When I decided to shake hands with the Devil!

What?" you ask. Yes! That’s what time made me over period of time. You MOTHERFUCKERS.

So here is my terrible truth about what I have happened with over the period of time. I was the confused guy with his innocence roaming around with open willingness to help everyone.

I never got any respect, because society is full of people who need things. They need houses built, they need food to eat, and they need entertainment and need someone to fulfil their sexual relationships. I arrived at that point with my innocence being honest and straightforward, maybe by virtue of my birth.

I realized that I have to go about the task of seeing to those needs by learning a unique set of skills, or the world will reject, no matter how kind, giving, and polite one is. You will be poor, you will be alone, and you will be left out in the cold.

Does that seem mean, or crass, or materialistic? Yes, Darling! Unfortunately that’s the truth.  It’s brutal, rude and inhuman, it is an honest and accurate expression of what the world is going to expect from you.

These things happened with me for a long time. I had to deal with cheaters,blackmailers & backstabbers. That scene changed my life. I programmed myself to play it for me every morning as they wanted it to be. I said to myself “Fuck all that! Let’s go out and show them. “

"Nice guy? Who gives a shit? If you want to live here, change that thing up." “Don't say that you're a nice guy -- that's the bare minimum”

Now, while not giving a fuck may seem simple on the surface, it’s a whole new bag of burritos under the hood. I don’t even know what that sentence means, but I don’t give a fuck.

In my opinion, I don’t hate myself because some people made me feel low-esteem, or because they were mean to me. I mean I realized I shouldn't do. Those things made a different person out of me. I kept on sending private messages to all my close friends asking what I should do with my life.

I’d decide to change something (or usually, many things at once) and implement it immediately. I’d tell myself that from this point forward, things would be different.

I decided bring out the dark sides me out. I decided incorporate the evil traits into me. In fact, I decided to shake hands with the devil because the devil is behind most of the problems you are having. I decided to shake hands with the devil to end all the miseries and problems in life, which often kept me asking how pathetic and miserable I am.

Staying Strong! And fighting the battle in life.

You know that feeling? When you're just waiting to get home into your room, close the door, fall into bed. Just let everything out that you kept in all day. You just want someone to be there and tell you its okay. But no one is going to be there. You know you have to be strong for yourself, because no one can fix you. But you are tired, tired of being strong.

I guess after being strong for a long time and getting things in life back together. Most of people think that things are going good in my life. You struck a chord with me on being strong, People have said “oh you are handling it so well” what does that mean?  Because I don't look so,  I am doing all right. As you know everything, I had my long battle of dealing with my flaws & insecurities; I was being strong for a long time, now I am tired of being strong!!

Everyone talk about that me, happy all time & fun filled person, but nobody knows the other me who gets drowned in one’s own thoughts & sorrows. What can I do as I think of these things wiping my tears from my eyes and not letting anyone find out...Perhaps that is being strong. I don’t know, I just don't think so. I just do things to not to give up this struggle. I think that people sometimes only see one side of it.  I also felt like I could hide behind under the cover, that if I have put together things and like I had it all together, no one would see what a mess I am on the inside, how things have turned out worse, I feel anything but strong the majority of the time, at least I try to be one.  

I have led a life of being the 'strong one'. Putting everyone else's problems before than dealing with my own and wanting to help everyone else, is just what I have always done but I realized that I am the one who needed help the most. It's who I am, Maybe. I put on a brave face and everyone around me sees a strong & independent person. I sit in my lone feelings lost and unsure where to look for direction in life, I spent too long denying my own feelings and now I feel like I am the one who is unravelling. 

While the emotions I am feeling are real, not exaggerated ones, I also take on a great amount of guilt for feeling the way I do and for things turning up the way it is. Yes! There's been things that have hurt me in the past; problems with friends, screwing up jobs, Interviews but nothing I ever considered significant enough to justify why I feel so miserable & pathetic at times. I'm trying so hard to find myself and the ground, but I feel buried.

