Musings by Taniya

 Everyday I see you all celebrate the new year like it's the start of everything new, as if all your sins and sorrow disappear magically, the minute clock strikes twelve. We forget the magic that lies in us, we can create miracles everyday everyday that we live, we get a chance to start anew and afresh, to absolve our sins and guilt, to let go of the past, to move forward at last. We can celebrate a new day every time the clock strikes every minute, every second we get we can start again as long as we believe in the magic of everyday.

  Do you love your life? Do you ever get tired of following the same mundane routine? Does getting up from the bed feel like a daunting task to most of time? Do you feel like you are sinking in a quicksand of mundane routines with no escape in sight? Do u take vacations to take a break from your schedule but end up feeling even more burntout on return?  Why is it that most of us resonate with the above questions? Why is it that so many of us are dysthymic and anxious and sometimes even on verge of depression. Mental health disorders have the highest prevalence in recent years. We are going around carrying clouds of gloom hanging above our heads . Sure there are tiny sparks of light between bouts of pain and misery, but they seem too small and too insignificant to us. At the end of the year, instead of celebrating or victories, we keep lamenting about all that we lost, missed or failed at.  Is it because we gradually become pessimistic as we age, or are we silently mournin...

 Ikigai - The tool for the uprising of existence and an obsession of every self help book, gurus, mentors and teachers as a one shot vaccine that can give us salvation. We spend all our lives searching for a purpose to give meaning to our life and we call it Ikigai. God/ higher being/ nature/ destiny whomsoever you believe in gave us human life to appreciate the vastness of the universe, the infinite lives it holds and to marvel at the beauty and the complexity of creation. Instead we spend our lives being miserable, seeing or believing others have the lenses called Ikigai to see what all life has to offer. We feel alienated for not having a purpose. We despise ourselves and question our worth. Label ourselves as failure and waste our lives in self reproach.  Possibly- probably we are doing it wrong and not everyone is meant to find it or need it. Maybe Ikigai should not be the only thing defining our existence. Keeping self importance aside, we are not even a tiny speck...

  Today my friend and I had an intense coffee table discussion over a recent increase in post marriage dissatisfaction and dissolution of marriages. Now it may be convenient to put the blame on familial interference, economic issues, increased social media influence and increase in women empowerment along with impatience. But at the root of all it lies the simple fact that once married, the onus to keep trying dies. Marriage is a binding oath with a fixed template created by the society and followed by generations. Whether we like it or not, the urge to be complacent and follow what our parents, their parents and our fellow peers have been doing wins in the end.  Whether be love or arranged, be it wife or husband, most of the marriages become devoid of passion and feeling after some time. Some blame it on childbirth, some carry grudges and some just lose all interest in intimacy or opposite partner. The zeal to continue knowing and working on ourselves and with each other...