Category: Perspective (Page 19 of 20)

Re-imagining a lifetime

March 27, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

We often have a feeling that life is too short. Especially when we look back at it and realise time passed so fast. Part of the reason being that we do not do things that are remarkable on a daily basis. Daily life is quite mundane. And the culmination of days amounts to our life so it doesn’t surprise that we don’t remember much of how we spent our life.

If we shrink the time frame of what we call as life, things could be different.
What if each day was seen as a lifetime. Would you be able to waste a day?
If we live with the tacit assumption that we are going to live forever, we would hardly get anything remarkable done.
Yet if we live our life in clear awareness of our fragile existence,
And try to live each day as an opportunity to lead a remarkable life,
Life would seem much more fulfilling.

And we would achieve quite a lot in the process.
What do you think ?

Choosing you age

March 26, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

Both my mother and father have two birth dates. One is the official birth date in their school certificate and the other is their actual birth date. They have used their official birth date all their life and now they only faintly remember their real birth day. It is common for people in their generation to have such a situation.

But whenever I see them I am not bothered about how old they are on paper. My mother retired last month from service. Officially she is 60 years old. Yet, she has the energy and outlook of someone much younger. My father is officially 62 years old and still works with the energy of a young man in his twenties.

It got me wondering about the concept of age. We have an official , biological age. That’s a fact. Most official work takes that age into consideration. But another age is the one you represent from your attitude, from your being. I’ve had the fortune of meeting people 60 years of age who have the energy of three 20year olds!

We can choose how old we wish to feel. We can aid our bodies to vitality and impeccable physical health. In the process the mind also becomes nimble and agile. It is a matter of choice.

Cosmetics and treatments will never change how old you feel inside. It only makes one more insecure. True health borne out of a youthful soul and an active body is always secure in itself.
It only inspires good energy around itself. An energy that transpires to people around.

So, no matter how many trips you have made around the sun,
You can still choose,
How youthful you wish to be !
It takes some effort,
But it seems totally worth it !

Name and Identity

March 25, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

I’ve been preparing for my bicycle trip for the past month. One of my kind friends let me have his old bike to use for the trip. Since the bike needed quite a bit of work to be in running condition, I took it to a bicycle shop to get it fixed.
Over the course of the month I would drop in many times to check on it. The mechanics were very friendly and they helped me in the best way they could.
There was one little hang up with my interaction with them though. I was quite sure they didn’t know me by my name.
And this suspense went on till the day I left. It was funny to find them navigate their way through the conversation without having to call me by my name.

As I start my bicycle trip today, I got wondering about this situation. It would be nice to be called by my name. But do I want to be remembered just by my name?
Or by my physical appearance?
I wish to be remembered for my human qualities. I would like to embody the best of me in all the interactions in daily life.
I’d strive to be kind, compassionate and helpful in the small everyday things that pass by as trivial to us all.
It would be enough for me to be known as a kind and helpful person.
Thinking like this also relieves me of the anxiety of not being remembered by my name. It encourages me to take the responsibility to represent the best version of myself.
I remember someone wise once remarked, ‘What ‘s in a name ?’
Indeed I say.

Love and Responsibility

March 24, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

There are big tasks and there are small ones. But there is one thing that should not be compromised in the guise of big and small. It is the act of being responsible.

We have a tendency to attribute more respect to someone who does a big task and think lowly of the person who does the small stuff. Say, a white collar manager gets much more respect than a blue collar floor worker in a factory.

With how much love do we do what we do matters much more than big and small after all.
We can do small things with great love.
Think of a gardener tending to a resplendent garden. It brings joy to every onlooker!

Responsibility can only come when you have love for something.
It is the reason men become more responsible once they have a family.

And that’s why it is of paramount importance to do what you love.
Love and responsibility go hand in hand after all.
How else would we build a responsible global community !?

Scaling up kindness

March 23, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

Most of the time we secretly seek acknowledgement for our work.
It is a deeply human quality to expect to be recognized.
The downside of this though is that we do not find it meaningful to do something that might not get us recognition.

But imagine this. When you visit a clean neighborhood, a well tended garden or have a delicious meal at a restaurant, you do not know the person who made this experience worthwhile. But you still acknowledge the deed as done by someone kind.

If we could all scale this up and work for the sake of goodness,
Then we could applaud whole of humanity for its conduct.

Creating space for kindness

March 21, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

I had the pleasure of being visited by two friends over the weekend. We’d met after a long time and it felt great to share our life and energy. Today as they were leaving I asked if I could hitch a ride with them to Chennai. I wanted to visit a sporting equipment shop on the outskirts of the city. Kind as they are, they gladly agreed. We talked all along the two-hour long drive and before we knew it we reached a fork in the road. I wanted to go five kilometres further on the road going to the left. They had to continue to the right to reach the airport. My friends suggested that they could drop me right at the store since they had ample time to make this detour. I wondered it would be easy finding a bus and asked them to continue on to the airport. We bid goodbye and I walked over to the bus stop. However, only after an agonising wait of an hour in the scorching sun did I find a bus.