I want to get my life back on track, but it's so overwhelming. Everyone I encounter these days seems to lie to me, take advantage of me, or just generally be an asshole. I can't get a respite from any of the pain I feel and I can't share it with others. I tried to help everyone I can in any way that I can, but I just feel so hopeless these days that what goes around does not come around.

I just need hope. I need a chance to cry, scream, and just generally hate for a while. I need to feel, I guess. Something other than drowning in a pool of my own misery. I need to know there is still good in this world and that good intentions matter, I am grateful to having a job and a roof over my head, no one is holding me hostage from doing anything but it doesn't take away from the fact that I am losing myself in the process. 

I am being enabled and not encouraged; I have to find motivation within myself even though my soul is hollow and bruised. But it has to be done and I have to find a way to make it happen. It’s the only way I have to get me out of this despair. The worst part about being in this hole is not being understood by anyone here with me. They don’t realize where I have landed and what I am going through. 

What's Up With My Love Life?!

The current state of my love life can be described in two words hot and mess. I constantly find myself getting involved with or attached to emotionally unavailable girls. There were girls around and in my life, but with none of them had things really worked out. Whenever I reach home after going out with a girl, 'What the fuck!?’ Dating was just so stressful because it wasn’t happening, I mean, your job should be stressful, not dating.

Many times I wish and wish for the right person to come into life. I don’t seem to understand why it’s not working out with others. The challenge is, when something better does come along, to not run away. After years of disappointment, heart break and unhappy endings, it can be very easy to close down on real love. No matter what, don’t’ let that happen.

Nobody likes being blown off. Over the course of going out with girls, I have been broken up with and rejected before I could figure If something will happen or not. I am not here to talk about those ego blows we take when we stick our necks out to meet someone new.

I’m talking about the unexpected hits we take when meeting a woman, things are progressing and, suddenly, without warning, when she decides to blow off, of course, blown off by someone after a few dates by not returning calls or texts, Yeah I know there are ways to manage these situations, but often end up being confused wondering, Wasn’t it going well? What the hell happened?

Breaking up with someone after only a few dates is like firing someone you haven’t hired yet. It’s awkward, it feels almost unnecessary at times sounds weird too. if you’re single. Sometimes it only takes a few dates to realize she’s not right for you.

This heinous act of cowardice is basically what happens when you don't hear from the person you have been dating. I always just referred to it as the disappearing act. Actually, it occurred to me that it had happened to me in the not too distant past, and it had left me confused & wondering.

I already had many discussions with one of my friend about this issue which happens most of the time with me, and I always come back to a conclusion: when she decides to blow off, Don't ever contact her unless she does. I know its not easy at times, Silence is the easy way out, but it may come back to haunt later.

Picking myself up and starting all over again

Did I metaphorically pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again? I have done it many times. When I lost job and got things very messed up in life. I got really wound up in a full body cast manner as some people let down & betrayed me, I had to learn how to walk all over again. It was a painful process and took what seemed like an eternity for me to start all over again. But I was so focused on chasing the idea of perfect life, I didn't learn how to read the signs. How to find out the ones who want me,who really care about me and the ones who don't, the ones who will stay and the ones who will leave.

Starting all over again meant it's me, It's just me on my own, picking up the pieces and starting over again, freeing myself from all miseries up for something better in the future. Maybe all that happened was meant for something good and its good to keep moving on. Maybe, after all those miseries,fights,broken-hearts, through the blunders and misread signals, through all the pain and embarrassment its time to never gave up hope. When I lost my job recently, I had to do it again—I had to repeat the entire process.

I often speak of former lives: careers won and lost; futures not quite lived up to with expectations blah blah. Life before all the emotional and psychological pains blended with the emotional ones. I had to start all over again several times; trying to rebuild confidence and courage, Just not to give up in life. Life taught me to be independent and resilient. Sometimes you need those inherent power within you, when you tend to find yourself flat on your back, staring up at the sky or the ceiling.

