Love : For-ever or For-never?

 

 

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.

 

Finding the Right Balance

 

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.

NEUTROGENA BLACKHEAD ELIMINATING DAILY SCRUB REVIEW

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”.

 (NOTE : THIS IS NOT A SPONSORED REVIEW.BASED ON PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.)

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.

How it all started...#Jo’s side of the story

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.🙂🙂🙂