhood, that prioritizing your happiness makes you selfish. And this guilt of being happy by ourselves had grown so strong that it used to feel subconsciously wrong to prioritize our happiness.

Given any relationship in my life, this used to be the mantra, the mantra of finding my happiness in others' happiness. Let me put an example here. I love cooking, but for others (as they think that), I have never cared enough to go ahead and tried cooking different things for myself. Instead, I used to hit a cereal bowl or sattu when I knew that it was only me for lunch.

However, I used to cook with all my love, putting all my effort into various recipes when I knew that someone is accompanying me or I am cooking for others. The same kind of effort used to go for garnishing and serving the dish as well. And the worst part was that I used to expect some kind of appreciation or positive feedback on my cooked dishes.

I guess that was my recipe of happiness that I used to find at the end of all this cooking process here – appreciation and positive feedback. I never realized that I, too, needed the same love and effort for myself. And if the appreciation was what made me happy, then I should have been the first one to pat my back and say - Well done, buddy!

But, sadly, I didn't do any of it. And this is just a glimpse of how my happiness used to revolve around someone else. This was unfair not only to me but also to the other person because I had put the responsibility of my happiness on his/her shoulder even without his/her acknowledgment. And if my happiness didn't get its fulfilled quota of satisfaction, the relationship used to suffer. Because, every time I was disappointed, I felt pushed back and not giving my best, which I could, into that relationship.

To summarize, this whole idea is totally wrong – the idea that my happiness is dependent on someone else who is not even aware of this fact, even if aware, cannot fulfill it every single time.

So, when I introspect now, I believe the root cause is found to be long rooted. Therefore, I am relearning that it's always good and necessary to be happy when others are happy, it just doubles the joy. However, my happiness is my sole responsibility and I am in charge of it.

***

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