All it took was one day,
One day to realize that I am whole on my own,
that life is too short to hold on to you.
All it took was one moment,
One moment to realize that I was like the oasis in your desert,
that you do not deserve me anymore for I am much more than what you see.
All it took was one word,
One word to realize my worth,
that my worthiness does not diminish on your inability to comprehend it.
Quite a queer topic to write a blog about, isn’t it? That’s what most people are going to think about reading the title of the blog. Keeping aside all these thoughts, I still want the world to know about my dog.
Well, to begin with, I am an ardent animal lover, a
cynophile to be more precise. I love to be around them whenever and wherever I
can . So I thought why not put my feelings to words. As the saying goes “A dog
is the only thing on Earth that loves you more than he loves himself” and I can
vouch for that. Without wasting any more time, let’s meet Sammy, our
protagonist.
It was a dark cold night. It was raining cats and dogs that
night. Hey, I don’t mean my species was falling off the cloud. Hope you get the
idiom . ;) All I was looking for was a place to take shelter. I was scared and
tired after roaming the streets with no food. No one was there on the road.
Then after 30 minutes I saw that an apartment gate was open. I breathed a sigh
of relief to have finally found a place where I could spend the night. I
managed to reach the second floor and was shivering because of the cold .I
slept on the verandah thinking how nice it would be if I get some food to eat
now. As I was in my slumber, I heard light footsteps. I woke up to see if there
is danger around. But it was my human(well she is my human now). She tiptoed
towards me and started patting my head. Her hands felt warm and it felt good.
After a while she went in and came back with 3 chappatis. Thank God , now my
stomach stopped growling. I went to deep sleep soon after.
The next morning, I woke up to the sight of my human. There were 2 other people along with her, looking
at me. Later I realized, they were my human’s parents. They seemed lovely so I
decided to stay with them and make them my family. And it is from there, my
story started.
My family consisted of four. My human had a brother . He was
terrified of me. It seems like he had a rough history with my kind. Later I got
to know that he was once bitten by a relative of mine and hence the fear of
dogs. I took it up as a challenge. I had to help him in letting go of this
fear. So I started playing my cards one by one and finally he fell for it. I
bet none can escape from the power of the puppy eyes. Duh!! Soon he became a
friend of mine as well. I used to wait for him to come back from office so that
he could give me treatos and pats. Parle-G was my favourite.
Days went by, I felt like I finally found my forever home. Mum used to give me food first before anybody
else. Rice- sambar was my favorite. My dad was the one who used to get me
treatos from shop. He seemed tough but I loved him. My human was nice too but
sometimes she used to annoy me by calling my name .She won’t let me sleep in
peace. Bro used to work hard but I waited for his pats .My life was amazing. I
used to eat , sleep and repeat. Humans must be jealous of my life. Well ,my
humans worked hard to give me a good life.
It was a clear bright autumn day, a Sunday. I was roaming in
my pavement. I saw him and it was love at first sight for us. His name was Rockie.
I went on 2-3 dates with him, before bringing him home to meet my fam. I was
scared to take him home .My human was easy to convince, she falls for every other
dog. I was concerned about my mum. But thankfully everyone accepted him and
soon we started living together at our “Home Sweet Home@2nd floor”.
With the passage of time , life had become peaceful. I loved
my family. Everything seemed serene. We grew old and on the day of May20, 2018
,I breathed my last. I would miss them a lot and I hoped that Rockie would take
care of them on my behalf. I lived my best possible life and I had no regrets.
That was the story of my lovely Sammy. I still miss her. I would
like to conclude this blog by saying “When in despair, sit with a dog. Your problems won’t bug you anymore.”
I still remember how the rays of the sun falling on the window panes, the chirping of the pigeons on the window still, the chants from a distant temple woke me up every morning. This place was my heaven on earth, a place where I did not have to worry about my tomorrows, a place where I gladly spent my holidays. This was indeed my secret escape spot, an escape from the busy city life in Bangalore.
I remember how she always used to be there, standing at the door, waiting for us (her grand kids) to come home. As soon as we entered the house, she would go to the kitchen and get us all the biscuits and sweets which she had obviously stacked ahead, from the day she knew we would be coming home. I remember her orange flavored Tank (juice) which she used to prepare for us, with the right amount of sugar, ice and tank powder .She was always happy when her grandchildren visited her and stayed with her for a few days.
It was in Feb 2018,
when suddenly, this beautiful world of mine came to an end. We received a call
at around 12 PM and the news that I dreaded the most, that she was no more...
All of a sudden, the chirping of the birds, the chants from the distance, the place made no sense anymore. I found no meaning in going back to that place again. The place, the sounds, nothing made sense to me without her. Only then did I realize that it was never about the house or the birds or the sounds, it had and was always about her...but I realized it a little too late and she was gone..Gone before I told her what she meant to me .Gone before I was ready to leave her.
