“Keep smiling always..as you don’t have to follow- Accept life as it comes, but Dominate your life however it comes..”, this is something which I wrote for the first time while filling up a slam book of one of my pals and then…the legacy followed. Such similar remarks- sometimes revealing the meaning of Life, sometimes of Friendship and sometimes of Success- all became a part of my newly discovered skills –the messaging skills; be it for slams, for mails, for scraps or messaging through mobile phones.
No doubt, I being too particular about my persona and identity, did a lot to maintain the same by creatively experimenting with those messages. My messages never encountered a stroke of banality of Internet mails or stereotyped mobile phone messages. They always brought a zephyr of freshness and positivity along with them. It might seem ridiculous to some that there were instances when I spent minutes shillyshallying just about the adjectives to address or how to bid adieu to the person on opposite end. Each comma and semicolon had to pass through a kind of censorship of my beliefs and sentiments attached to that person and the impression I wanted to cast on him or her.
If at times I was not well and some friend of mine happened to message me inquiring about my absence in last evenings party, I would reply him- ‘wsnt wl’ for ‘I was not well’ and that’s it. This reply might appear abstract but.. was I rude in replying or gave no heed to my friend’s concerns..Nope..I don’t think so. This message infact, conveyed more than the space it took, and obviously guys..! I’m not well so I’m supposed to be less explainatory and less willing to type the whole message, when the other person is expected to understand the situation. Yeah, had it been my beloved, I would have added a small explaination ahead- “ l’il bt of pn in bk”, hope you’ve got the literal meaning of it but just have a dekko at the message once again, haven’t the words ‘little’ shrunk to ‘ l’il ’ and ‘pain’ squeezed to ‘pn’, making that pain really look little..at least some respite from worries for the very special opposite end.
There was also a flip side to this short and sweet intelligent style of messaging..which I discovered in poetry or “sher‘o’shaayari”. Here I felt that their expressiveness lied in they being written with full elegance or ‘nazaakat’(that’s what they are all about). So everytime I went ‘shaayaraana’, I did maintain the much asked for ‘dignity’ by not using any sort of short forms. Their expressiveness, however still depended on my censorship which would see every exclaimation, comma and dot getting their due places. Similarly, when there were instances when I had to apologize or express gratitude to someone then I rarely used ‘sry’ or ‘thnx’, instead I preferred writing a sincere- ‘I AM SORRY’ or ‘THANKS’.
As the days passed by, I got more and more embroiled in this messaging mania. Life had not become rocking and great, it had become‘ RoCkInG..!! ’ and 8 times gr8r. I almost excelled in this virtual messaging world, created by myself; where each and every bit in the message had some deep significance. I was kind of ‘in Love..!’ with it..but...suddenly I stopped…and realized that this love affair seemed to be one-sided. I wasn’t receiving responses to my messages in the same spirit which I had written them in, neither were they being understood as I wanted them to be. For the sending end it was just a trend or style which even they had been following to cut short the messages to save space or time. For them it might have been a small spelling error or may be they didn’t care to insert proper spacings and punctuations, but for me this was no less than a heartbreak..! .
I therefore, thought of giving a space to the opposite end to understand my sentiments and decided to make a genuine appeal to all those whom I messaged for even once in my lifetime or might message… So, a witty exclaimation that I put after two stupid dots and the two mighty exclaimations that I put after those three soft dots…if you thought that they were one and the same thing, with either having not much significance or relevance, then I beg of you not to trample on my feelings like that and prevent me from this unintentional rude and ruthless attitude of yours…its piercing deep within..!!
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Conversation-is it just what it takes..??
3
Many of us (including me), think and almost believe that we all are if not schmoozers than atleast someone who would not find problems in articulating what we are thinking and willing to bring out. That's definitely something to feel good if you could give face to your feelings and if your sentiments could be so much tangible as if touching them. So does that give you edge over others..well i would say..that’s not what I am looking for..what i want to share is something else..may be i'll be able to come out with it by the time I’m done with writing this blog.
I have no intentions in digging the past but its good to learn from it. If you just look back at your life, you would find that you can analyze things better now. It could be anything- the happy and joyful moments of your life, the moments when you were scared and alone, the moments when you were appreciated, the embarrassing moments of your life-anything. And out of them you would also find instances when there were misunderstandings..misundersatndings when you were blamed for things you never did..misunderstandings when you blamed someone in the same fashion..misunderstandings when no one blamed anyone and still it turned out to be ‘who blamed whom’ all over.
Misunderstandings..just a proper conversation is what’s needed for resolving them and most of us always know it, still they happen and worse, persist. Why does that happen ? The need for thinking over it is that we're still prone to being misunderstood and saying that 'I don't care if someone misunderstands me, when I know I'm not wrong' might help out when you really don't care, but when the opposite end's view about you does matter then some questions do seek a thought. Why is it that despite the best conversations we put in we are at times not able to resolve things, why do things go wrong, why are we not able to make others feel things the way we want them to feel and above all when you never intended to be wrong and bad why do you ultimately end up being understood or misunderstood so..??