Well, if you have tripped and fallen, you probably already have some bruises, so you don’t need to beat yourself up about it. The thing is that sometimes you fall due to circumstances beyond your control. It’s not your fault. I always kept on blaming myself for all the past mistakes, I did. Things happen, and it can be easier to use your emotional remote control to replay things over and over again than to get up, and manually hit pause, or better yet, erase.

And, sometimes when you fall, you might need a hand for getting up off the ground. If some one reaches out to help, you get back on your feet, consider their offer. Don’t hurt that person, It’s not weakness, but giving up is or losing control: it’s the recognition that there will be times when picking yourself up, dusting yourself off, and starting all over again can only be done by accepting help from another person who really care about you, not the one pretend to play martyrdom.

Let Them Walk Away and Peace Out!!

Someone told me that how we will become like the people we hang out with. It’s true. In five years, you’ll become a conglomerate of the people you spend the most time with. In fact, if I wanted to know who you were going to be five years from now, I’d not ask what you do but want to spend a little time with the folks you spend time with. That alone would tell me who you were going to become.

Sadly, some people are so entrenched in seeing the negative side of things that they leave zero room for positive things to grow. People like this inhabit our families, work environments and social circles. It can be emotionally draining just being around them. Ignore these people and move on in life.

Seriously, Enough is enough! Letting go of negative people doesn’t mean I hate them, or that I wish them harm; it just means I care about my own well-being because every time I subtract negativity from my life room is open for more positive ones. Some people love to stir up controversy and drama for no apparent reason. Its better to stay out of other people’s drama and don’t needlessly create my own.

Literally put them all on a map and ask ourselves whether we want to become like these people or not. If we don’t, I strongly believe that, its time we take decision to consider letting some relationships go. It's scandalous, I know. But I recommend it all the time. Trust me, It helps you a lot.

We should be doing what we like doing and stand what we want to inviting others to join us. And if they won’t come, we grieve. But its time to move on all the same. Some relationships simply aren’t good, its better to let them go. This simple paradigm shift helped me a great deal.

If someone doesn’t want to be in my life why on earth would I still want them.  Because people emotionally blackmail reminding of those good times and conveniently forgetting the bad. Why is that? I miss all the good things, of course I do – I know when they made me feel good and gave me what I needed emotionally and physically. However, I also cant forget to keep in mind all the times they made me feel less than loved and inadequate at times.

For example, They completely do anything to help rather having drinks and telling we are with you always. What about using me to show off to their loser friends? What about portraying myself what I need to be done. Anger, resentment and anxiety will only hurt, so why go there? They’re NOT worth it!! One of the hardest things in the world to do is to watch someone walk away. It’s not only an emotional blow, it’s a blow to the ego.  No one wants to be rejected.  Whatever the reason for the split it was for the best. It really always is. I always say this “everything happens for the right reason and you are always where you need to be when you need to be there.”

Time to Just let them walk away, I am sure will be really be glad as I always did.

Throw me to the WOLVES, and I'll return leading the Pack

I saw this quote posted on Facebook and thought its perfect to begin this post with. Why? Because it sums up how I changed during the past several months. It’s wasn`t easy for someone like me to be shoved into turbulent waters just for making a wrong decision It’s even harder to keep your head above water while trying to find a way out.

At other times, I just roll over and go and hide, nursing my wounds. I guess what motivates me to take a non-combatant attitude during these hard times is the need to be true to my upbringing.

Nothing is gained by not fighting back, of course. I think of the person who said, "You'll never amount to anything.You will never become successful. You are a disgrace to journalism." I think of that person who smiles at me and yet disgraced in front of others to show oneself in superior position...the person who wanted to throw me out to the wolves. I have been discouraged a lot saying how loser I am, I have been let down by people who mattered during bad times.