I remember meeting my Aunt during my grandma's funeral..(My Aunt lived abroad)...Embarrassed to admit it,but it had been at least 10 years since we met each other.We used to meet when we were younger, but as we grew up we became BUSY..Ashamed to say it, but my grandmother's funeral was a reason for us to meet after such a long time...I remember talking to her and how we made plans to take efforts in meeting in the future and staying in touch...But little did I know that life had other plans for us...Little did I know that it was the last time I would meet her. A month later, she was diagnosed with leukemia and after bravely fighting with cancer for a month..she was gone...
When I suddenly lost two important people in my life, it cost me something. I felt an empty feeling...like someone took something away from me and the worst part was I was not ready for it....I felt unfair because life did not give me the chance of making our plans into reality but it was too late and I did not use the time that was given to me either. It took me to lose them to understand how much they meant to me.
As I pondered about it
later, I realized that the problem was not that I did not love them ..the problem
was,I wished that I had told them how much I loved them and how much even their
presence meant to me when they were there.I sometimes wish that I had hugged my
grand mom and told her how much I loved her or how much she meant to me...I
sometimes wish
I had made the efforts to meet my aunt more often so I at least would have had the good memories with her...that If I knew there was a time limit to this I would never have taken them for granted but life does not give us the deadline beforehand so I assumed they would be there in my tomorrows too hence I never felt the necessity.
It might be the same with many of us.We sometimes take our loved ones for granted only because we are so certain that they will be there tomorrow too.We sometimes don't feel it is necessary to spend time to talk to our friends or relatives and tell them how much we love them just because we are busy...busy preparing for our exams,busy with our work , busy completing our episodes in a series in Netflix,busy completing our levels in PUBG,too busy that we don't have time to sit down and ask them if they are alright or if they need some help, too busy that we forget to tell them that they are loved.
As I am growing up,I am realizing that ,only the moment what we have now, is ours. Our tomorrows are never in our hands but does that mean that we should live in fear about our future.No, what I mean to say is we should take hold of our today's,these moments,the only thing we can be sure of and use them..Use them to tell the people around us that we love them and make them feel that they are loved. Let us not end up making the mistake that I made but rather act up now because the truth is Time is ticking.
At a time like this,
where our future is even more uncertain, let us not waste it on unimportant things
rather let this blog be a reminder...a reminder to pick up our phones and call
or text those people and ask them how they are doing or just patiently listen
to what they have to say... tell them that you love them...maybe not because
they deserve it but because you know that they are worth it...and because they
matter to you.
Love – isn’t that a beautiful word? Isn’t
it a wonderful feeling when you are in love? All those butterflies fluttering
in your stomach…your pupil dilating when you see that special someone…your
eagerness to meet that one person…you wish that the hands of the clock stay
still and you get enraptured forever in that moment… Sounds
very romantic, right? If you are experiencing all the above, that means you are
falling in love or have already fallen in love. But here, the question arises
that -are these feelings constant??
I am going to talk about something which we
do not tend to discuss in open. It is called “Falling out of love”. I am sure
many of us experience this, but we do not speak up about this. Imagine being in
love with the person for whom you can go up till any extent just to see them
happy, but they just do not seem to give a damn about you. You are no more
special to them. You have just become a part of their life and they are living
with it. All those promises made at the budding stage of the relationship holds
no value now.
It is rightly said that things start to
lose their value once you have them. That person forgets about all the efforts
that they took to get you. In short, you are now taken for GRANTED. You tell
them about your wishes and desires but those really don’t hold any worth
anymore. Your wishes are rarely fulfilled and that can be very disheartening.
Cheating is not the only way you may lose
interest in your partner. Well, there are more. They are not paying attention
to what you say or feel, not being a good listener, not fulfilling the small
things that matters the most to you …you can lose affection for her/him
forever. We have to understand that everyone has a good day and a bad day and
all we really wish during those bad tiresome days, is someone holding us and
saying – “It’s going to be alright! We can overcome it together! .“
Life is not that difficult as much as we
make it. We complicate it by our inability to comprehend other’s problems. A
thing which can seem insignificant to you might mean a lot to your partner and
that’s when they show up and tell you about what is bothering them. And what do
you do in such a scenario? Instead of understanding, you shut your partner
down, you ignore their needs. You get involved in your own life. This can drift
your partner away from you. It affects their mental well-being. They start
questioning their self worth.
