Pessimist or Optimist?

A half glass of water is placed in front of you and you are asked; is this glass half full or half empty? If you say it is half full, you are considered to be an optimist since you look for the small joys and hope for more. In case you say the glass is half empty, then you are a pessimist who only sees problems and woes. I have had people ask me which of these two I am, and I would always ask them, why should I be one or the other only, can't I be both? I have never received a satisfactory answer for that question yet. For me, there are times when things seem upbeat and opportunistic, where I can see the bright side of circumstances. But most often, I do tend to question things multiple times and the silver lining is never to be found. I recently went for an onsite interview and after it was over, I was told by multiple people to think positively, that by thinking happy thoughts and being positive I will be lucky and will surely get a positive response. Now how much of this should I really believe? Unfortunately, I did not get that job. Is it because I was not positively thinking about the job and my prospects or was it simply because they found someone more qualified for it? I like to believe it was the latter. Still the question remains, am I a pessimist or an optimist? Can I be both or neither?

Parents

 Parents. The word in itself inspires soo many feeling, feelings of love, respect, awe, a tinge of fear(can't leave that out). Then why is it that it is these same people that we end up hurting the most in our lives? It never is our intention to hurt them but our words and actions still result in hurting them. Why is it that the people who love us the most, who have lived more than half their life pleasing us and making sure our lives are comfortable, the ones who never like to see us sad, will stand at our backs pushing us towards success are the ones who are treated in the worst manner, who are pushed away or left behind and made to feel unwanted. They are the people who have given up their dreams to help us achieve ours, they work day and night to satisfy our every need and what do we give them in return? To every child out there, just like me, this is something to dwell on, question ourselves, look into our life and ask ourselves have we done enough for our parents?
 I am twenty one years old and have always lived at home with my family. I never had to stay in a hostel till recently so I never had an opportunity to really understand the value of everything I had taken for granted till now. A short two month hostel stay in a completely different state should have passed by in no time at all and should have made no real change to my way of thinking. But that’s not what happened! Two months sounds easy in the beginning but once it starts you feel like its taking too long. For a person who has never been away from my family I personally found the experience to be quite enlightening.
 The empty hostel room makes you miss your sister and the fights you've had over the most insignificant things. To have to suffer through horrible mess food makes you value your mom's cooking that much more. But most of all it's the sense of loneliness that you feel, it creeps in and once it gets its claws into you its very hard to get them out. You crave to be close to your family, to be able to see them or talk to them. It is at this point that I find myself now. I sit in my room and think about my family, more specifically my parents, I remember the times I fought with my parents, shouted at them when I thought I was right, got angry at them when I thought they didn't care enough about something I had done, I recollect all those instances wherein I have felt like I was not important or that my achievements don’t make them happy. Now I see the truth, maybe I always knew it but just didn't want to accept it. I realize now that my mom and dad are the best things in my life, to be born as their daughter is my good fortune. I know now that what I first thought was all wrong, my parents do accept me the way I am, they are happy when I achieve certain things but their way of expressing it is just not always that clear and open.
 The one thing I know for sure is that yes I might still end up fighting with my parents, still shout at them, but that will not mean that they don’t care about me, now will it mean that I don’t love them. Our parents are special and we are lucky to have been graced with them in our lives, so it is our duty to love them, give them the respect they deserve and make sure that they are not pushed back and away from us in our journey forward for we will always need them and it is when they are no longer with us that we come to know their true value.
 I love you mom and dad.

A lil bit of heaven

You are watching a movie, the plot is one you have seen a dozen times.The actor falls ill, is going to die, gets three wishes and voila she miraculously survives. Well when i started off watching 'A little bit of Heaven' I was expecting more of the same but the movie took me by surprise.
Yes, the actress does fall ill, she discovers that she has colon cancer and its in the last stages. There is the part where she reaches heaven and meets God, or whom she pictures God to resemble and predictably she is given three wishes. Then there are the parts where the two wishes she asks for come true and where she falls in love with her doctor, cliche i know. But as I continued to watch the movie I came to realize that the movie was also about those people closest to the actress, her parents, her friends and her lover, about their feelings and their emotions, about how each one has a different way to cope with thoughts of her death.
You would expect the actress to use her last wish to stay alive and there is a part in the movie where her friend asks her why she did not do so but all the actress replied was that she had something much more important to wish for. We do not come to know for certain what she wished for but when we see the next parts of the movie we come to certain conclusions, though we can never be sure what it was exactly. In the end the actress succumbs to cancer and as she died I could feel tears rolling down my cheeks. The movie made me cry, not just once but many times not because it was bad but because each scene is so moving, so touching, many scenes are ones you can relate to and you can't help but cry.
The dialogue that made the most impression on me was on said by the actress to her mother, she is days away from her death and knows it. She asks her mom for help in arranging her funeral and tells her that she does not want a somber affair, she says and i quote-'I want to bring back the F-U-N in funeral' and lets just say that she manages to do that all right, for her funeral was a colorful, musical, fun filled affair where everyone enjoyed themselves and toasted her memory.
A truly touching movie, worth a watch and truly worth the tears.

A Majestic Sighting

Grilled Paneer with Tomato Chutney-A twist

Cooking is a passion as well as a hobby for me. When i cook its because i either want to de-stress or because i am too hungry. But most times when i cook because i am hungry it results in me feeling too full even before i have a single bite of whatever i cooked. That's the power of food;-)
On this particular evening i was feeling very hungry and wanted to try something new(I got a new book of recipes from one of my cousins). I decided to try one particular recipe that caught my attention-Grilled paneer with Tomato chutney. I started off deciding to follow the recipe by the book and succeeded to an extent but then disaster almost struck. The chutney went completely wrong. That is when i decided to give it my own personal twist. I had no idea of how it was going to end up but once i started off i could not stop. So I continued making small changes to the recipe. The one thing i always do after I cook something is make someone else taste it. I never taste anything I make unless and until someone else has already tasted it. Well on this fateful day, my twist to the original came out pretty well, everyone liked the taste of it even thought it was pretty different. That is what i call luck. Of course by the time i finished cooking I was feeling quite full and could not eat as much as I hoped but that is a totally different matter, don't you agree?

Fear

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the things you think you cannot do-Eleanor Roosevelt      

Everyone at some point of their vast or short lifetime(which ever you find most apt) have had to face a situation wherein one comes face to face with ones fears.These fears maybe something small or the greatest fear of a person.In such a situation one usually tends to bow down to ones fears and by giving in accept defeat.It is when one stands up against the fear and try to overcome it rather than be overcome by it that one grows strong.The above saying by Eleanor Roosevelt tells us that when a person learns to face ones fears that is when he gains strenght, confidence and courage. When one does those tasks that one considers impossible then he will grow stronger mentally. A man who knows no fear is a fool but he who knows fear and does nothing to overcome it is a greater fool. He who knows fear and learns to face it is one who is worthy of being called a creation of God.