Monday, 3 December 2012
Saturday, 1 December 2012
Material Girl
This really cheesy movie called Chalo Dilli teaches you a thing or two about attitude towards life. When the "holier than thou" Mihika (Lara Dutta) gets scared of a roach on the table and plops Manu Gupta's (Vinay Pathak) phone in the curry and ruins it (not jsut the curry guys - the phone), all Manuji has to say is "Cheez hi hai" [for the Non-Desis - "It's just a thing"].
I remember fretting a lot over such "things" - but over time I've realized that if something has to have a short shelf life, it is inevitable. You can take the utmost care of your possessions but if something has to break / fall / get scratched / tear / rip / get lost / get stolen.. it will. You can't help it. At the end of the day you can be smug about owning these "things" but you can't pack them with you when you are finally "packing"!
A colleague of mine just bought a beautiful CAAAAR but thanks to the traffic and road rage in Mumbai it's got this huge scratch on it. It's heartbreaking to see your first car gets its first scratch. Trust me! But that's the thing - you can't help it. And once the account is open, the following dents, bumps and scratches don't matter. Quite like the most painful first time for everything (Hullo! I mean your first workout - get your head outta the gutter!)
Read this book called How Will You Measure Your Life. As we grow up and come across driven. ambitious people who weigh their success on certain stereotypical parameters, we also have certain measures to gauge how well we are doing in our own life - how successful we are. And more often than not, we end up having a mental check list of sorts that may / may not include items such as great job, great house, great car, great investments and great retirement plans. We end up comparing our list with our peers and see how many ticks there are on each. I am not saying we shouldn't be ambitious. I am saying the ambition need not always revolve around material wealth.
A great house can get washed away. A tree could fall on the great car. The great locality you live in could suddenly be the next DOWISATREPLA. These are things. And they are ephemeral. And insurance can protect you from material loss, but not the emotional damage caused by it. That, well, is in your hands.
Detachment is really hard to find in this brand conscious, gadget crazy, material world. I am a material girl. What I have matters to me. And it should. I've worked hard for it. But I guess I need to stop fretting over these "things" too much! There is so much more to fret over - like being fit, being happy, being loved, being awesome!
I remember fretting a lot over such "things" - but over time I've realized that if something has to have a short shelf life, it is inevitable. You can take the utmost care of your possessions but if something has to break / fall / get scratched / tear / rip / get lost / get stolen.. it will. You can't help it. At the end of the day you can be smug about owning these "things" but you can't pack them with you when you are finally "packing"!
A colleague of mine just bought a beautiful CAAAAR but thanks to the traffic and road rage in Mumbai it's got this huge scratch on it. It's heartbreaking to see your first car gets its first scratch. Trust me! But that's the thing - you can't help it. And once the account is open, the following dents, bumps and scratches don't matter. Quite like the most painful first time for everything (Hullo! I mean your first workout - get your head outta the gutter!)
Read this book called How Will You Measure Your Life. As we grow up and come across driven. ambitious people who weigh their success on certain stereotypical parameters, we also have certain measures to gauge how well we are doing in our own life - how successful we are. And more often than not, we end up having a mental check list of sorts that may / may not include items such as great job, great house, great car, great investments and great retirement plans. We end up comparing our list with our peers and see how many ticks there are on each. I am not saying we shouldn't be ambitious. I am saying the ambition need not always revolve around material wealth.
A great house can get washed away. A tree could fall on the great car. The great locality you live in could suddenly be the next DOWISATREPLA. These are things. And they are ephemeral. And insurance can protect you from material loss, but not the emotional damage caused by it. That, well, is in your hands.
Detachment is really hard to find in this brand conscious, gadget crazy, material world. I am a material girl. What I have matters to me. And it should. I've worked hard for it. But I guess I need to stop fretting over these "things" too much! There is so much more to fret over - like being fit, being happy, being loved, being awesome!
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