Today Am I going to slink away and hide nursing my wounds, worried about the trail of blood I left behind for predators to follow? No, I wont but instead I am gonna say, "I am here, Come & get me." 

 I had a conversation with a dear friend on this, I asked “Now I can confidently say that things are not the same anymore.I am not afraid of anyone. I will face it without any If someone throw me out to the wolves.She said “That’s because you are already a wolf the power you have is intense, it can control any wolf even me.”

Time to Unload Emotional Baggage From Past

We can all take comfort knowing that every one of us faces challenges at some point. No one is perfect. Everyone deals with emotional baggages. No one is perfect. Each person's baggage is different. If you have cheated or been cheated on.

When the nights are long and you can't sleep for all the sadness of a past left unresolved, when you cannot move on,you find it difficult to. When the past mistakes haunts you and becomes a nightmare for you.

Without realizing it, I carried this baggage from the past, thinking about what went wrong and where. Until a friend finally called me on and gave self-recognition to find out what I was doing. The problem wasn’t that I had baggage, everyone carries their own baggage but sometimes you have to leave behind some baggages from the past to move on in life.

Each of us have experienced positive and negative relationships regardless of how brief or long those relationship have been. We learn to take risks in secure and healthy relationships. But its time for me to learn from the past and to let go of toxic relationships which kept me broken.

I have realized that I don’t deserve to feel awful any more and that the days of feeling sorry for past mistake and broken relationships are over! Now I realized that I am the priority, I should be opne to accept the love deserve in life. 

What happened? Of Course, there is nothing that I can do to change that. However, What I can do is to learn from that experience. As someone said What happens, happens for a reason, happens for something good.

Am I Depressed or Just Surrounded by Wrong People?

When you are diagnosed with depression or low-self esteem, Just make sure you are not surrounded by ass holes. When I saw this quote on a friend’s Facebook wall I laughed out loud with delight and recognition. It hit me on a subconscious level. Why did I like it so much? It was the kind of reason behind many past problems. But I did like it! A lot! It was strong enough to write a blog about it which some others will also like it And I started asking myself, what happened actually?

I started thinking of my own life experience. It’s better to be alone, than to have a bad companion. Surround yourself with great people and you will never be lonely. How many times did the behavior of others effect how I felt about myself? How many times did I have to leave relationships because of the damage they were doing to my self-esteem?

I was exposed repeatedly to wrong, which caused a wear on my self-esteem. I am a person who is reared to be nice. People thinks that all friends are friends. But, in fact those friends surround you now is just your temporary friend especially they get something from you. But you can really know who your real friends in time of troubles and sorrows. You can even count in your right hand fingers only.

For me realization came when I got a job that forced me to stay away from these people. Some incidences also proved that they ditched me because they can’t gain control over me any more & I shouldn't let me come back again.The best cures in life are to either surround yourself with people that bring you up, or to lose all the people that bring you down. Gain the good, lose the bad, and what not.

Little by little I realized I was actually happy, despite the low-pay job. Then I just stopped even trying to deal with them and contact them at all. They weren't too attentive anyway, so my guess is they probably stopped. I got a call once and then I haven't made contact again since till date, it been ages now.

Being an Introvert in an Extrovert World

It's easy for anyone to say that, “Why did it take you so long to realize you are an Introvert?” It’s not that simple. The problem is that labelling someone as an Introvert is a very shallow assessment, full of common misconceptions. It’s more complex than that.

During Degree college days, I struggled with the fact that I had no social life; noone to go out or party. I always thought that there is something wrong with me. I always enjoyed stayed at home watching movie in my lappie till late night, while my friends were out partying. Those were days I hated those introverted character traits. I was not willing to accept myself, I wanted to ignore my personality of being an introvert and become an extrovert, which I failed miserably.