So what do you do when you feel that you
are falling out of love? Do you hold on to them or move on with your life? Love
is a difficult subject to fathom. You can give them chances and see if they try
to change themselves. If not, then it is time to call it off. You have to
retrench all that love within your heart for them. After all, YOU should be your first love, and no
one is more important than your own mental health.
The other day I was talking to one of my colleagues about how hectic work has gotten lately due to WFH ,given the present conditions of an on-going pandemic .Although ideally I should be really grateful for still keeping a job and having the luxury to work at such grim times, instead it got me thinking about how I’ve been spending all my time working.
Given the world we live in, a past faced and an unpredictable one, it’s become ever so important now to excel at what we’re doing. But at what cost are we willing to achieve this?
Before I start ranting about the importance of a work-life balance and how to achieve this (if at all it’s really possible), let’s start with what really is a work-life balance.
What is work-life balance?
According to Wikipedia, “Work-life balance is the state of equilibrium in which demands of personal life, professional life, and family life are equal”. So we have it, we just need to find that equilibrium between our personal and professional life, right? But it’s not as simple as it sounds.
Importance of a work-life balance
Maintaining a work-life balance is not only important to our mental and physical health, it ironically also improves our efficiency and productivity at our workplace. I’ve done quite a lot of research on the ill effects of an imbalance in work-life (by research I just mean googling why I feel so stressed out all the time and then watching videos about it on The School of Life (the next best thing to a therapist)) :
1. Health Problems
Ding, ding...ding. This, of course ,is a no-brainer. It leads to an array of health issues (both physical and mental). Well immunity being the word of the year apparently, let’s start with that. Stress causes irreversible damages to our immune system. Also, sitting in front of our laptops for long period of time, causes various problems ranging from eye problems, to hair fall to skin issue. The list just goes on.
2. Poor relationships
Well, another problem with a poor work life balance would be having strained relationships with ones friends’ and family. Do you remember the last time you called up your best friend? Or the last time you sat down to have dinner with your family?
This becomes even more important when you’re a working women. Apparently, “working mom guilt” is a legit thing.
3. Having frequent burn-outs
It’s normal to feel stressed out from time to time, especially during those major deadlines. But what is not normal is to feel stressed out all the time. Not having the right balance would simply lead to feeling more overwhelmed at work and not being able to work with one’s potential. Also, it does have a huge impact on our mental health. Depression and anxiety have been linked to having a poor work-life balance
How to improve your Work-Life balance?
Well, this is something I’ve been actively trying to figure out. If you google it up, you’ll find multiple sites telling you to take multiple breaks or plan your day or something on those lines. Well, easier said than done right?
At the end of the day there’s no fool-proof way to achieve this ideal work-life balance. Nothing in life is ideal. (As I’m already at it, Santa is not real). I know, it’s an anti-climatic and disappointing end and complete waste of time to have read all this only to find out you can’t really find that balance between your personal and professional life, but hold on.
Here are some things that you could incorporate in your daily life to make a difference.
You could start with your daily routine. Just write down how on an average you spend time on your daily activities. While doing this I realized I spend 12 hours a day on an average sitting in front of my laptop (sitting in front of my laptop is not necessarily working). And the rest of my time doing mindless activities like watching random YouTube videos (the other day I happened to watch videos on owls’ sneezing, what has my life even come to?).
Once you’ve done that, you could write down how you intend to spend your time instead. You could still do the same amount of work in a much lesser time if you’re more mindful and less stressed out.
I know there’s no one routine that fits all, but here are few things you could incorporate in your daily routine. Take out fifteen minutes of your time daily to meditate. You could use apps like Headspace or just sit in silence and try not to think about anything. Also, try taking frequent breaks, ideally ten minutes every two hours or so while working. You could use this time to meditate or try journaling to clear up your head.
Take some time out in a day to read, ideally before bed. Because it’s recommended to stay away from blue-light ideally two hours before you sleep. Well, two hours does seem bizarre but you could disconnect from work and your phone 30 minutes before you sleep and spend that time reading that book you’ve always intended to instead.
I know binge watching shows seem so tempting on weekends, but try taking out some time to unplug and connect with your family and friends during this time. As cliche as it sounds, at the end of the day it’s the people around us that matter. You could very well be successful at work, but when you’ve retired, it’s the memories that you’ve made on your way that really matter.
At the end, it boils down to prioritizing the things that really matter to you and making active changes in our lives to achieve them.
Hello Guys!! I hope you are safe and
doing well..
As days are passing, we are trying to
adapt to a newer lifestyle which majorly involves "SOCIAL
DISTANCING". But wait, social distancing just means keeping your distance
from other fellow human beings. But why
are we social distancing with our skin problems too? In reality ,this
quarantine has made us lazy (if not all, but most of us have become lazy). So
let’s pull up our socks and get started!!
