Sometimes, I try looking at the world from a different perspective to realise that there is a truth beyond the one I see. So I tried. I tried looking through the eyes of someone living in a war zone, waking up not knowing if today is the last day. I tried looking through the eyes of a woman who has been tortured, treated like an animal, used, and given no say. And once I went there, I couldn't come back from it.

I felt so sorry for the state of this world. I wondered how are we all living on the same planet and not able to make this place better? I realised everyone is living in their own version of reality, which is shaped by the place where they were born, who raised them, and the language they learnt. 

I kept thinking about power. About what powerful people have done to others across centuries and across every corner of this world. Millions of women treated as less than human. And we call ourselves civilized. We talk about consciousness, about awareness, about being above our instincts. But I think maybe the cruelest thing about being human is that we do have the awareness to know better, and we still choose not to use it. What is then the point of this consciousness? 

Where in this cruel world do we find joy?

People say we should practice gratefulness. Be grateful for what you have, and you will feel humble, you will see how much there is to appreciate. Just having these fingers and hands to write should make me feel grateful. The fact that I can sit here and put my thoughts into words, and that I even have the luxury of asking these questions. I understand that. I do. But gratefulness feels like a small raft on a massive ocean of suffering. It keeps me afloat, but it doesn't stop the drowning happening everywhere else.

I don't know how to comfort myself living in this world. I don't have an answer, and I don't know if there is one.  Maybe the discomfort is the point, maybe feeling it means that the awareness is there.

 Weren't we all supposed to have enough and live this life that we only get once?

On some days, worry follows me like a shadow. I find it wherever I go. Especially true if you are doing a PhD and thinking about the next analysis, next paper, the deadlines. It feels like a never-ending list of things, and everything just keeps piling up. You close your eyes, you think about your project, you wake up, you think about it, every damn moment. 

Yesterday, I listened to an audiobook about worrying, and to be honest, it was quite useful. It gave concrete steps for what to do when worry starts creeping in, instead of letting it hover over every moment. The first step is identifying the problem. What is it that is worrying me? Is it a task I need to complete? A situation I can't control? For me, it was the next analysis that I needed to do. Once we know what the problem is, we need to do something about it. The book offered a couple of pathways. 

The first pathway is to think about the worst that can happen. What would happen if you are not able to get the task done? The actual worst-case scenario! So I thought about it.  Most of the time, when we think about it, we realize that it’s still going to be fine. Life will still go on, and rarely is the worst case as bad as the worry makes it feel. 

The second pathway is to see what we can do.  Figure out one concrete thing that we can do and start doing it. It gives us momentum, and worry takes a back seat.

The last thing, and probably the most difficult, is acceptance. Sometimes we also need to accept that things are not going to be under our control no matter what we do. Accepting it brings us some kind of peace. 

I also heard this term: "Eat the frog first", but didn't quite know what that meant. Well, now I know: if something is weighing on your mind, tackle the most difficult part early in the morning. So that you can still enjoy the day rather than just letting that thing hover over your entire day.  

I guess it's time to apply these ideas in my own life.

On a lazy Sunday morning, I am sitting with my mom and I want to have a cup of coffee. I asked my mom if she could bring me a coffee mug. Now, at my home, my mom and dad only drink tea, and coffee is not a regular thing. So my mom was looking for coffee mugs, and after going through multiple shelves, she found one. The sight of that coffee mug took me down the memory lane:

"It is the summer of 2019. I am in a small shop in Leipzig, Germany trying to find something good to take it back home. Going through multiple souvenir items, I came across this coffee mug that caught my eye. A very ordinary black-colored mug. On reading across the product description, it said that it glows when you pour hot substance in there and also had a picture of how it would look like. Until now, I had only known about things that glow in the dark and had no idea that something like this exists. It was super fascinating to me, and I wondered how this works. Searching on the internet, I found that there are certain dyes/chemicals used in these mugs that are heat sensitive, and when exposed to heat they change their structure and absorb light of different wavelengths. So when I would pour hot coffee into this mug, a mermaid would appear saying " I lost my heart to the sea". Well, what can I say, even I have lost my heart to the sea. Getting flashbacks of the sea..