I am an introvert. This was something which I myself failed to accept for a long period of time. When I asked my couple of my friends, I got responses like, “You are so talkative” or “I remember you as so outgoing” “You are not an introvert.”

Really?

All of them probably based their idea of who I am on what they see on the outside, They see me as talkative person because they have'nt seen inner self of mine. They haven't seen what I do in my private space. I try to go out into social situations only when I have built up enough social energy to carry on a conversation.

There are times when I spent sitting alone, thinking a lot. Sometimes walking here and there for no reason. I pressurised myself so much that for being extrovert. It pushed me into depression more.

I can talk at length, and even in front of a large number of crowd in an auditorium, about any topic. But it's impossible for me to speak always. The public speaking certification course helped a bit.

Let's face it. we admire the outgoing, bold & confident risk takers. We look down upon the silent, soft spoken and not so sociable person as shy and lacks confident. This is the problem of living in an extrovert world as an Introvert.

I really wanted to connect with people. I wanted them to like me, and I wanted to have deep meaningful relationships all around. I wanted to be the popular guy among the group. I tried being all that, but I failed miserably every time. I again felt depressed, blaming myself a lot.

This was the driving force of my transformation, and without that I wouldn't have been so far. 5 years , it took 5 fucking years to find a happy balance between the two personality types and become able to communicate with the rest of the world. I feel so better confident now. I feel so much better now. I am ready to accept that I am introvert. I like being alone most of the time.

And Trust me friends, There is nothing wrong in being an Introvert. You are unique. You don't have to an Extrovert survive in this world.

How a bad decision affected my life? How did I over come it?

Six months ago, I left a job at a small company. My boss, the head of the company, agreed to call the break-up mutual, but I was leaving the organization without any prospects for a new job. I know its the most stupid decision to take but I didn`t give a second thought. I spent the next few months looking for a Journalism job in a top media publishing house that matched my interests and my degree, but that was too late and the positions were not forthcoming.

After difficulty in finding a new job in Bangalore not anywhere else ( I was stubborn) I managed to coming up with a solution to manage rent and after some kind of understanding with my friends, I found myself surrounded people my roomie & some friends to rely on and an increasing mountain of debt.

Later after sometime my father stepped in and allowed me to help me financially & take my own to look for the job I wanted. I was motivated to change this situation, as I had no desire to be jobless & dependent on parents for a long time. He was gracious and I was thankful to him but we both understood that the more temporary this situation would be, the better it would be for everyone. I

After sometime I found a job with a media outsourcing agency which kind of matched my interested and I decided to stay with the same company couple of months atleast until I quit this job.

It would have been risky for me to assume that someone would take care of me, But this is a fairly common attitude. Faith in yourself should come before faith in others if you decide to just sit around and wait for the world to provide you with what you need thinking that someone else will have your back, you give up your ability to grow.

In reality, we alone have responsibility for our financial & life decisions. A person who takes the approach that someone else will take care of him and the consequences of decisions don’t matter is eventually going to find himself in a needy position, and most likely unable to fulfill those needs through the kindness of others.

I remember getting so tired of being upset all the time. Finally, I decided I was going to learn to walk in peace if it was the last thing I ever did. Sometimes you need to learn what the root of your problem is before you can make any real progress.

It would have been that I didn't spend any time before I decided to take a few extra minutes to get organized and If I would have realized my problems than blaming people around for problem it would have been easy fix. But I realized there was a deeper problem underneath.

I was surrounded by the wrong kind of people which stopped myself understand the actual problem. It took a while when I realized what God want me to see how the devil stole my peace. 

Then I started paying attention to how I responded to people and situations around me and made a real effort to change things in life which made a huge difference.And when you've come to a new level of maturity, that's something the devil cannot take away from you. 

While you're praying and waiting for your attitudes to change, and for your circumstances to improve, stand firm in your faith. No matter how you feel, continue to say,When something or someone pushes your buttons today, let God have His way and say, "I refuse to live without peace."