... unless YOU make it so!
I read this post on Spirals a few days ago (http://kaddu.blogspot.com/2009/05/fail.html)... which provided the "missing link" for some incompletely formed thoughts in my mind, for a new post! But before you read further, I'll request you all to read her post first... & also the comments that follow her post.
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A couple of weeks ago, I was visiting some relatives here, and my 2.5 year old nephew (Yuvraj) also happened to be there at that time (with his parents of course). I have mentioned about his "Independence Streak" elsewhere in my blog - which, by the way, is exactly like mine! Now UV loves playing with water, so my sister-in-law usually carries some spare clothes for him wherever she goes. That day also, UV managed to sneak into the bathroom when nobody was watching & got himself thoroughly wet! He obviously needed a change of clothes after that, but, being the "Do-It-Myself" kind of fellow that he is, he simply wouldn't let anyone help him change... even though he was finding it really difficult to pull his shorts up, 'coz the elastic waistband had got all rolled-up & twisted behind his knees in a funny way!
My cousin (his dad) is not a very patient man. Besides, it was also getting late & he wanted to leave for home. So, in order to speed things up a bit, he tried to 'cheat', and pulled the shorts up over UV's bums when he thought the kid wasn't paying attention! But UV is just too smart for his age (for our age too in fact!)... & he noticed! And he interpreted it as a *major* personal failure. He actually started slapping himself hard on his face with both his chubby hands! (Self-inflicted punishment, you know!) My sister-in-law, thankfully, has more presence of mind than my cousin... and she immediately pulled his shorts down again & told him to give it another try, saying it wasn't a big deal!
He took another go at it & managed to pull up his shorts all by himself this time. AND he was also planted with the seeds of the idea that "it is ok to fail before you finally succeed"!
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When suicide cases happen around us, we usually find it very easy to immediately put the blame on the parents and the society at large. Not once do we stop to think that the ‘victim’ might actually be the one to blame for his/her own misery!
Repeating an often repeated cliché:
"Our external world is nothing but a reflection of our inner world!"
All of us face the same pressure from the family & society. There’s equal amount of competition for all of us. And yet, not everybody decides to end his life, does he?
I have been through that “temporary moment of insanity” 3 years ago. (It’s not really a single moment by the way – it’s more like a gradual buildup of despair & self-hatred!) The only reason why I didn’t give in to the temptation that day was that if I killed myself, I would make my failure FINAL! If I ended my story that moment, there was no way I would ever be able to re-write the ‘book of my life’! I would always be remembered as the ‘girl who failed’!
My parents never really pressurized me for studies and stuff. Besides, I come from a family where females are only supposed to get married & produce babies! 7 years ago, when I decided to change this tradition, I had to face a lot of pressure! But that’s all in the past now. The point is that change doesn’t happen on its own. Our parents did the best according to what they had learnt till then. But this learning process never stops. “Change” has to be consciously brought about in the world around us… & that includes our parents & our families! We have to stand up for what we believe in… & most importantly, we have to believe in ourselves first!
While my parents never made a big fuss over my marks or getting a job, they nevertheless have been hard task-masters. But then, it again boils down to “perspective”, right? I can look at their criticism as an excuse to self-victimize myself, or I can look at it as a way to improve myself. If the little birdies are not pushed off the nest by their parents, they might never learn to fly!
Committing suicide, however, is an act of cowardice and escapism! There is NO courage required to jump off a running train or a high-rise building... leaving all your woes behind for “heart-broken” and grieved family-members, who keep blaming themselves for the rest of their lives, that perhaps they did something wrong in the way they brought you up! I speak from personal experience. It took me more courage NOT to give in to the ‘momentary insanity’ that day… AND to accept the personal challenge that I would make amends for whatever damages I had done!
I completely agree with what Mukund said in his comment there… “There is no problem without a solution and if you are not able to find the solution may be you are just not looking in the right direction for it.” Failures are life’s way of letting us know we need to change our strategy regarding something. And yes Varun, “the only people who can dare such an act” REALLY are the ones “who only bother about their own self and not others”! As Vatsap said in his blog once long ago – “There are millions of men, and women on this planet. Then why is my image so important to me?”
It is so, because the ‘I’ feels ‘disconnected’ from the collective consciousness. A wave somehow gets separated from the ocean & thinks she’s on her own now! But, it’s just the perspective of that particular wave, you know, ‘coz the ocean is more than willing to have her back within him! As Vyazz says in the comments there – “We (I) can end up deceiving our (my) own self thinking that we’re (I'm) letting people down, whereas in reality we are (I am) not!”
In metaphysical terms, a suicidal person has a very weak Root Chakra. Root Chakra, as the name suggests, keeps us rooted to this planet. It creates a feeling of belonging, being a part of some larger community. It instills a feeling of security that all our needs will be taken care of by the Universe. As my symbolic thought process visualizes it – Root Chakra represents the cord that keeps a space-traveler connected to the ‘mother’ space-ship at all times, while he explores the vastness of the space around him.
With a weak Root Chakra, we feel ‘lost in the emptiness of space’! We feel unprotected, out of place & un-worthy. We feel isolated and fail to connect with the people around us. We are overtly suspicious and extremely self-conscious. We feel unwelcome & unwanted... and, as Pushkaraj has mentioned – we “keep turning inwards and further inwards till the point of no return.” It is completely up to the rest of us, to recognize such abnormally introverted signs in the people around us, and make them feel appreciated and needed.
And for anybody out there reading this post, who might be contemplating on killing him/herself… remember - "Most of us are angels with one wing broken, but we can STILL learn to fly by embracing each other!" Just work on strengthening your Root Chakra… and your life will fall back into place. Some simple ways of strengthening your Root Chakra:
1. Our very own “Munna Bhai’s” special… “Jaadu Ki Jhappi”!
2. Dancing
3. Walking, preferably barefoot!
4. Gardening… or just playing with soil if possible!
And yes, if you ever need an angel with a broken wing to embrace, contact me! ;-) :-p
Picture Credit: http://zestycook.com/
Added some of my favorite i-google games here.
The aim is to clear the board, matching pairs of similar patterned tiles. You can click on adjacent tiles if they happen to carry the same pattern on their faces... or you can click on tiles which can be connected in not more than 3 straight lines. 
This one is my all-time favorite! When it was freshly introduced to the Indian puzzle-lovers, I used to do it daily in all the newspapers I could get my hands on! I remember I was in Mumbai for a friends wedding, back in November 2005, and his brother enjoyed doing Sudoku as much as I did! LOL! It was a daily competition between us as to who would get hold of the day's newspaper first! :-p
