INVESTING IN PEOPLE

I attended a friend’s wedding, years ago. In addition to me, she had 3 other friends attending the event. But the groom had 100 friends there! I was awestruck. I didn't even know a hundred people in my life - a tiny fraction of them being such good friends that they turn up at my wedding! 

Okay! enough about weddings. But we have all seen such people. People who make friends easily and have so many they could just call and get together anytime and anyplace. People who are at ease among others and not awkward or weird. They do seem to have boundaries or trust issues. They do not need ‘me time’ or ‘alone time’. They don’t mind going off somewhere in the middle of the day or night if their friends call them. They like to be out and with people and generally are fun and seem to be having a great time. 

Then there are people like me. The opposite. We like being alone. We like to think. We are serious. We are introverts and like being quiet. However, we also keep away from people because of all the above. We do not completely trust others, because they are either like us (hence not completely open) or opposite to us (hence will not understand us). So we don’t make friends that much or that easily. We need our alone time, time to introspect, unwind, calm down and process our feelings and thoughts. But this time is also time away from other people! 

The result of this is that people like me become isolated. Usually we don't mind that. We are called loners for a reason. Being with ourselves is great - when things are going great. However life isn't always the same. Sometimes, we are sick, or lonely or need help. All of which requires people. And then we have nobody. No one to call and talk about how crazy the week has been. No one who can come help us pick furniture for the house because we have no idea about home decor. No one to drive us to the hospital when we are sick and can't think straight. 

People like me don't invest in building relationships. It takes too much effort, time and energy out of me. I would rather write this article than make that long overdue call to my friend. Result? People move away. No wonder we don't have many friends.  But what we don't realise is that we have to spend time and effort with people on our good days - when we don't need them, in order for them to be there during our bad days. Well that really doesn't guarantee that they will be there when you need them. That is where the numbers matter. Have so many people in your life that someone will be there when you need them.

I agree, that is a very depressing view or reason to have relationships. I mean, we are putting away precious hours of good days just to insure against bad days, and we never even know if the insurance pays. But isn't that what we do with money? or health? We put away a sizable chunk of money to be invested so that we have more later, especially when we need it. Are not all investments subject to some amount of risk? We sweat and spend hours in the gym and working out so that our knees and back continue to support us for as long as we are alive! But we never know if we are going to live that long! In every aspect of life we invest today in order to reap better benefits later on.  So why can't we think similarly in terms of relationships?

Please don’t go all virtuous on me, and say that relationships are not like money and should be treated as sacrosanct and not transactional. We all know that relationships are nothing but transactional. We give something to get something. Many continue to give without getting anything back because what they get out of the relationship is covert. So now that we are clear that people like me need relationships and friendships, we should invest regularly in them. It would mean making the calls, checking up on them, providing help if and when required, spending some time together, making plans with them and mostly getting out of my comfort zone. We have to give family and friends something which they want - our time and interest. When they make plans - join them. When they have an event or win - celebrate with them. When they are crying or cribbing - console them. We know the list. 

There is one major caveat to this whole thing. All the above is only possible - we can give our time and interest to relationships - only when we like other people.  Genuinely, like people. That would require us to get off our pedestal and see people with empathy and not judgement. This is no easy feat for anyone, but then we cannot really fake through our relationships at all. It doesn't work that way.  Relationships might be transactional but they are genuine and real. At no point am I suggesting anyone to FAKE relationships!

Disclaimer - I am not suggesting introverts like me force myself to become extroverts and just go around tagging people on instagram. But rather, have a balance, and really spend time with a few close friends and family and be there for them. Because we need them. 

Disclaimer 2 : I could be completely and utterly wrong with this approach. But this is an experiment. Worth a try!

WAKE UP CALL

Yesterday I got cheated by an online shopping site for 1100/-. I felt terrible about it. All the signs of it not being a genuine site were present. But I had chosen not to pay attention to them. There is always something to do or plan or think about. So most of the time, I am walking around doing things while my mind is on something else. Just like this incident. I didn’t listen to my own intuition which told me several times that there was something not right with this transaction. But I didn’t pay attention to it. I didn’t even want that item I ordered so badly! In fact, I shop online once or twice a year! I could come up with so many excuses to rationalize my action, but that isn’t going to mask the truth that I just wasn’t being careful. 

