This is how we will open up to each other.

We hide so much of ourselves from each other. I do too, because of the fear of comparison and judgement.

Yet, this is how most of us, wake up on most mornings, with similar feelings.

I think the worst part is knowing that if I wanted to, really wanted to, if I tried hard enough, I could wake up and change everything. I could hang out with my friends and not be scared to run out of things to say. I can change my own life at any moment. But I don’t ‘want’ to, you see. How I love being sad, love rotting to boredom, in my room while people have fun without me, in another world. I love imagining little scenarios in my head instead of making them real, like a sad little child playing with dolls.

I love hybernating through seasons of joy. I think I would be bored otherwise. I am afraid to be great and to have everything I think I want. It terrifies me because what I really want, deep down, is to keep hiding. I am scared to admit it but it’s true. It’s the only thing I really love today.

I don’t love my friends all the time, or myself or my work.

As some days pass by, they leave me with a warm fuzzy feeling inside, those are the days I feel, I must jot down in a gratitude journal, to flip back through on my not so great days, to remember why I love life and being alive. Yes those days happen often. I dress up and feel sexy. I wear the smell of my favourite shampoo on my hair. I buy doughnuts and cookies and snap them with children, I listen to podcasts as I work the kitchen sink.

When we are in a dark place, our mind tricks us into thinking that all days are like this and covers our memories in a film of grey and ugliness. I wish to hold on to those days that leave me feeling like there is sunshine in my chest, take photos to remember them by, write notes to read them after days. Even post about them on Elephant!

I know there is something so magical in the environment I create around myself.
A smile at a stranger, a relaxed moment by the residence fountain, a gentleness towards myself and others and knowledge that those who live beyond are feeling the same everyday and looking out for me, like I am secretly, yearning for them.

(Thank-you for reading this article!)

My passion is writing. Everything I write about is geared toward things that I deeply cares about—experiences, thoughts, drama, and emotions. A full-time mom to two handsome boys—11 and 4—I built a career around insurance underwriting and later, teaching of English literature and language in high school, before vanishing into full-time mommy responsibilities. I believe that life is not meant to be serious all of the time, and that we should have fun as much as we can. Besides writing, I enjoy watching spy network series and living it up by creating laugh memes with my two lovely young boys!

To follow my work on

https://www.facebook.com/sayitnish
http://instagram.com/sayitnish
http://sayitnish.com/

I write because I have nothing better to do.

How I Write About Love

What do we consider to be a good meeting story?
When it involves chance more than effort. You get bonus points if the chance encounter suggests compatibility, like mistakenly wheeling off with each other’s shopping carts at supermarkets because your items had so much overlap, you got the carts mixed up.
You catch glimpses of familiar faces or a nerve wrecking hello, with the lady in purple, at the elevator, you frequent at work.There is this beautiful disaster. Explosion of curiosity. The onset of displaced feelings.

The Price I pay to Write all this!

Well, the best thing that ever happened to my writing life was living in lockdown.

(Thank-you for reading this article!)

My passion is writing. Everything I write about is geared toward things that I deeply cares about—experiences, thoughts, drama, and emotions. A full-time mom to two handsome boys—11 and 4—I built a career around insurance underwriting and later, teaching of English literature and language in high school, before vanishing into full-time mommy responsibilities. I believe that life is not meant to be serious all of the time, and that we should have fun as much as we can. Besides writing, I enjoy watching spy network series and living it up by creating laugh memes with my two lovely young boys!

To follow my work on.

https://www.facebook.com/sayitnish
http://instagram.com/sayitnish
http://sayitnish.com/

About job losses, burial of sanity and a test of human resilience.

So it has been a very long time that I wrote about what is happening around me, exactly. And I am here with some life updates, as it is happening to all of us.

Many of us are working from home during quarantine and life seems all good.
In similar cities and big towns, for many, their time has altered hugely many of them on the verge of or already having to lose their jobs.
The time many of us spend cursing the lackadaisical life, there are many people out there who spend all that time mainly focusing on working on their portfolio, applying for other jobs, feeling generally depressed and scared about being jobless during a pandemic, while still being contractually obligated to keep working for their very company until their termination date.