On a better note, the visit to the store was much fruitful. After shopping, I got onto a bus that headed towards home. I was dropped off at the highway late in the evening. I had to do the walking from the bus stop to home with all the equipment I had bought. I thought of asking for a lift from motorbikes headed towards home but something was holding me back. At last, after letting go five opportunities I lifted my hand and asked for a lift from a biker. He stopped and asked me where I wanted to go. Despite having to drop me a bit further away from where he had to go, he agreed to take me all the way home. That was a kind gesture by an absolute stranger.

As I write now, I wonder why do we hesitate to ask for help? Even in situations when people would gladly help. We just have to do the asking! By not seeking help, we deprive a person to access his kinder self and act with empathy. People like to be of help, even to absolute strangers. While we’re conditioned to believe that people act in a selfish way, there’s a whole other paradigm where people will go out of their way to help. Only when we open up, be vulnerable and seek help do we create a space for people to exhibit compassion.

Even our vulnerability can beget great strength in another human being.
As a lesson for today, I would ask for help whenever in need, in the interest of creating space for kindness.

On realizing a higher self

March 20, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

Today I was going through an old journal. About three years ago on a particular page I had listed down what I what I wanted to be in future. One of my desires was to be a writer. But I didn’t have the understanding about the element of writing consistently. And the desire reeled in inertia for a few years.
However, about an year ago, I realized that the surest way to be a good writer is to write consistently. So, I cultivated the habit of writing every single day no matter what. Even if I failed in the process, I chose to get back to the streak of writing. And before I knew, I was writing better, because I was writing everyday.

I realized that we often set ‘being’ goals for ourselves. I want to be a chef, a gymnast, a banker, an architect…
What helps though is to have the ‘doing’ goals. An aspiring chef should cook mindfully everyday.
A budding writer should write every day and learn from better writers.
A wishful entrepreneur should take initiatives and responsibilities every day.
The consistent act of ‘doing’ something is the surest way to realize all of one’s ‘being’ goals.
And one should never forget that in the end it is all about being remembered as a good human being. Cultivating kindness and compassion in everyday life coupled with consistent practice of one’s craft will surely help one realize his highest possible self.

Kolam : A beautiful morning ritual

March 18, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

Mornings in springtime are a gift indeed. I was driving along the East Coast Road on my motorcycle in the early hours of the day. All of nature seemed so enthused about waking up to the sunrise. What a simmering symphony it was as the sun rose up by the minute. The play of sounds and lights infusing a freshness in the air, inviting all beings to express their highest creative selves.

On the way while riding through a village I found Tamil women stepping out of their houses with a little bag of rice flour. Dutifully they sat down and started making an artful pattern on the ground outside their houses. ‘Kolam’ as it is called in the state of Tamiladu, is an integral part of daily life. Symmetrical patterns are drawn on a grid of dots, welcoming good energy into the home. The rice flour used is an offering to ants and birds as well, integrating the web of life with each household.
Over the course of the day, the Kolam gets erased by the act of nature’s elements and human activity. But this transient art form finds itself again and again, every morning, resurrected lovingly by the women of the household.

What a wonderful morning ritual this is ! To draw a Kolam, to exercise one’s creative energy and discover new drawings and patterns every morning, with the pious spirit of sharing and embracing good energy! All troubles of life seemed to have stopped haunting all these women who had a soothing calm in their heart as they made the Kolam.
To express your creative energy every morning and to realise its transience, yet to choose to make the Kolam the next morning with the same enthusiasm is a great character building exercise. It must subliminally teach one that art must exist for art’s sake and one must serve as a conduit of the divine creative force every moment.
As I drive back home, I see many finished Kolam adorning the earth in front of the houses. A little girl waves to me as I pass her house.
Kolam. What a beautiful way to start a day!

On loving like a child

March 17, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

Today morning I was walking around in the forest. I saw my four year old friend a bit further away from me. He was walking his new puppy around. Both of them were in a joyous mood of discovery.
My friend started humming a simple melody to express his happiness. He had a new puppy after all!
His world couldn’t have been any better !
It was a sight to behold.

I too started repeating the melody behind him. His eyes lit up as he heard someone sing exactly what he was singing. He kept on singing and I kept on singing back.
Curiously he started walking along with the puppy in the my direction.
Once he got past the outgrowth of the forest he saw me humming along.
He was delighted. He kept on singing as I kept on repeating his melody.

With glimmer in his eyes he asked me, ‘What is your name?’

‘My name is Sreenath.’

‘Sreenath, I love you’ he expressed.

His puppy found place in his lap and he started singing again, walking towards his hut.

I just stood there wondering,
‘ If only we could love each other for the little things, the small kind actions, a modicum of care,
And express them like a child, with effort less flair
We would be such a loving brotherhood!

On Reassurance

March 16, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

Today was a busy workday. As I drew close to the end of working hours in our community, I rested myself under the shade of a mango tree for a break. I looked to the left to see who the chef in the kitchen was. I saw my sister cooking and I couldn’t help but smile. I knew deep inside that I will get a delicious meal for lunch. And I found more energy to finish the rest of my work.
Just her presence reassured me that everything will be all right.

It got me wondering about how we too have the opportunity to be reassuring. Throughout our existence we shoulder some kind of a responsibility. If we build a formidable reputation , so that people can count on us, then our existence magnifies in value.

One can always judge the worth of his contribution by how much reassurance he can give to his team, just by his presence.

The lunch was amazing by the way. And all the hard work was truly worth it.