Negotiations!

Life is so un-fair. I wish there was more to life than this! I really wish I was dead...

All around us, we can hear people saying this... But what is it that we really want? We all need some negotiations with life. 'If I do this, I hope you can give me this' we negotiate with God. Or if we don't believe in the supreme being, we make promises to ourselves, like, if we quit smoking then maybe my luck will change. Nothing is going to change! Nothing ever will.

Once somebody told me that, we are all but God's tea bags. Only when we are dipped in hot water, do we actually know our strenghts! Well that is true. To an extent. But what if the water is piping hot and the tea bag breaks? That is where I am now, I think.

On this mundane Wednesday afternoon, as I sit, sipping my hot cup of machine coffee, I realize what I finally want from life. It is the most idealistic thought. A thought which I would someday like to see come true. Not only for me, but for all the people I love.

I want to be able to manage four different things at the same time and be happy doing it. For example, I want to paint, sell my paintings, write, sell my writing, lend voice for ads, corporate films, cartoons, etc, and also spend some time in the day with old people, maybe in an old age home. This sounds like the most ideal thing to do, right?

What is the harm in dreaming? After all, negotiating with life will only lead us to hope these dreams do come true. But we don't really know for sure if they would. Then why, if we are not sure why certain things work or why certain things don't work, do we worry so much and feel horribly low? Even though we've tried our best?

What is it that effects people? Money? Well, what use is money if we cannot spend it on anyone we love? Career? Yes, knowledge is power. But power over who? Love? Ah...now this is something which starts everything. We start out negotiations because of this sweet bitter emotion - Love!

We fall in love. We see the world through rose colored glasses for a while. And then the question arises in the deepest, darkest corners of our minds - am I good enough? Can I keep him/her happy? How do I make this work? These are the questions that ruin the mind and infects us like a creepy crawly disease which eats away every living cell in our body.

This is when our negotiations begin. Or rather, this is when the 'flaw-picking' starts. Like nose picking, this flaw picking too is a disgusting habit. Because, no matter how much we love the other person, we out of our insecurities blame the person we love the most. We pick on their flaws which we never noticed before. If there are no visible flaws then we create a flaw that at that time suits to soothe our insecurity. We do this, because our negotiations do no work.

Then how do we make our negotiations work? Well, simple, DON'T NEGOTIATE! You know why, when we negotiate we expect. But if we don't expect anything, then we need not negotiate. And this 'No-Expectations-From-Life' leaves us happy.

So life finally becomes this less chaotic, less complicated. We learn to love a whole lot more, blame less, smile more and have a sense of completion. We learn to love life just the way it is, and when life throws a curve ball at us, we welcome it and because our hearts are more at ease, we skilfully deflect this curve ball.

Negotiations are just a state of mind when it is not at ease. So from today I will try not to find fault with the people I love, I will try not to expect anything from them and hopefully my dreams will one day become real. So no matter how hot the water is, I am going to be one of God's strongest tea bags.