Let me give a writing prompt here. In a parallel world, hunters nowadays are starting to lose their jobs, because lonely powerful aliens simply refuse to let the hunters haunt their already power sick world, anymore.

Now the unfortunate part in this scenario. Many people also have a daily job to go to, not much to worry we think.
It’s more than just the obvious – pharmacies and hospitals and police and grocery stores.
Construction is still happening. Mechanics and electricians and tradesmen are still working. Municipal Service workers.
Manufacturing plants are still running. You have buildings full of 100+ employees in close quarters making the packaged food and toiletries and drinks and medicine you are buying in crazed bulk. There are people in the offices manning the phones dealing with customers.

Yes, they are making their money but that is not necessarily a relief. A lot of them would love to be home and know that they are not going to catch something on their commute. People who have immune-vulnerable relatives they have to take care of while they also have to work.

There are still people who need to use public transportation to get around and don’t have the option to NOT go to work.
There are deserted times when I might have thought- as I am agonizing about how bored I am at home or how I haven’t been able to finish my fanfic or even how I am celebrating my husband’s time off from frequenting work place and completing all our we-time projects.

Some people are just working… and anxious.. and tired.. and they don’t have a break on the horizon.

When it comes to losing a job, it’s so much more than losing the job and the income. It also means losing a routine, a sense of regularity, safety, honour and the relationships we’ve formed.

This connection between self-worth and work is vital as people largely blame themselves for the unfortunate life event and wonder what they personally did wrong to end up unemployed. They may also feel shame for not being able to provide financial stability and protection to the people they need to support, especially during a health crisis.
We use our fall and achievements, as the foundation for everything else that we do and so when somebody rocks that ground, everything else on top of that crumbles.

We read painful narrations on media about people below starry income levels living miserable lives and lifeless.
We also read about qualified and remarkably poised people in troubled mental dispositions.

Perhaps it is easy to be a leader when things are going according to financial and quarterly business plans but hard to fathom or respond to and undertake effective solutions, when things are going badly.

In these complicated times, how employees are measured with goodwill and care, will be remembered for years to come. How businesses respond will have a lasting impact on employee behavior including, engagement, productivity and loyalty.

Self care and sanity is a human right, not a billable item for employers to influence.

(Thank-you for reading this articl e!)

To follow my work on.

https://www.facebook.com/sayitnish
http://instagram.com/sayitnish
http://sayitnish.com/

I landed a man who also became my best friend.

When I first met him, I was like this person desperately looking for companionship….I can say that I was almost looking for a bond of need. Deep inside, I knew that it was destined to fail because you cannot drink from an empty cup. I must search desperately for meaning and fullness that will fill the void within myself first.
The hunger never ends, as nothing can satisfy it except creating meaning within my own self. I grew up frenzied, inevitably falling to disappointment.
I was fortunate to have loving parents but there was always this thirst for finding meaning and an anchor in another.

I was mostly attached to the idea, the concept, the ideal that I had created in my mind of the other person; and so with the passing of years I learnt that it only leads to further heartache. When I grew up onto a strong, quite mature person I realised that paradoxically, in this hunger to find meaning in another, I might be either consciously or unconsciously blinded to each other’s true interests and passions; and thereby make an attempt to overwrite the other’s world with my own fears. And I did for a while. My worries and anxieties became his to worry about for a little time as well.

He came from a moment of rightness, of peace, of calm, of feeling at home. He taught me that instead of need, there is want and choice, which are completely different things and so does not cling desperately for anchor in another. Someone who took ownership of their inner wounds, their weaknesses, their shortcomings.

This is what is attractive. When, he knows that in order for a relationship to work, both will have to invest continuously, that at every dawn a new choice is to be made, that love isn’t just an endless honeymoon dictated by moods or needs or changing hearts; that love is choosing each other day by day, and knowing that there will be times when one will have to carry most of the weight to compensate for an imbalance, whatever the reason may be for this, or sometimes both will carry it equally, and so forth.

They know that in the end, it’s all about intent and choice, as long as they both hold on and want to be with each other, they will keep doing whatever necessary to make it work.
Most of all, they know that time changes things, that people evolve, and that is absolutely natural and essential for a joyous union, and to this end they strive to encourage and support you also in becoming our very best selves, in pursuing whatever passions set our heart alight.

