"Grass on the other side is always GREENER!" BULL SHIT!

Life on the other side is always green. Is it true? Friends, this is true, because a person who is down, frustrated and does not love his life or what he does, is bound to fell that someone else's life is more greener than his/her his. The long instilled philosophy in all of us today, that if you do what your heart says you are more content and satisfied than when you are doing what someone else is expecting you to do is causing all the trouble.

Truth is what you discover. Live your life and discover the truth of your life, your constraints, your situations, your problems, your answers, your happiness is too unique to you, live to make a great life out of your life's situations. Don't model in comparison to bill gates' life, neighbor's life or for that matter your brother's, parents' or your spouse's life. See what can make all happy. By not keeping others happy, you are digging your own grave.

If you can expect and tell yourself what you are expected to do is what you love to do, the problem gets solved if the question is of being content. But the ego doesn't allow this to happen, for your ego continuously reminds you of the fact that "you are adjusting.." you are not originally happy. That is the job of ego - can you believe it gets paid for it. It gets paid for it and it's returns are the no of issues it creates in your life.

The other facet of life is when you are expected to do things in a particular way and someone who is expecting you to do something is doing the same in an opposite way, it causes the greatest hurdle to accept what is happening and stay happy - the first thing that hits the mind is the comparison that "why are you expected to do when he/she can do the opposite". Life has sort of instilled in us through various media - the joy of ownership, the joy of having control. This has it's strengths and hazards. The hard side to it is we forget to draw the line, where to seek control, what to seek control in and when to let go; with whom to seek and with whom to let go.

More the philosophies more the confusion. The greatest solution of life is in understanding that life is far more simpler than we all think it is. Nevertheless it may not be easy, as we all expect it to be. But it's simplicity lies in the fact that if you love what you get, you would sooner or later get what you love. The most toughest thing is to believe in this, because the distractions are many and at times when you are made to feel by the various media that surround you (including FB, tv, movies, newspapers etc) that your life is hell and others are having a ball, the horrendous effects of your ego/self image multiply.

The more often you watch things you want to do, being glamorized and showing people really seeking pleasure out of it, the more you would want to do it.

One finest example that I would love to quote, is the way media has glamourized romance, love, relationships, outings, travels, which has made people seek all of this only to realize these no way fall close to the expected pleasure they might give that the media sets in us. It's an exaggerated view that is set in us and hence what follows is an exaggerate expectation. Life's purpose is to attend to the dreams of the collective set of most important people you love and ofcourse yourself eventually (but eventually is what we forget).

Likewise in relationships the ego plays havoc. People have forgotten roles. The role of a pilot is to fly the plane and hostess needs to assist the passengers. We tend to think pilot can fly the plane the way he wants and he has complete control and is more fortunate than any of us. But we fail to realise he feels equally more responsible for all the lives, he is accountable, he is also flying an expected route, he is going through deeper and greater strain (mentally) so needs better relaxation and rest. A lot of us end up comparing that what we are doing is equally BIG and great and hence we deserve to enjoy and celebrate as much as the pilot does and we should be paid equally as well.

If reason is we are not treated that well, because we are not pilots our ego is all set to argue that we have the capacity to be pilots as well. After becoming one we only realise it's not the post that makes us happy or something that our ego made us do, we would be happy even otherwise. Now the most important thing - In relationships roles have to be truly well understood and accepted and not compared. Comparison causes more damage than good it is capable of causing. It's best if we all did realize that It's happiness that makes us become the best of whatever post we are from.

If you are the manager you are made to sit in a cabin and if you are the receptionist you are made to sit at the reception table. It's not to give one more pleasure and other more pain. It's just the nature of the work. It's perception that counts.

A marital relation has similar roles. Having travelled the world am observing these divorce cases on a very large scale and the alarming rate at which they are increasing is not funny. It's simply because what is done by the wife is to be done by the husband and what is done by the husband is to be done by wife. Simply because they want it to be FAIR. I dont understand in between love and relationships where does the word FAIR come from. Fair needs to come when there is one job that is only giving pain and other only giving pleasure. It is general nature to believe that working and having a career is something that gives you pleasure, and home management is a painful & pitiable work. SO balancing that is fair. THIS make NO SENSE.

Once a great man said "All work is just WORK" with equal pleasure and pain. If there is possibility of work sharing it should be done. If there is expertise it should be shared. For the sake of sharing it if things are divided then it makes chaos happen. It could be from small things to bigger ones. Why is it that woman gives birth to a child and not a man, why is it women look beautiful and not a man etc. Nature had a reason to make both the way they are and a lot can be learnt. Let roles be unique and not compared. Let the common goal be the upliftment of family and not the upliftment of an individual alone.

If this was understood - divorces would decrease. ":Why should i go through all the pain?" "why me always..?" " Why should it always be me who says sorry?" "why should i do all the work?" " why should I go through this, I dont deserve it.." "Why..." If you have felt all this then welcome to the club of people who just need to hold their ego with both their hands strangle it each time it comes when the person on the other side of grass is a loved one and for heaven's sake STOP COMPARING. No matter how much your tendency is to.

Life on your side is as green as that on the other side. IT's just that at times it's night on your side and day on the other side and at times it's day on your side (when you busy seeing your grass and have no time to see it's dark on the other side..) and night on the other side.

The grass has nothing to do with your life. Will you start loving your life and living it with what it offers you first and then expand the horizons beyond to ensure it compasses more and more in your arena, than comparing and keeping your life in a circle of small radius forever.

Hope this blog helps you through atleast one of the paragraphs. I know it's lengthy but it has depth equally (atleast I presume). Open to read your comments...

Sujit Lalwani
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Strength of relationships has not got to do much with the amount of time spent with the Individual!

