Practice what you preach

It’s all around us. The ‘Free ka Gyan” - The 'Quotes'. We see it being shared by all and sundry on Facebook, on WhatsApp, on Pinterest and everywhere else possible. The ‘Chanakya niti /neeti” quotes, the friendship quotes, the quotes on living right, the quotes on love and the like.

It’s there with the good morning post on WhatsApp groups when you check your phone first thing in the morning and it’s there on your news feed when you check your Facebook account during the day and its again there as a thought for a day or good night message when you are ready to crash at night and all times in between.

And I hate it. Ok, hate here may be too strong a word but I surely don't like it. Why? Not because the quotes are not good, but because most of the times, I know the person sharing it is himself / herself doing just the exact opposite in real life. It’s almost as if they are saying “Oh! I know this and do not follow it. But you should. It’s not for me. It’s for you.” Feels like all the cramming we do as children in school, just to vomit it out in the exams, but not really understand any of it. “Give me good marks because I remember it. So what if I don’t understand or follow any of it.”

Take a simple quote like 

I have seen all kinds of people who share this simple quote but are partying with their friends or colleagues, or are busy at work all nights and on their cell phones and laptops on weekends, while their spouse / children / parents are eating dinner alone.

Someone I know shared 

and all her friends know that she bitches about everybody behind their back. So I guess she’s not a “True friend” to anybody else but by sharing wants them to be true friends to her?

The other day I heard a father quote this famous one to his daughter 

and he himself does not sleep till way past midnight or get up early in the morning. Remember children learn more by example

Now am not saying that ALL people who share these thoughts & quotes are not following it themselves but we all know most are not as we know these people. I use a lot of such gyan & quotes myself in my blogs, in my posts and at times even in my headlines. But I do it knowing that either I am following it myself first or at least making an attempt to. I try not to preach what I do not at least make an attempt to practice. We may not be able to do all we agree with but the least we can do is try? 

Whether it is about ‘Living Life’ or being happy or positive thinking, what I write about I try to follow first. In fact, writing about it helps me understand it, debate it and most importantly, follow it.

So here is a quote for all the people who share without even making an attempt to internalize and follow what they share ;-) 

And I hope they don’t JUST share it again. 

Change is the only constant, but routine is what we love

A dear friend, passed away recently. Within a week of being admitted to the hospital, she was gone. And we were all heart broken, shocked, and trying to put a logic to it.

She was a dear friend I said. But a lot of us had not really met her for a long time. We were busy with our lives as she was with her. We were old friends. But most of us didn’t find the time to meet each other very often. After all everybody was very busy with their own lives. Busy with work, busy making money, busy proving ourselves to this world, busy with our family, busy with our children and busy doing our daily chores.

In that one week that she was in the hospital, we were out there in the waiting area trying to help in any which way we could. While there we also caught up with each other’s lives. Everyone said how it was very sad that we had to meet like this and that we just didn’t make time to catch up with each other any longer. Promises were made to make sure we keep close henceforth, catch up more often, meet more often, share more often. And then she left us all. For Good.

More than a month after that, and I could see us all fading away from each other once again as we got back to our so called routines. Everyone slowly got back to their lives, everyone was busy in their routines again. Ah! The known, comfortable routine.

Well we finally decided to break this routine. We started by keeping in touch more often and then using any possible occasion as a reason to meet. And it has helped us all. It has helped us cope with the loss of a dear friend, it has helped us help each other, it has made us happier to some extent. The sad thing is that we had to lose a friend forever to make us break the routine.

We humans love our routines. We really do. Oh Yes! we do crib about the same, clamor for change, long for breaks but let’s face it – almost all of us still cling to our routines. Why? Because it’s the known, its regular, its safe. That’s where we actually feel the most comfortable – in our routines. And we all have our excuses, the job, the need to make money, the hectic schedules of juggling job/business and family etc.

As we grow in life, our priorities change, our friends change and over time, so do our routines. But when we get to one routine we like to be there for as long as we can until life forces us to change the same and then we develop another routine and then get comfortable with that.

There is nothing wrong with establishing and sticking to a routine per say, however it has its negatives too. Routine stops us from being spontaneous, routine makes us blind to things around us, routine stops innovation, routines breaks ties with the past, routine stops us from seeing the future, routine prevents us from learning new things, etc. Routine also stops us from seeing the change happening around us, the change in people, circumstance and everything else. Change is the only constant but we become blind to it.

I can go on and on but what’s most important to see here is that since routine does not like change, it also makes us lazy, and hinders, growth & progress and worst of all, it makes us take things people and life in general for granted. Any small change makes us frustrated. Any major change makes us insecure. We stop to see people as they are but start seeing them as we had once perceived them to be. And if others want to change we try to stop them from the same. Most importantly routine at times keeps us away from people who matter to us, people we love, people who we miss dearly when they are gone. It keeps us from doing what we love and from following our passion.

Oh Yes we all know that we should stop to smell the roses, but do we? We all know that we should be open to new ideas and change in people but are we? We all know that we should make time for our parents our children, our spouse, for exercise, for giving back to society, but do we? We all know that we should keep in touch with our old friends but do we? We all have that one two or many things we want to learn or do in our life, be it learning to play the drums, or to go mountain climbing, to see the 7 wonders of the world, but most of us don’t. We all know that time is passing and what we are missing, but routine takes hold of us and keeps us chained and all we are left with, is just the routine itself.

Numerous times we have seen or heard or read about regrets of people who are on their death beds. What is the most common one? Not making time. Not making time for ourselves, our near and dear ones, for what is important.

Can we start making a small change today and say we will make some time every week to stop and talk to someone we love or like, spend time with family and friends, connect with people we have missed, do the things we have always wanted to do? Can we break from our routine to do all else that is also important, and make sure we don’t live and die with regrets? Take that career risk, go on that journey, start exercising, learn how to play drums, pamper our parents, spend time with our beloved and all that we know we should be doing.

After all, tomorrow never comes and today is all we have. So let us break the routine and be the change. Can we?