With time, our bond has only strengthened like flowers in a garden. He and I were like a powerhouse of love, of unbreakable commitment, a power couple in its truest form. It is a divine union because there is nothing that cannot be achieved by two people that have reached such a state of friendship and intentional living.

I love him and he is my best friend.

My favourite sportsperson and what I want my sons to learn by watching him.

I am a sports fan. The reason I write this article is to pen my thoughts on India’s most swashbuckling sportstar, Indian cricketer Virat Kohli. (also the current captain of the One day International and test matches)

Few days ago, my son suggested we play a game on famous sports personalities, from around the world. Each person says a name starting with the end letter of the sports person, the other person said.

According to the mood, I decided for myself that this list would purely be based on their handsomeness (combination of looks, personality and the way they carry themselves in public) , without necessarily taking their sports talent/skills into consideration. While most of them are sports legends- undoubtedly bothe women and men, some are relatively unknown or lesser-known. But all of them have played sports at international level.
Towards the end of our play, we had a little chat on whom we like the most in the respective sports arena. While my son is a huge admirer of football, I have my heart in cricket.
I remember my younger days when I used to be dad’s favourite companion in watching the sport. I used to have a thing or two to ask and would get annoyed when the game didn’t play out on television, the way I would envisage.

I enjoy the game for all it’s deadly combination of collective calm and individual prowess. In today’s time, if I had to chooses one cricketer as the strongest in the world, it would be none other than Virat Kohli!
And trust me, my reasons have nothing to do with anything but his character as a cricketer.

Okay, so let’s unpack my sentiments about him. You don’t like a person. There are qualities and actions of a person you like.

• I like his unwavering focus on the game.

• I like how he would hurl expletives when pumped up because that was his way of showing how involved he is in what he’s doing.

• I like it when he jumps and punches the air when he scores a fifty or a hundred and when he takes the team past the finish line because that shows how much he wants it to happen.

• I like to see his exercise videos on social media because that will inspire at least a few people who idolise him to become fit.

• I like to see him sing and dance with team mates,( my son has exhausted his chances of the gangnam style dance video) where he shows that he’s not just about sports and fitness.

• I am a fan of his passion for cricket and his supreme adaptability.

• He is strong not physically alone but also from the mind. He is not bogged down, appears to take things as they come, plays to win and is unaffected by any type of criticism. His focus while playing cricket is at another level. When he is there at the crease, he puts up a fight against the opposition and at the same time keeps enjoying his game.

This man combines hard-work, intelligence and a spirit to fight and win, and I would spend money on watching him with my sons, for as long as, they can take those positives back home!

(Thankyou for reading the article!)

Do follow my work on.

https://www.facebook.com/sayitnish
http://instagram.com/sayitnish
http://sayitnish.com/
http://nishakartik.blogspot.com/

I love you guys, but spare me your sarcasm.

Listen, smile, agree. And then do whatever the fuck you were gonna do anyway.’
Robert Downey Jr.

Every time we level up in life, we have to readjust our boundaries. what was okay before, no longer works. The people in our lives, self care rituals, the environments, and situations we engage with must all adjust and meet our new vibrational frequency, in order to be sustained.

I understand sarcasm. People use it often in their interactions. We all do. While on most occasions it is supposed to indicate friendly banter, it is belittling to many.

Here I share my thoughts about the harmful kind.

I have noticed how, for some people it’s practically the primary language, absolutely intended specifically to make the other person feel stupid. When you’re always sarcastic, people won’t want to be around you because people don’t want to feel stupid.Sarcasm has a two-faced quality: it’s both funny and mean.

In their defence, I could say that it gives them an internal satisfaction, inner peace and a feeling that could be compared to a-punch-in-the-face through their mean words.
Not only is it rude, but I’ve found that people who are “always sarcastic” tend to be unfunny.
I have ceased to interact with many friends because of their terrible addiction for self depreciation and when you don’t play the ball with them, they feel strained and nurture this obsessive need to spew nursed bitterness.
Often, many of them are left wondering why I don’t speak to them anymore.

I feel attracted to charming men and women. People who exude charm assume that no body is boring; they realize that when you’re contemplating a person’s story or their passions, you are genuinely looking for more information about them, and they’re going to value you for this.

