All That Matters Is...Now

This post is as much for me, my self, as much it is for the contest at Blogadda.com - sharing thoughts about All That Matters to an individual. So what really matters to me? Had I been mulling about this questions a few months ago, I would have probably said money matters, inner peace matters, appreciation matters, identity matters, friends and family matters. But no, not any more. For now I believe that actually what really really matters is the importance of NOW, the infinite power of present. Now is the key to all other attainments - material and immaterial.

Not long ago, I was one of those people who would probably have become the self appointed leader of any procrastinators group, provided they made an effort. But then making an effort, and that too at the right time never came easily to the likes of us. My dates with deadlines were never honoured, there was always a backlog on my table and and on my mind, and life in general trudged from one pending task to another pending task. Not until I missed a very important and quite expensively booked official flight out of the country. What followed was nothing sort of a domino effect - meeting after meeting cancelled, the itinerary gone for a toss, another flight booked at a even higher rate, plus, all the chaos billed to my paltry account.

And as if this was not enough, (literal) insult was added to injury with long winding emails by the powers that be in the office, about the importance of being  more punctual and err...less dreamy. Well, the aftermath of this catastrophe got me all thinking and analyzing the reason behind my inclination towards procrastination.

I was procrastinating all right - postponing  tasks from mornings to late evenings, from weekdays to weekends, and then seeing busy weekends ahead, further postponing the tasks to Mondays, and then Tuesdays, and thus the vicious circle continued. No wonder I was always in a mad rush to complete pending tasks that kept piling on and on. But now was the time to contemplate and sort out once and for all the menace of procrastination. And so I got down to monitor in intricate detail my thought process, and my routine and in no time I had figured out what caused me to always come up  with the sentences like  - I will do this later, I will do this during the night, I will complete this work over the weekend.

Past and Future, these were the two words that were hampering my present. These two words kept me captive in their worlds most of the time. I was either daydreaming about future or if not that,  I was reminiscing about the past. Author Paulo Coelho's words in his bestseller work Aleph better describes the persistent predicament I was in -

'We human beings have enormous difficulty in focusing on the present; we're always thinking about what we did, about how we could have done it better, about the consequences of our actions, and about why we didn't act as we should have. Or else we think about the future, about what we're going to do tomorrow, what precautions we should take, what dangers await us around the next corner, how to avoid what we don't want and how to get what we have always dreamed of.”

So that's what my self diagnosis was - persistent hovering around the never ending realms of past and future. But know I believe I that I am cured. And a lot of discipline and body and mind control has gone into this new me. A lot of inspiration came from the books too, from the learned men who knew answers to all of humanity's big and small questions. And this reminds of the beautiful quote by Gautam Buddha that inspires us all to appreciate the present - 

'The past is already gone, the future is not yet here. There's only one moment for you to live, and that is the present moment.' 

How simple and yet profound this thought is. And this too has played a significant role in molding me into a new me, one who is more punctual and does not dilly-dally about the tasks at hand. A new me who knows that all that matters is now, the present. 

This post is written as a part of ‘All that Matters‘ contest at BlogAdda.com in association with INK Live 2013.

Photo Courtesy: Google Images

All That Matters Is...

A stable, sensitive and concerned government matters, our cricket team performing superlatively all the year round and ruling the international rank tally matters, our films winning laurels at the Oscars matters, our sportsmen smashing Olympic records matters, love and affection matters, money matters, appreciation matters...gosh there are so many things that matter to me as an Indian. But I believe that on one level, these things matter for almost all of us. What really matters to me as an individual is FREEDOM. 

I WANT FREEDOM FROM THE FEARS OF BEING A WOMAN IN INDIA. Let me make it very clear here that I am not a feminist. Not at all. I am against reservation for women anywhere and everywhere. I believe that when you support reservation or seek special favors just because you are a woman, you imply that you are probably weak or under-deserving to get anything on you own, just on account of you being a woman. 

The freedom that I am talking about here is the freedom to just be. The freedom that gives me the spontaneity to just take off to explore my country on my own, without having to fear for my safety, and without having to answer a zillion questions about why I am travelling alone, what my intentions are, why am I without a companion (family, husband or friends), and without having to be accountable for my every move. I am sure many of my friends and fellow travel enthusiasts will agree that in our country, the idea of a single female tourist/traveller is still a far-fetched one. 

We all know how India was in the spotlight the world over on account of the horrific bus rape incident that happened in New Delhi. The furor condemning it lasted a couple of months, there were all kinds of protests condemning the incident , the outrage was palpable, following which the parliament passed a bill recommending harsher punishments for rapists. But this has hardly brought about any significant change at the ground level. Every single day, there are reports of molestation, kidnapping, harassment and the new menace, acid attacks. 

No matter how mentally strong you are, no matter how much self belief you have, no matter how independently you have lived, every time you step out on Indian roads - be it a city road or a village trail, you steel yourself against the subtle and not so subtle harassment that you know will come your way, something that makes you feel like a hapless prey. There are times when I wonder whether it is too Utopian a thought to imagine gender equality taking roots in our country.

Utopian or not, I do not see it happening anytime soon here. Not unless, there is a complete overhaul of the country's attitude towards its women. Not unless law makers, policy makers, social workers, politicians and the people themselves all come together to speed up the change towards a gender equal India, and make it a country that respects its women, a country where women are allowed to live free from fear and oppression. For freedom is all that matters.

This post is written as a part of ‘All that Matters‘ contest at BlogAdda.com in association with INK Live 2013.

Photo Courtesy: Google Images