So today in this post ,I am going to
talk about a major problem which all of us face – BLACKHEADS.
Don’t you get irritated seeing those
black spots on your nose? Don’t you feel like poking them out?
Having blackheads on the face is
similar to having speed bumpers on the road. It gives an unpleasant experience.
Well at least speed bumpers have a significant use unlike our blackheads. Jokes
aside,let us start with what blackhead is ,its causes ,how you can get rid of
them…
What are blackheads ?
Blackheads are tiny bumps that appear
on your skin especially on nose. Well they can come on any part of your face or
neck or chest. Blackheads are caused when your skin pores get occupied with
dead skin cells and sebum(it is an oily substance produced by our sebaceous
gland).
Causes of blackhead :
· The blocking of skin pores because of comedogenic products.
· Stress
·
High
humidity
·
Heavy
perspiration.
How to get rid of blackheads ?
I had the problem of blackheads too.
So I came across this beautiful product called “NEUTROGENA BLACKHEAD
ELIMINATING DAILY SCRUB”.
Product Description :
·
Helps
to effectively reduce blackheads.
·
Prevent
new ones from forming with continued use.
·
Healthy
looking skin.
·
Microbeads
that effectively and gently exfoliate the skin.
Ingredients :
1.
Salicyclic
Acid 2% -it is used for treatment of acnes. It is the active ingredient in this
product.
2.
sodium
C14-16 olefin sulfonate – used for cleansing skin.
3.
Glycerin
– makes your skin soft and can improve the texture of your skin too.
4.
Cellulose
– to keep your skin moisturised.
5.
Sodium
hydroxide- to maintain the pH balance of your skin.
Packaging :
The scrub comes in a transparent
plastic tube with a flip cap. The flip cap is tight enough to prevent leakage.
It is travel friendly. The tube has the details of the ingredients
,manufacturing and expiry date.
Fragrance :
It has a mild sweet smell.
Texture of the product :
It is a white liquid with orange
coloured microbeads. As the name suggests, the microbeads of minute size so it
wont cause irritation to your skin. It foams on a milder note while washing it
off.
How to use it ?
·
Wet
your face and hand.
·
Squeeze
in a little product on to your hands.
·
Gently
scrub over your face especially your blackhead prone area.
· Rinse thoroughly.
Experience :
I ordered this product two weeks back. I have combination skin. I had blackheads especially on my nose region .I used it on the same day when it arrived.To my surprise, I could see the results within 2 washes. The blackhead on my nose fairly reduced and my skin started to feel soft. The microbeads are very minute and it does not seem to cause any skin irritation. The scrub exfoliates your skin and with continuous usage , you can see the best results.You would also see that your skin will start feeling smooth.
If you want to go for a mild scrub,
Neutrogena Blackhead eliminating scrub is definitely your go-to product.
Word of advice :
·
Don’t
over-do it. Use no more than 2-3 times a week.
·
Gently
apply it over your face . It can cause rashes if applied harshly or with force.
It was June 1st 2020, when Pearl randomly texted us on our WhatsApp group chat saying-
"Guys, why don't we start blogging?"
I thought about it for a few seconds and after carefully evaluating the pros and cons ...
I came to the conclusion... although a difficult decision...to start Blogging...
Alert : Dramatic sequence of events ahead !! LOL!!
Our 1st hurdle ...a Blog Name
After going through our randomly combined Suggestion List and thanks to my interest
in watching movies, we came to the conclusion of "LifeAsWeKnowIt".
On a serious note, it seemed to go along with all the things we would be posting in the future.
Our 2nd hurdle...Creating a Blog Account
Pearl created the Email Id. Later I went ahead and created the blog account.
You might be wondering about Amyra.....She did nothing...Absolutely Nothing!
Note the point: "I did most of the Hard Work!" 😏😄
Our 3rd hurdle...publish a blog and check if it got posted.
Steps followed by us
1) Open Google chrome and type "LifeAsWeKnowIt"
2) Expect to see our post in the 1st page
3) Be disappointed that our blog is nowhere to be seen 😅
4) Contemplate on whether choosing a movie name as our account name was a bad idea
5) Chuck the contemplation part and go ahead with the blog name because we like it.
Our 4th hurdle...Check if anyone in the entire world saw the post...
Steps followed by us
1) Check the website where the blog was posted
2) Be happy because the views are increasing
3) Later realise the views are increasing only because we kept signing in. 😁
4) Come to the conclusion of posting more blogs and hope our views increase.
Our 5th hurdle...Writing the official blog
Those two are busy writing the more productive blogs...I am writing this blog and hopefully you have
read it till the end.
So this is our story...our 1st blog together...Cheers to the memories we create down the lane.🙂🙂🙂