The answers lie in the questions themselves. May be the best conversations you’re talking about satisfactory on your parameters but you didn’t care for others’ parameters. May be the focus of discussion is vague and different. Its quite obvious that misunderstandings are bound to happen because different people think differently but situations become worse when misunderstandings persist even after putting in effort. We need to understand that the best conversations are mostly win-win games for both the sides where there may be a winner and a looser but still the spirit is win-win. By saying so I am being a bit diplomatic because what I am pointing to is the core of most of the problems I am discussing- the ego issue. There may be many reasons why people are not able to resolve misunderstandings. One may be that logics may not always appeal to individuals if their ego is at stake. Even after identifying with the mistakes the issues are stretched like anything just to avoid inner fears of any imbroglio they may land in. Also a good conversation has to be a 2-way lane. You need to be a good listener as well. The worst situation arises when people are not ready to even listen believing firmly that particular situation has no solution, it just can’t be solved and tackled. If they just invest 50% of this belief( or misbelief, I must say ) in believing that things can be handled anytime better after discussing and trying to resolve it rather than surrendering to their prejudices, then actually the rest 50% will also turn up for the same cause. Infact, problems remain problems only until their solution is not sought.
However, a different but very common case is when along with ego something very precious is at stake- faith. Here’s where dealing gets quite tough. If misunderstandings crop up, they may sentimentally create so much disturbances that people just don’t want to listen any more from someone who betrayed their trust..in their view he or she looses all rights to even speak anything to them because what they have supposedly done is unforgivable. On the other hand if someone is really not at mistake then he may react by saying he owes no explainations when he’s done nothing wrong, if this or that kind of thing can be thought about him then why should he even care for sustaining this relationship which has lost its faith. Come on guys..this is kiddish. You can’t just let a relationship shatter like that based on some awful philosophies, thinking in just straight lines, flaunting a false ego. Instead of shrugging responsibilities off your shoulders, you need to take the initiative at such time to have a healthy discussion..you need to say, you need to listen, even if you know who is at mistake and you need to come up- not loosing. You need to set aside all the blame games, dissolve false ego and give the other person enough room to express himself. It requires hell lot of patience and belief I know but its achievable and believe me even worth it. So, looking back at past if there were those moments where we were misunderstood then lets not complain, lets not blame anyone. Lets figure out how things could have been better and for present and future lets just believe in power of Expression, power of Conversation..!!
I have no intentions in digging the past but its good to learn from it. If you just look back at your life, you would find that you can analyze things better now. It could be anything- the happy and joyful moments of your life, the moments when you were scared and alone, the moments when you were appreciated, the embarrassing moments of your life-anything. And out of them you would also find instances when there were misunderstandings..misundersatndings when you were blamed for things you never did..misunderstandings when you blamed someone in the same fashion..misunderstandings when no one blamed anyone and still it turned out to be ‘who blamed whom’ all over.
Misunderstandings..just a proper conversation is what’s needed for resolving them and most of us always know it, still they happen and worse, persist. Why does that happen ? The need for thinking over it is that we're still prone to being misunderstood and saying that 'I don't care if someone misunderstands me, when I know I'm not wrong' might help out when you really don't care, but when the opposite end's view about you does matter then some questions do seek a thought. Why is it that despite the best conversations we put in we are at times not able to resolve things, why do things go wrong, why are we not able to make others feel things the way we want them to feel and above all when you never intended to be wrong and bad why do you ultimately end up being understood or misunderstood so..??
The answers lie in the questions themselves. May be the best conversations you’re talking about satisfactory on your parameters but you didn’t care for others’ parameters. May be the focus of discussion is vague and different. Its quite obvious that misunderstandings are bound to happen because different people think differently but situations become worse when misunderstandings persist even after putting in effort. We need to understand that the best conversations are mostly win-win games for both the sides where there may be a winner and a looser but still the spirit is win-win. By saying so I am being a bit diplomatic because what I am pointing to is the core of most of the problems I am discussing- the ego issue. There may be many reasons why people are not able to resolve misunderstandings. One may be that logics may not always appeal to individuals if their ego is at stake. Even after identifying with the mistakes the issues are stretched like anything just to avoid inner fears of any imbroglio they may land in. Also a good conversation has to be a 2-way lane. You need to be a good listener as well. The worst situation arises when people are not ready to even listen believing firmly that particular situation has no solution, it just can’t be solved and tackled. If they just invest 50% of this belief( or misbelief, I must say ) in believing that things can be handled anytime better after discussing and trying to resolve it rather than surrendering to their prejudices, then actually the rest 50% will also turn up for the same cause. Infact, problems remain problems only until their solution is not sought.
However, a different but very common case is when along with ego something very precious is at stake- faith. Here’s where dealing gets quite tough. If misunderstandings crop up, they may sentimentally create so much disturbances that people just don’t want to listen any more from someone who betrayed their trust..in their view he or she looses all rights to even speak anything to them because what they have supposedly done is unforgivable. On the other hand if someone is really not at mistake then he may react by saying he owes no explainations when he’s done nothing wrong, if this or that kind of thing can be thought about him then why should he even care for sustaining this relationship which has lost its faith. Come on guys..this is kiddish. You can’t just let a relationship shatter like that based on some awful philosophies, thinking in just straight lines, flaunting a false ego. Instead of shrugging responsibilities off your shoulders, you need to take the initiative at such time to have a healthy discussion..you need to say, you need to listen, even if you know who is at mistake and you need to come up- not loosing. You need to set aside all the blame games, dissolve false ego and give the other person enough room to express himself. It requires hell lot of patience and belief I know but its achievable and believe me even worth it. So, looking back at past if there were those moments where we were misunderstood then lets not complain, lets not blame anyone. Lets figure out how things could have been better and for present and future lets just believe in power of Expression, power of Conversation..!!
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