Aging Artificially

The western world has become so vain that the natural process of aging is no longer natural. Long are the days gone when looking older was charming. Now looking younger when in actuality we are older has become the norm. Botox, plastic surgery and if magic would help people will flock to that approach too.

Personally I feel like as I am getting older I am starting to look better. I would let the natural process of aging take its course and make me look like what I am supposed to become one day. To me age is just a number and if the way I look coincides with the number I am fine with it. Hope that one day we will see older people in their natural glory not just some leather faces. Wasn't leather face scary anyways?

Root cause for a heated battle

The last few days I have been getting messages on my orkut about how a few pakistani kids started this community called "I Hate India". These messages were flocking asking me to put up an Indian flag as my image and show unity and all that. Funny thing I realized is Patriotism is good but it also blinds one's judgement. Of all the zealous Indian Patriots on orkut no one has cared to totally understand the objective for this community.

Ironically their ploy to ignite a few feelings has successfully done the same. Paying attention to and responding to incidents like that will only provide encouragement to the starters to go on and make it even worse. I am not saying ignore these incidents but don't fuel them for no reason. The best one can do is educate people who would be easily influenced by communities like that instead of just putting on a flag as your image.

Relationship Advice: You didn't ask but I will give it anways

I was recently thinking about why people make relationships so complicated. It is very apparent before they get into one everyone is worried about the future. Why worry about leaps and bounds before you even take the first step.

So Lesson #1 Take it slow, one day at a time.

Being the resident counsellor to anyone who want to talk I have heard many-a-stories about relationships. The one thing I found out was expectations are always too high. Everyone dreams about having a fairy tale of a life, but unfortunately it is never happily ever after. It takes a lot of work.

So Lesson #2 Do not set high expectations.

Falling in love is the pre-requisite, working to achieve bliss that comes out of it is the real goal. Seldom is this ever thought about. It's always about here and now when it has to be otherwise. Work towards establishing a fruitful relationship before getting all worked up on little things. Committment is what will define your relationship not the bliss that once was.

So Lesson #3 If you are willing to give up at the first sign of failure.... move on you are not fit for it.

Are you a good person?

We have become so machine like there is no human nature left in us anymore. Honestly do you think you are a good person? Let me rephrase it do you think you have the qualities that define a good person? Obviously enough since we don't harm anyone and we don't stomp on ants or bugs and we say "awwww" when we see a cute dog or a cat we assume we are good. End of story. Is that really the end of the story?

These days thats where we stop. Selfishness is what defines us these days and yet we claim we are good. When was the last time anyone stopped and said let me do something for that bum on the corner, or lend a helping hand to an old person in a store. Yeah we definitely have done something for them but was it unconditional. Most of the time the answer is NO! Yes we give the bum some cash but we are so quick to judge about his life style. I am guilty as charged myself. Compassion is just a random word these days, because we have our own perils. Showing compassion is not always how much money did we donate, it could also be and should always be do we really care. We do care most of the time until the next person we want to hook up is visible or the next party we go to. We become so engrossed in our daily lives and bicker about how much of a tough time we have living we don't see that there are people with tougher lives. Imagine a blind person trying to cross six lanes at peak time, he manages to do it everyday at the same time and never once have I seen him frown or vent about it. Just amazes me how someone healthy like me vents about the perils of life atleast once a day.

I am not talking about being involved in politics or society or religion, I am talking about do we think about the issue at hand. I am sure we all are short on time, but how short are we on time really if we have time to visit MySpace or Orkut or Facebook ten times a day or spend time trying to make layouts or feel bad that we are not on someone else's top list anymore or someone hasn't scrapped back. These community sites are a good phenomenon but it has become so bland with superficial stuff that it irks me to the point about how stupid and vain we can become sometimes.

Simple things can change someone's day like smiling at someone, or offering to help load an old person's car at a grocery store. We don't have to go about changing the world all by ourself we can atleast make someone's day better by being nice.

Nostalgia

Its been 5 days since I returned from my visit to home "India". Though I feel good to be back and am back to my daily routine I still feel a void. I miss home, miss my family, miss my friends back home. Its been a rough journey back 5 flights 16 hrs of stop-overs but nothing compares to my longing to be back home. Thought this visit would help me cope with this void but there is no match to the nostalgia I feel even though it has only been days since I left. I wish I were back home but it remains a wish. Life should move on and soon I should be back to being happy assuming everyone back home is happy for me too.

I wish I had more time to talk to and spend time with that "someone" but I guess I should cherish the time I had, hoping it wouldn't go in vain someday. Life is going to be back to normal soon hope I would be too, but it is not going to be the same anymore.........

Debts and Headaches

For a while I was trying to figure out how in just 5 years living in the US I have managed to acrue a debt close to 40 grand. I should be responsible and say "I screwed up and I was irresponsible". Though I can blame myself I would not want to beat myself about how I screwed up. The only solace I have with this is "Most of the people I know are in the same boat". It is indeed difficult to lead a good life without credit these days, but doing it beyond reason is what brings us to un-bearable amounts like my 40 grand.

With careful planning and sacrificing enjoyment I was able to bring my 40 geez down to 2 geez. In about 2 more months I should be debt free for a while (provided I stay the right course and slow down my spending).

How did I do it? It has come down to basics.

What do I need vs What do I want? "Need" & "Want" are such relative words. For a while I could not differentiate between these 2 words. Example: I thought I needed a "Playstation 2" when I had a regular playstation, when in-truth I wanted one. Similarly with a laptop when I had a good desktop and the list goes on and on.

When I realized I have spent money I did not have via credit cards or other loans I only came to realize with time that I spent more on something than its real cost because I was paying interest on the credit I used to buy it. After some stress-ful calculations on how much money I am loosing in interest I decided to cut off all extra costs.

I also found an interesting thing about the cost of anything. (a) If you could wait atleast 5-6 months prices will fall down below half the original price. (b) If you pay with cash you will save a lot on interest

Since then I have devised a plan to buy stuff. Plan in advance and start stashing money in containers or put them in a savings account to save up to buy. I bought an IPOD, a Digital Camera, a new Laptop, and I took an India trip that cost me more than $7000 all with cash so I pretty much saved $2000 to $3000 on interest if I used credit to buy all the above.

It's better to be patient and wait to buy something you want later than buy something right now and pay more in interest.

Why are you mad at foreigners who work?

In recents years everytime I sit with a few american friends there is always a debate about how foreigners are taking over all the available jobs. I could not argue much about this hot topic but I could surely point out why it is so.

1. Work Ethic: Every job I worked my superiors tend to have more confidence in foreigners with their work ethic and hark work. They claim we tend to go overboard in finishing our job or provide with a better finished product. Though it is not true in every sense it is closest to the truth.

2. Upbringing: Growing up we were grilled to succeed, to pursue goals that are both achievable and yet high. Likes and dislikes were put on the back-burner assuming we succeed our desires will be fulfilled as a by-product.

3. Opportunites and appreciation: Coming from a third world country we tend to appreciate the opportunity that is presented as opposed to assuming that we deserve it. No one deserves or not deserve an opportunity. Making the most of the presented one is the key to survival.

4. Respect: Giving respect where it is due is not the only way. Respecting anything or anyone irrespective of the surroundings is a key factor too. We tend to respect everyone no matter what, most of all we respect ourselves.

5. Drawbacks: Language in itself is a barrier so we cannot present ourselves with even more. So we strive to surpass this barrier or make it minimal with our work ethics and hard work.

Hope in due time everyone will realize we are just surviving not pursuing the american dream.