Relationships and the related issues are a common topic of discussion with oneself or with others, more common than the air molecules around us. They touch every neuron of ours. As every name stored on our mind of a person is a relation and brings along inevitably a lot of thoughts, some conscious and others sub-conscious.

I have heard a lot of complains from a lot of people - That "we knew and were bonded for a decade and more, How could you do this to me?" Its like the Lantern, the strength of the flame can be controlled with the knob, but once the fuel is extinct inside the container, no matter how much you turn the knob or play around with that little lantern, you cannot hope to see the flame again, until you refuel it and trigger the flame with a splinter.

All I mean to say is that - though the amount of time spent with an individual accumulates greater number of memories in our life, if the recent ones are bad, and the misconceptions are high, then the re-inforcement of these bad memories of recent past repeatedly, will overshadow the strength and good memories of the relationship, and soon be a great reason & a valid one of course, to break the thread of this relation, leaving it into pieces and can bring it back only with a knot.

The mother who gives birth to a child, brings an entity into the world, whom she knows not, not more than until 9 months ago, she knew she concieved this life, but the strength of this relation is beyond our understanding.

Its the dreams of the future with this individual already built, for years before this life was concieved, and the emotional bonding, attachment and the feeling of possessing this life nurtured for long that decides the strength.

Likewise there are times when we have seen people who have met a few days, years or months ago, and they claim they would be partners for life long, Is a direct effect of the feelings and their strength is due to innumerous self-re-inforcements of the emotions of dreams of future together they would love to build.

The strength of relation goes to an extent, that history is a proof, for people who got wed beyond the desires of society, they could cut through the societal pressures, the pressures from society are nothing but relational pressures, which fall small in front of the strength of the relation. In case the emotional strength is not enough to combat the societal pressures, the re-inforcements are not strong enough, the reverse decisions are claimed in some cases.

But cases where we see people get attached to something/someone and get deeply engrossed into that relation with time, are the ones who materialise the strongest relations and then there are not many forces more powerful than death, that can result in breakage.

But there is a lesson - "THE LANTERN LESSON"... the relations are subject to change, the fuel is the reason for the flame, One needs to keep the flame going, keep the fuelling the lantern, and never let it extinct, keep the knob turned towards "high" symbol - then you enjoy long lasting permanent, and ever jovial and pleasure giving relationships.

The direct question on the mind of the reader now, is obvious -"what is this fuel all about?" - Its the dreams of future, recollection of past memories(the ones that are positive and make you happy), re-inforcements of trust, re-inforcements of pride in the relation, re-inforcement of satisfaction of the presence of the other entity/individual in our life.

This concept of relationship - applies to organisations you are working for, applicable to ensure your teams working with you attached with you and your organisation, the people you are attached to, your relationships(life-partners), your bonding with your family and friends.

Even a kinder-garten student can now conclude - "what is enmity? who is an enemy?"
and how can these negative feelings be eliminated!

Hope you readers enjoyed this piece of article, its just the thoughts that conjured over a period of time, when I stand and look back at my life, which is cluster of relationships, some broken, some rejoiced, some strengthened, some beyond the scope of understanding and some that i enjoy even today!

IF you have any issues with anyone/anything just forgive, forget and start loving again.

"Either you Curb the grudges/negatives and live everyday till you die or Keep the grudges/negatives and die everyday till you live!" ~ sujit lalwani

May god bless you all with long lasting relationships - really strong and long ones!

(The column below is for you, to extend the warmth you feel for this blog!)

Be it any Industry or arena of life, Great Relationships Matter the Most!

You are reader No.:

It was not just another evening, for it proved to carry a big lesson for me to learn. At the onset it was just another evening of my life, where I was with my associates training them about progressing and being able to create huge networks for themselves, busy training them about closing sales, about becoming better presentors, mentoring them to become better leaders etc. while it struck to me the most important aspect that encompassed all the training that I delivered was "RELATIONSHIPS".

Relationships is a huge chapter, hence to cover something that can give you the best insight into what I learnt would be difficult to compile in a few short paragraphs. But I shall give my best to compile the juice with a possible few dos and donts of relationships.

The glue that bonds a huge organisation intact is relationships. Relationships at work are as imporatant and life changing as relationships at home. They say a chain is as strong as its weakest link likewise an organisation is as strong as its weakest relationship. It starts breaking from there.

The biggest enemy to the best relationships is EGO. Its more often than less that I have come across in my network where the ego between a couple of leaders has been the reason for an Upcoming Misunderstanding, which results in a communication gap. The communication gap works under the principle of assumptions, where both parties start assuming the other person's state of mind, and start concluding things which are totally based on those assumptions, only to one day realise that they were wrong and they had themselves caused damage to their organisations as leaders.

Hence, one most important thing to remember is one has to surrender his ego for the matter to get solved. A couple of minutes talk might make you look foolish, atleast it helps you avoid being foolish for a lifetime.

EGO --> Communication Gap --> Faulty assumptions --> greater Communication gap -->
Arguements instead of discussions --> Growth of EGO --> Broken Relationship.

This applies to the relationships in your love life as much they apply in organisations/business. They matter a lot for smooth functioning of organisations, help in building great momentum for the business, the stronger the relationships and understanding in the organisation the greater the momentum it can sustain.

So dear readers, all the people with whom you are feeling an ego clash, Its time to go and flush out all the misunderstandings between and make the beginning for a great relationship once again. Let us be the first one to surrender. Unconditional love has its first symptom - "surrendering of ego".

Remember nothing is lost, by surrendering your ego, but lot can be gained from it.

Feel free to drop in your perspectives and incidents you have come across in your life, where you learnt this lesson.