This got me thinking, and wondering about all the other mistakes I had done. Very few of them had been due to lack of information or knowledge. Most of them had been due to carelessness. And carelessness is nothing but not paying attention. I cannot even begin to count the number of times I had told my daughters, to be careful. I have given examples and stories and guidelines and scolded them a thousand times because they didn’t care and something went wrong. Now I feel like a total hypocrite! So  I am feeling doubly bad – I was careless in a financial transaction, and I have been teaching something to the kids which I don’t practice myself. Okay, I am not beating myself all over about this. I have already forgiven myself for this. But every experience is an opportunity to learn something and become a little better at living. So this post is about that.

I have a feeling everyone lives like this. But just for the sake of not being a hypocrite (for my daughters) I need to change.  How can I be more careful in the way I live? How do I be careful in everything I am doing? I do pay attention occasionally – when I am writing, or driving or helping the kids with their homework, or telling a story. But never am I completely there when I am cooking or walking or exercising or the zillion other things which fills my days. My mind is always busy with some thoughts. It is not quite, nor is it involved with the activity I am doing then. Is it because the activity is easy or monotonous or because I think I am so good at it that it doesn’t need my attention? This is normal right? A lot of our daily activities are automated. We don’t need to remember how to brush or wear our pants and all that. That is how we manage the sheer immense number of things we do in our modern life. But then sometimes incidents like this happen and I wonder if that is the best way to live? Maybe easier but is it really working?

Maybe this is what all the gurus and saints and people like J D Krishnamurti have been talking about – being in the moment. He talks so much about paying attention to everything happening around and within ourselves. Dan Millman in ‘Peaceful warrior’ said – there is always something happening, are we paying attention to it? If I was, I would still have my Rs1100/- and not  feel like a fool. But the problem is, I do not know how to pay attention all the time. Lets look at my excuses:

 It will be so tiring to use my brain so much all the time!

 It will be difficult to finish all the things I want to do if I am focussed on only the thing I am doing right now. For example while making lunch, my mind is busy making dinner plans and prepping them!

 I absolutely love the drama happening in my mind!

 I have emotions about everything and need to process them by thinking them through.

Well I have no clue if the above excuses are genuine or just excuses, but I need to try doing this to see if these excuses are genuine when I actually get down to paying attention to what I do. Project AATT is on (Attention All The Time)!!! I will report after 1 week, of doing this. 

Whom am I kidding? Do not expect any update for weeks or months or never!

CAN YOU TRUST YOUR MEMORY?

 I used to attend Indian classical dancing classes when I was 9 years old. I have vague memories of going every weekend, a uniform and trying to convert Bengali notes into English. The teacher was very strict. The dance school was above a grimy, noisy metal workshop. The sessions were tough and quite difficult. I remember coming home with trembling legs after every class due to all the practice. I quit the classes after a couple of years. I remember it was because I found it quite tough and wasn’t really interested in it. However, twenty years later, as I was talking to my mother about it, she said I quit dance because I wasn’t good at it. I was so surprised because that wasn’t what I remembered. However if Mom said it, it must be true, so I changed my belief about the reason I quit dancing. I tend to forget the past quite a lot – especially events and occasions, so I trusted her memory more than mine. As time passed, I found many inconsistencies in my mother’s memories about events in the past. That’s when I realised something, Mom doesn’t remember everything. If that was the case, was her memory of the reason for me quitting dance was really true? This realization gave me immense relief.

You would wonder why is it that I am dwelling on something so trivial and in the past. Well, because it contributes to the “story” or “narration” of my life and it decides how I think about myself, which in turn dictates my actions and belief system. Everything I do and think now, is due to these tiny, trivial data points which act like road map or guiding beacon. So this narrative of our life needs to be accurate. It cannot depend on inconsistent data given by my own memory or my mother’s. There is no way to go back in time and understand why I decided to quit dance. But the judgement which arises from the reasons behind the action, will shape what I think about myself. So there are two paths for me. Either I completely disregard this data point as having any bearing on my character or I change the narrative to something which suits my future goals.

Sometimes I feel that it is quite good that I forget the past so easily. Because memories are inconsistent. They are not completely true. We twist them into something either to suit a narrative we choose or to browbeat ourselves; unintentionally. So when I don’t remember whether I am good at dance or not, next time an opportunity to dance comes up, I would participate without any hesitation or baggage or pride about it. Can we live like that? Fresh page every time, every day? Would that be easier or worthwhile?