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A movie that you fell completely in love with the first time you watched it?

It was The Dark Knight for me!

The script, the music, the characters — everything was on point and it blew my mind away!

I loved it so much that I watched it again. And again. And again!

By the time I was watching it for the 6th or 7th time, I started noticing its flaws.

I had spent so much time with it, that I couldn’t help but notice its slips.

Yet, it remains my all-time favourite movie.

I chose to ignore the slips because what I experienced when I saw the movie was way too wonderful an experience!

What else works like movies?

People!

The more time you spend with people, the more flaws you see!

Instead, why not shift the focus on how you feel when you are with them?

Every time when we think,  “I wish I would have done that differently”, we are thinking about something we can’t change.

What’s done has been done.
No amount of thinking will change that.

No amount of regret will change that.

What we can change is what we do next.

So, here are better questions to ask.

“What stopped me from doing whatever it is that I should have done?”

“Do those things still exist in my life?”

“What was it that I did not know back then?”

“Do I know it now?”

Everyone makes mistakes. But not everyone learns from those mistakes.
There exists something between success and failure called reflection!

Regret will only keep you in the past. Reflection will bring you out of it.

We often seek advice when we have multiple options in front of us.
And we are unsure of which option to pick!

There begins our journey of finding the right answer.
We look for people who have taken similar decisions before, hoping that we will get an answer!

However, there’s one thing that we often forget in the process.

Their experiences are not ours.
Their advice will be based on the outcome of their decisions.
Which could be driven by the advice of someone else – that’s even worse!

I would rather follow my gut.
If we ask ourselves honestly, we will get the answer — an answer which would be better than anyone else’s!

PS: Don’t take my advice for this. Build yours :)

Remember that one time, when we did something wrong as a kid?

But, we decided to own up to our mistake and tell the truth to our parents?

And we got scolded?

Remember that one time, when we did something wrong as a kid?

But, we decided to own up to our mistake and tell the truth to our teachers?

And we got scolded?

And remember that one time, when we did something wrong as a kid?

But, we decided to lie to everyone?

And we weren’t scolded!

That’s why we lie. 

Are we doing the exact same thing to people around us?

By not appreciating someone for their vulnerability and truth, all we do is cultivate liars.

There is a kind of debt that is rarely talked about.
That’s emotional debt.

I cannot leave this job, because I had promised my boss I would stay.
I cannot leave this job, because I have dreams to fulfil for my family.
I cannot go back to work, because I had promised my kids I would be around.

Emotional debt is intangible. It doesn’t exist.

And because we don’t pay for it everyday, we keep on accumulating interest on it.

Here is what helps.
Treating emotional debt as financial debt.
Take it only when you need it.
Take it only when you can pay it back.
And pay it in monthly instalments.

Emotional debt has killed more people than financial debt ever will.

Most of us think of success as relative.

“Am I more successful than him?”
“Is she more famous?”
“How can I become wealthier than her?”

But success is absolute. It’s what you feel within.
It has only one measurement – the one defined by you.

Success is not relative. Achievement is.

Most often we confuse achievement with success.

It starts with trust. Trust forms the basis of every relationship.
It is neither to be broken, nor to be tested.

It continues by listening.
Listening, not with the intent of answering but with the intent of understanding.

It grows with patience.
The most beautiful relationships in life take time.

Trust, listen and wait.
The key ingredients to long-lasting and meaningful relationships.

When you meet some of your friends, you feel excited. You feel pumped up and you feel cared for.

And when you meet some of the other friends, your energy gets drained. Enthusiasm lowers each time. And you just don’t feel cared for!

These are the friends you chose to be with.
You were not born into these relationships.

And since you chose them, you can also choose to get out of them.

When you take energy-draining people out of your life, you stand up for yourself. 

That’s not being mean. That’s an act of self-love.

We don’t want people to reject us, and so we find it difficult to reject people.
Saying no becomes insanely hard.

We think if we say no, people will leave us.
We will hurt the other person.
People will think poorly of us.

When we say no, we say no to a request. Not to the person.

The challenge lies in reminding that to ourselves, and to that person.

Today’s generation is under immense pressure.
It’s the pressure of self-doubt more than anything else.
This self-doubt is led by the view that everyone else, except them, has it figured out.

People seem to be eating the nicest looking food.
Wearing the nicest looking clothes.
Clicking the nicest looking selfies.

We think the other person’s life is sorted.
We think that we are not good enough.

What we fail to realise is that others are going through the same anxiety as we are!

At times, all you need to know is that you are not alone in feeling what you are feeling.