Stop, think, reflect !

Stop, Think, Reflect!

Good times give way to bad times, what goes up must come down. We are all familiar with these adages, still it is the same ‘we’ who stare in disbelief as another company bites the dust, or we read of another thousand odd people getting laid off, economic growth being excruciatingly slow.

I am no qualified authority on the subject. The last time I really keenly studied the rate at which economies rose and fell was while doing my B.A. in economics. But still a second grader could shake us up from our self-imposed state of coma and tell us ‘hey! Guess what? Past couple of years were boom time, BUT the honeymoon period is over and we ARE in recession with a whole lot of chances of plunging head first straight into depression.’

While this news sent many of us into well ‘depression’, some turned suicidal, others over anxious. I chose to stop, think and reflect.

It’s amazing how much clarity one gains just by pausing your own life and looking at it from a third person’s point of view.

Recession obviously meant less money for all of us. This is what I started reflecting on … the materialistic me! I have been amongst the fortunate few who rose as fast as the industry I work in, namely ‘television’. Today I don’t really think twice about buying something I might NEVER use, happily indulging every retailer on the planet. That seems to be the case with a lot of people around me. Maybe it’s about time we do start to think.

My shopaholic behavior today is a stark contrast to my upbringing. I had a strict disciplinarian of a father who ensured the family had an expense holiday once a month. An expense holiday was basically a day when my five-member family didn’t buy any goods or services. Dad would walk to the station and his monthly pass would safely transport him to his destination. Mom bought groceries a day in advance. My brothers and me walked to school unaffected as we walked to school everyday. Though we did refrain from buying anything from the school canteen thus contributing our humble bit. So we were brought up with the ‘funda’ that if u need to buy anything postpone it by a day This was dad’s feeble attempt of making us stop, think, reflect.

Given my current state of affairs clearly this thought is being reflected on someone else on another planet in another universe.

That does not mean that I have not seen the other side of the coin. There has been an incident that I can never forget no matter how affluent I become in life tomorrow. This happened around Nov’03. Me being the rebel I am I had dramatically fought with my folks and come to Bombay (we used to live in pune) to look for work. Had stayed at my nani’s house, where divya my affluent older cousin sister voluntarily took care of my social expenses. After a couple of weeks this started bothering me, as I wanted to pay for my things myself but didn’t have the resources for it.

I will never forget the eve, we had gone to check out the newly opened ‘phoneix mills’. Caramel popcorn was a huge craze then as we poor folk from developing countries were only used to having salted popcorn. It cost Rs 20 for a packet; my mouth was watering already from the aroma of the freshly popped corn and the melted caramel still gooey and glistening. However a nano second before divya bought my pack I changed my mind and told her I didn’t want any.

I stood there watching everyone savor the one thing I really wanted at that point. Needless to say I went and found a job soon and the second thing I bought from my salary (first thing went to charity as I have seen dad do always) was caramel popcorn. The satisfaction of crunching the caramel coated popcorn in my mouth after a good 2 months wait cannot be described in words. Though anyone who has really wanted something and achieved it after a long wait and hard labour can relate to it.

2 years later I was in London buying my ‘Fendi glares’ on a whim that I wanted to own a pair of branded glares. Needless to say, owning the glares didn’t even given me 5% of the satisfaction I got when I finally succeeded in buying that packet of popcorn.

Why have we started depriving ourselves of these small pleasures? Why can’t we discipline ourselves enough to get back in tune with nature cause if we don’t then we clearly cant blame ourselves for being perennially dissatisfied as most people around me our today.

So maybe it is time to stop, think and reflect?