I am forty and have had a fair share of bullying and sarcastic friends in my journey yet. I can say confidently that I have learnt my way around this terror. Some of them are unrelenting.

They would want to figure out why you wouldn’t want to connect with them anymore, as you learn to live around them. It’s a tongue in cheek situation. It is the easiest to ignore them and make it known in polite ways, that perhaps you are busy or would connect with them at a time soonest when you can.
People that like to be vindictive with words and poke fun at somebody, apparently in a friendly situation, really don’t have much going on with their intellectual mechanisms and have a lot of growing up to do. I mean really how boring do you have to be to take pleasure in somebody else’s embarrassment and unease. I can think of a million and one things I’d rather do, than that.

Over the years, I told myself, that most of the time when people point out others faults, its to draw attention away from their own. I don’t have the skill for reverse sarcasm and I convince myself again, that I am a decent human being and I am better than that right?

(Thankyou for reading this article!)

Do follow my work on.

https://www.facebook.com/sayitnish
http://instagram.com/sayitnish
http://sayitnish.com/
http://nishakartik.blogspot.com/

Why I choose kindness as a remedy to almost all my problems.

Do you ever feel so absolutely disinclined to do things?

Like it ain’t even postponement or laziness anymore, you just physically and mentally can’t bring yourself to do anything. It is like I really, really just wish to binge watch Discovery Plus, my favourite channel, until my mind numbs completely or lie on the bed and stare into the abyss.

And it’s not like I don’t have “motivation” or anything or even that I don’t want to do it, it’s just..I can’t. I don't know, how people just do things randomly, get up and go at it. I have to have an entire existential crisis and like, read a goddamn motivational passage or something first before I do the smallest thing on a particularly difficult day and it’s June for God's sake. ..and not much of monsoon to help ease the heat.

And just at times as these, sometimes I am immovably sunken. I just want someone to be kind and ask me how Iam doing and genuinely. It feels so good to be kind. We are all, rowing our heavy bars through the tough waters. We all hesitate.

But we are hopelessly looking for kind souls. It’s the warm feeling you get when someone tells me that I look nice today, or that I did a good job, or that my voice sounds lovely, or that the dinner I put together was delicious, or how I always laugh at their jokes.

It’s the warm feeling you get when they respond bashfully, or surprised, with that small smile and a thankfulness that shines in their eyes. It feels so good when someone is kind to you.

When it feels like the effort you put into the world is seen and acknowledged and appreciated. It feels so good when you’re able to make someone feel that wonderful.
It is certainly one of the best ways to build connections, if only for those few minutes that you're in conversation with the other person.
All I want to do sometimes, on these days, is to put one foot in front of the other and be grateful.

I love the contagious nature of kindness. Have you noticed ..when someone goes out of their way to show kindness just because, it spurs others to do the same. I like simple things.

1. Giving them attention. Intentional eye contact and an inviting smile are my favourite ways to be nice. Everyone likes that.
2. Check on your neighbours once in a while. If it looks awkward, call them still and let them know that you just wanted to say a hello and ask if everything is going well with them. I have understood through practice that it wins hearts.
3. Smile at the person waiting next to you at the billing area. In most cases, they have similar agenda. They wish to collect their stuff, reach home to family.
4. Ask about someone's pet as you meet them on your way. Ask how do they call them and say a kind word. It wins hearts.
5. Many an exhausted parent struggle when their toddler throws a wild tantrum in public space. I am a mother. I know it is a tricky situation. If you find someone in that situation, look at them with a smile and wink at them. Let them know it's perfectly normal.
6. Say thank-you to the parking meter guy. He will be proud of his job.
7. Wish friends and acquaintances on their birthdays and send specially emoji-ed messages. It makes them happy. They will be find you attractive.

Good things happen tobhood people is a universal saying. In my modified personal note, I would say good vibes make you incredibly attractive.

Let's make love!

(Thankyou for reading the article!)

Do follow my work on.

https://www.facebook.com/sayitnish/
http://instagram.com/sayitnish
http://sayitnish.com/
https://medium.com/@sayitnish
http://nishakartik.blogspot.com/