Lessons Learned - Kalai Selvi Arivalagan (macos ebook reader .txt) 📗

Be cheerful

 

The best lesson that I have learned all through these years is 'Be cheerful.' Every day if I meet cheerful people on the way to my office, it always becomes the best day of the week. The old lady who brings milk sachets to our home every day around 5:45 am is the first cheerful person I meet day to-day. With her cheerful good morning wishes, I start my day positively with good cheer.

 

I always admire people who are always cheerful and move around with a constant smile. Knowingly or unknowingly they bring some positive energy to every one they interact. Whenever I feel low and go into a shell of recluse, I think about these cheerful people. Some of my friends who always looked bubbly and cheerful never complained and they went on with their work even when they faced challenges or problems in their life.

 

Some of the bus conductors I meet in the bus every day, always looked cheerful and beamed with a mark of high spirits and happiness. Working as a conductor in the bus is not an easy job. Peak hours are pressure filled hours and the buses brimmed with crowd. To tackle the crowd and reach the destination without much hassle can rise their blood pressure and make them scream at the irresponsible passengers. Yet, some of these people looked cheerful and vibrant always.

 

I feel so mean and low when I complain sitting in a room with centralized AC and comfortable seats. Thousands of people live a struggled life than I live today. My life is thousand times better than their wretched lives. I remember a lady whom I met while I assisted a team from Australia to shoot a documentary film on people who lived with AIDS. The lady was a widow and tested positive for AIDS. She got the infection from her husband and one of her children also tested positive for AIDS. They lived in a room much smaller than our drawing room. Thatched roof covered the house and I could feel poverty personified in every corner of their house, Yet, she looked cheerful and kept on smiling. It gave me an opportunity to feel grateful and thank God for the comfortable life I lived. Whatever it may be, learn to be cheerful.

 

The security guard at our office who always wishes me good morning with a cheerful smile lives away from his family and works round the clock. Yet, he never complained and spoke to every one with a smile on his face. These people are god send and who constantly remind us that life is here to live and enjoy every second with love.

 

Healing

 

Healing from getting hurt is a process that everyone must have gone through at least once in their life times.

 

Getting healed from being hurt is a lengthy process that may take seconds, minutes, hours, days or years.  Unfortunately, I had been always the target to get hurt from the days I could remember.  To come out of that state of mind and feel normal again - was a task for me.

 

But, Writing helped me to heal my wounded heart. Writing down my thoughts in poems or in short passages, helped me to rewind and gather the lost spirit within seconds.

 

It also helped me to forgive and forget the person who deliberately wished to hurt me and see me in tears.  Healing at heart taught me not to have grudges at heart and take things in a lighter spirit.

 

Healing helped me to grow into a matured person with the ability to handle tougher situations at life. It even helped me to smile or avoid things that will hurt me.

 

Some words that helped me to learn more on healing:

 

Healing: “Healing is a spontaneous event that comes about through a kind of grace. It can happen anytime, and in any place. It may or may not happen in the context of a healing session. It may come about simply with a smile from a stranger, the breeze blowing through the trees, the song of a bird — some reminder of our connectedness and wholeness — the beauty of Life just as it is at this moment for us.

 

Healing -different levels

 

“Healing can happen on many different levels.

 

Sometimes our healing is not what we expect. We need to be open to the gifts which life is always ready to give us. It may be that a physical problem heals, but it may also stay awhile to teach us something.

 

Sometimes a health challenge is a doorway to a deeper healing, a cry from deep within for attention to some part of us that has been unloved and feels separated from the Whole.

 

“Regardless of whether our focus in healing is on the physical, mental, emotional or spiritual level, all levels are invariably touched by the process, and none can be separated out from the rest.”

 

 Lesson learned:  Never hurt anyone with your words or deeds, because they will come back to hit you with added force.

Be grateful

 

 

The world is turning more materialistic day by day. Every day in every walk of life, I can see people who are ungrateful and who without shame want to get their things done at the cost of others. Unfortunately, I have met the maximum number of ungrateful people who took granted of my broadmindedness and the willingness to understand their problems. My in-laws were the first set of ungrateful people who took everything granted and cheated us. Now they boast as if they have achieved the best in their life and we were fools who deliberately gave in for their whims and fancies. Yet, I believe, our sacrifices will not go waste. God will reward us in a better way.

 

The next incident happened when I was taking tuition at home. A young boy of eight years who was then studying in third standard came for his tuition. His father was working in Dubai and his mother was staying with her parents along with her children. He will come directly to my home from school. He will have his packed evening food at my home and I will mix and give him the evening drink. He studied till he was in his 9th grade.The boy's father came back from Dubai and took them back there. The boy's mother promised me that she will try to get some teaching position in a school over there. Till now I have not heard anything from her. Without expecting anything from her, I helped her when she desperately needed help. She could not spare not even five minutes to call and talk to me whenever she comes to India.

 

The world is becoming a place not fit for people like me. People, who desperately approach you for some help, never turn again once their work is done. What is this attitude? Is this because of the materialistic world or is this because of the way they were brought up? I could not decide.

 

I remember a story in Mahabharata. Karnan even after knowing that he was the eldest son of Kundi Devi and he was the eldest brother of Dharma and the others, he did not go away from Dhuriyodhana. To show his gratitude to his friend Dhuriyodhana, he stayed with him till he died in the battle of Kurushetra. It will be really a wonder, if I can meet such a person now in this world.

 

I think it will be apt to quote here the words of the famous Tamil Saint, Thiruvalluvar. Thiruvalluvar, in his universally acclaimed Tamil literary work 'Thirukkural' tells something about being ungrateful. He tells that there might be some way to redeem for people who are not thankful. But there is no way to redeem if the people are ungrateful. That will be the worst sin in the world and no one can help them to get out of it.

The virtue-killer may be saved

Not benefit-killer who is damned. (Thirukkural - 110)

Everything happens

 

Everything happens for your own good!!

 

A phrase that gives solace to your ripped heart when you face unhealthy and unhappy situations at your workplace or at home.  

 

Whatever happens to you is due to your bad and good karma.  The saying may be a silent reminder for you to analyze and find out what went wrong and how you need to act accordingly.

 

It may be easy to tell others who undergo emotional swings and find it hard to accept things as it is.  But, it is true.  Every cloud passes away. Don't take anything into your heart literally for the tough situations make you a tough person to face problems in a positive way.

 

How long will it go?  That's true.   There is always a saturation point to everything.  Nothing should not go beyond that limit.  If it goes beyond the limit, there ends your patience, your hopes and your dreams. 

 

Prayers can help you to be at ease and hope for the best.  Every cloud will have a shining edge.  When your storm cloud passes away, definetely there will be clouds streaked with light that could make you smile.