I fanatically believed in ability but this world toned me down

Didn't we all, as kids were staunch believers in Hard work or Age. We thought (or were made to believe) that with  age(and following guidelines ) we would be able to do anything /everything. How we wished to do one day what our elders had the luxury of doing that time. I for  one (born arrogant that i  am ) backed myself to optimize not just copy. I, for the life of me, could not understand why on earth is the individual not doing it the optimized way. Is he not bright enough to figure that out, Does he really want to optimize that in the first place?

 Reaching the teenage we realized there is something called Talent which discriminates between two equally hard working individuals .Which explained why some people were fast learners than others. We also learnt  to blame it on (lack of ) interest for us not being good at something.Which may not be untrue in most cases but I personally think interest is not just black or white, its all gray. In a way we 'like' what we are good at. Say if someone is the mathematics-bond in his class but on changing the school he finds himself lost between similarly bright mates, chances are his interest will go down. Unless for the rare case, he takes it sportingly and  becomes Zealous from jealous. If even after 2-3 attempts he couldn't redeem himself then sure enough, his 'liking '  would go down. So in a way he just liked the appreciation associated with Maths and not exactly the subject.

Before the end of teenage, we accepted even two equally talented and hard working  individuals can have different outputs.There are other factors too that contribute which (sadly) are becoming important by the day. There is the Upbringing difference which has an important role. Life asked each of different questions and depending upon the responses we are what we are. We are expert in different things  because we had exposure in different things. But surely which of these exposure can be 'cashed' is beyond our control.

There after we stopped realizing.We became acceptors. Reality took its toll. We accepted once and for all, that our contribution to the output only increases our chances for success.There is no direct correlation between effort and results, forget a guarantee. So we had to put blinkers on our eyes lest we choke with frustration .

Entering into the corporate world we woke to the fact that even same outcome can have different interpretations. People will escalate only your negatives and positives will be trifled of. So we were really tempted to join in. Tempted to accept that Life flows in 'streamlined' manner in Corporate world. Every one passes through same point (receiving end of politics ) with same velocity (reaction) before changing ends.

May be a decade or two later, we will realize there is no such thing as 'success' its only peace of mind and health that matter.

Girl's formality guy's Love

If a survey be done on why most hearts break worldwide , I think one cause that will really stand out is that the things (gestures, smiles and SMSes) a girl did out of sheer formality , guy took as liking  (or love for that matter . Guys are impatient they don't want to be stuck in this Like zone for long :)). Blame it on guy's impulse to assume exclusivity.How on earth does a sweet gesture guarantee thats its not done for every fourth person she meets .The key here is the key is  number of encounter of that person ,( here again my half life funda comes into play ), it being guy's first time  and her fifth , she is 4 times more in control than him. This exposure difference is so typical when good colleges are doomed to be girl minority :(

Poor guy  hoping his kite of romance will fly with this romantic (every wave from the girl one likes  is romantic :)) wave . not to be...... this is one situation where even the Law of Averages fails him .For the uninitiated Law of Averages says that after 3 consecutive hundreds a Tendulkar will be out cheaply, never mind the form or the confidence level . its when the law catches up with him . similarly a Harbhajan ,after a series of single digit scores , will contribute substantially  .Anyways The poor guy thought he has outpersevered his bad luck and spends hours thinking rehearsing, re-rehearsing  the things he would say to her , just to get her smile ,just one smile exclusively for him, the smile that would wipe out all the unpleasantness  from his trackrecord .But thats when reality stikes , he finds the girl , his girl , showing the same warmth to some body else . thats when a sense of Betrayal strikes him ,how can she ....why couldn't she talk to him formally , why didn't she discuss the issue with  a female colleague in the first place .All girls are the same , inse to bat karna bekar hai, akhir main dil toot hi jata hai .

Heavy hearted the guy comes back  deletes all the SMSes from her which he once cherished (which he used as mood enchancers ) , thinks of deleting her from his facebook friendlist but a second thought tells him he wouldn't be able to see her pics once he does that. may be she deserves a second chance . may be it was real urgent stuff she was talking, may be she knows him from a long time , may be he is just a friend , may be , may be.....

The girl on the other hand , completely in oblivion of what this guy is thinking ,has her career as a sole  priority and has drawn clear cut lines for social conduct. she will smlile to the silliest of jokes when in a group but in a one to one conversation, will be a little serious with a guy without compromising on warmth.she would just  not react to anything that is remotely romantic or ahead of the situation .
and so it goes on ,the characters remain the same . the actors change .................

The curse of Bollywood songs

I think Bollywood songs are the main culprit for India being known as a sentimental nation and rightly so. Bollywood songs provide words to feelings which would have been better dealt-with from the subconscious .They bring feelings into the realm of the consciousness thereby aggravating the trouble .I have seen far too many people listening to senti songs after a not so good  emotional encounter (read reality bite) .and whats infinitely worse is the excuse they offer ,that in "this mood" they want to hear such songs only .Cant help mentioning the truck drivers who would play songs announcing how their love ditched them with killer lines like  "uski doli uth rahi thi ,mera janaza nikal raha tha" Come on , get a life.

By expresing our feelings through  songs we are only distorting our view of the event .Bollywoods songs are just statistical "mode" of feelings, more so the romantic ones . Say for example "kahin to hogi vo duniya jahan tu mere pass hai ". i mean who wouldn't empathize to such a line when 99% of people are not with the person they wanted and the remaining 1 % are finding  out that the person they so desperately desired is nothing but human with all the characteristic imperfections that didn't seem to matter earlier.  I personally would go to the extent of  disapproval to discussing sentimental problems with "close " friends because it only shuffles the priorities in your mind (not to forget it adds an extra factor to worry about of having to put a face in front of the person you are discussing). I didn't say that we bottle up all problems and choke ourselves with frustration .All i m trying to say is that we should "objectify "  the problem before discussing to another person, we should be clear about what  is to be done unconditionally and what remains variable and its still better to know the exhaustive set of values the variable can take i.e. the possible line of actions

I personally have made the same mistake innumerable times,discussing "live" problems, may be out of  sheer need of sympathy :).Still do ;) but i would like to think i deal with them better now :)