I am 19 years old. I am with my friends at a beach in a small city in India. This is the first time I have seen the sea. It is phenomenal, and it fills me with so many emotions. That feeling of being free, alive, happy, and fortunate enough to have this beautiful sight in front of my eyes. Water touching my feet, body, and soul, taking away all my worries and making me realize the endless possibilities and our tiniest existence on this planet. Makes me wonder how our perspective changes when we look at something so gigantic and deep!! Nature is astonishing and divine!! 

Changing the lane and moving back from the sea to the summer in Leipzig..

I bought that mug and came back to my apartment. It is my first time in a foreign land. I share my apartment with a wonderful lady. I remember the first time I moved into this apartment, she was not there but had dropped a cute note saying "Enjoy your stay and I will see you on Monday". She had a radiant and beautiful personality. I have never seen someone as kind as her. Staying with her, felt like home. I guess it is not the place but the people who surround us that makes us feel homely. This city, this place where I came in as a stranger accepted me with all its kindness. I met so many wonderful people during my stay and now it was time to say goodbye. Goodbyes are the toughest and when we immerse ourselves in a new place and adapt to it, we drop a part of ourselves in there. But in return we take something priceless from there, we take new experiences and memories!! Memories that let us look back in time and relive the past."

Walking out from the past to the present: 

Sitting and sipping hot coffee with the mermaid and my mom. Feeling blessed for those experiences and looking forward to the beautiful unfolding of this process called Life.

I do not own any pets but there is a cat family that lives at my house. Mostly, they stay on the terrace except when they want food, they enter our room. Look, I am not a great cat lover but I like to watch their behaviour, so I let them do their thing.  After all, I am a behavioural biologist!! So a very interesting something happened today. As I woke up in the morning, I could hear the cat meowing repeatedly. I decided to look at what was happening, and it was the baby kitten meowing. This kitten was outside my kitchen window, walking on the railing of the neighbour's house. It felt like it was trying to call its mother and kept on meowing for like fifteen minutes. All this while, I was waiting patiently to know what was happening. The meowing stopped after some time, and the kitten is now trying to jump to the railing of my house but is scared because if it could not land perfectly on the bar, it will go two floors down into a drain. Seems scary to me, and I guess it was for the kitten too! It was looking up and down, adjusting its front legs, trying to take a leap, stopping, then looking and adjusting again and again until it finally took its leap. 

Mission successful! Landed perfectly on the railing of my house and entered inside.  

Watching all this happen for nearly half an hour, I realised that it took so much courage for the kitten to jump to my building on its own. When with its mother, I have seen it do the same in seconds. Doesn't the same situation apply to us humans too?

We are scared to do things on our own for the first time, be it riding a motorbike for the first time, doing an experiment on our own, moving to a new place, coming out of our comfort zone. But when we have someone by our side, things seem much easier. Why is it so? Is it because of the trust that we have in them that they wouldn't let anything bad happen to us, or is it because we gain strength from their presence and are ready to face the worst? 

What do you think??

I wonder how beautiful life is!! Just this moment, where I am writing down my thoughts on this piece of paper, the way the ink of this pen is flowing on it. The warmth of the teacup on my hand, the smell of this tea!! Beautiful sunrise, the buildings around me, the background noise of the bikes honking, people chatting, kids playing, and so much more...

All of this makes my morning routine, and I am grateful for these moments of enjoyment.

We do not know what tomorrow will bring, but we can certainly be present at this moment, live this moment. I am really happy at this moment, and I want you to feel the same. I was hoping you could stop thinking about anything else at this moment and feel what is going on in your surrounding. Maybe you could find something that brings a smile to your face, that gives you hope for a better tomorrow. It could be the least expected of all the things, just little moments!!

If you want, you can share what little moment(/s) brings you immense happiness??