Loyalty....Unraveled...

Nowadays,the word 'Loyalty' is enough to have me in splits... Why? Well,that's why this post...

What is loyalty? Literally, it may be defined as "the act of binding yourself (intellectually or emotionally) to something or someone..". I suppose that can be understood as binding yourself to a friend, a job, your love, your spouse..and so on.

True loyalty is a rare commodity nowadays...Even those who stake claim to be completely loyal can misinterpret folly as loyalty..... Numerous examples can be cited where a simple act of loyal behavior has brought down many a man to his knees.

By default,humans want to be loyal..... A lot has been said about the disloyal intentions of a philandering husband,but nevertheless,people want to be loyal. Admit it or not,you may have questioned yourself about it quite often as well....If not, ask yourself now, "Am I loyal?"," Do I like being loyal to people?" More often than not, "Yes" rings clear in the head...

And yet,day after day,month after month,year after year...people do question your loyalty! A minor incident where you chose another side...(which at that point seemed correct),...a small joke that you played on a friend in the presence of other 'friends' that upset him/her,...a question or a piece of information that wasn't passed on,..a smile that wasn't given,...a secret that wasn't shared,.. a task that was due but wasn't done....PHEW!!

Now,if you were nodding to some of those instances,you've definitely questioned your friends opinion on your loyalty...Or you've questioned your own opinion of a friends loyalty.....

So why do we pretend? Why is it that every act of 'disloyalty' gets magnified when someone else has done it? Why do we seek our relations to have loyalty when it is questionably a virtue present in us?

People may bring in the arguments of a married couple where either the husband or the wife expects loyalty from the spouse and is justified.... My justification (whatever it may be) would be akin to stepping on thin ice... If I were to step aside from this article and comment on this,then yes,I firmly believe Loyalty is a must-have in a marriage.... A roving eye can be tolerated, but certainly not a philandering spouse...

But this post wasn't to bring attention to the beautiful comedy of errors that a marriage is...But instead,this was to elaborate loyalty in less demanding but by no means less important relations like friendship,like love....

So have I done that? I guess not... I started this as a post for my thoughts on what I'd been seeing in the recent past in my own relationships...But suddenly, the importance of this post seems lost... Why am I cribbing about loyalty when the contents of this post were to highlight the shallowness of the very word?!

I learnt my lesson during this post... I cannot expect people to do unto me what I cannot do unto them as well....And even if I exhibit such extraordinary levels of loyalty expected from me, I'm bound to upset one person or the other....So why pretend? Nope... No more to expect from the relationships that I sought to give me their all...No more fights on the flawed idealism that loyalty is...

(But as human as I am, I'm aware of how short term my emotional memory is... he he...)

I recall one quote that makes my enlightenment complete....“People who love only once in their lives are. . . shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination.”

Think about it....

It's all in the mood...

Hmmm....A very wise man once said-"A man is defined by the frequency of variation of his moods and the degree of severity in terms of people affected by these moods...."
(How very true... The saying and the wise man both are very dear to me... )

That apart,I seem to be a living example of the highest degrees of mood swings ever thought possible... And why's that? Beats me.... I've always tried to come up with a logical, rational even psychological explanation to mood swings...

Here's what I could gather from what I've read.... The sudden drop and rise in hormonal levels cause mood swings that occur at certain phases in life (puberty or mid-life)...This was the logical,scientific explanation to mood swings...

But personally,I liked the psychological one... The 5 senses of our body are constantly providing us with inputs... And when you're thinking about something,one of these inputs may derail your train of thought. Now,people may argue that they don't even think about something relevant to the current job being performed... But that's the beauty of it...


These thoughts occur so quickly that it is not possible to pin-point to one input that does the unnecessary. But your mood swings can be controlled and I'm again the living testament to this... Over time,with good amount of observation and reasoning,you can switch off derailing inputs... How? Let me explain...

Let's take a scenario (I love these too much)...You're heading to college in the morning...
En route there,you start to think about a friend...Just from something you recalled or something you saw happening or some other relevant person you saw a little while ago... As you start thinking, something happens....This 'something' is what determines your mood...

Seratonin...Major culprit..This is the hormone that regulates your mood...A low level of this in the body can cause a bad mood...A good level keeps your spirits high... This is physiological...And hence can be easily controlled... Exercise is something that has always brought my seratonin levels up... Other factors that help are- carbohydrate or sugar intake or even good ol' sunlight...

Try to recall your physical condition the last time you had a mood swing.... Hunger or laziness are the possible physiological reasons... A fight or just unvented anger can be the psychological reasons.... Or alternately,you're just at a bad juncture in life...Like someone entering his teens or someone entering mid-life....

I'd be a moron if I were to single these out as the only reasons that cause mood swings... But they are the MAJOR reasons... But as you have probably reasoned by now,all these 'major' factors can be controlled...

As I've come to realise, mood swings are not something that are beyond your control. Blinking, breathing....now these are involuntary... Not a mood swing...

More often than not, a mood swing can cause so much damage to a relationship... Be it your parents,friends,your spouse,your GF/BF.. And the cracks that once appear in a relationship at a weak moment can bring apart the strongest of people...

So please...Let us try to bring control into our lives and our relations... Let's control our MOOD..

The drill is simple-- Consciously observing any kind of mood change before it intensifies, and finding a major reason and then taking action to solve it!

Solve the reason,and you rid yourself of the bad mood...

Academics!!!

I never actually thought I'd be writing about this in my blog....ever! Come to think of it.. I hesitate even writing about academics...forget even giving a thought about doing well in it!

Academics...studies...the intended purpose of joining a college,of studying till now,of willing yourself to get up and go to college everyday... Nope..I love college..In fact,keeping inline with the Matrix philosophy of "Some rules can be bent,others can be broken",I've altered my perception of college to such an extent that I forgot it has anything to do with academics....!!

Let's take a scenario(I love these....)....A typical student...well not so typical..! A student who's been on top almost all of his school life moves to a PU college...From day 1 all he intends to do is do well here...It's a prestigious college,he's enthusiastic about his future from this day on....Then it happens....FRIENDS... Now I'm not the kinda person that places blame on his friends for the lack of responsibility or factor X(as we'll call it)...But like it or not,your friends circle at your teens determines the kind of person you evolve into...

This student makes friends who're more or less around the average mark...They manage to get through the routines of college exams,tests,labs effortlessly...Thanks to their good schooling... But as time passes on they seem to lose the edge,all of them....well..almost all.. And caught in this draft,our main protagonist loses his zeal too.... Inspite of all this, all of them manage to do considerably well in PU as well,due to some last minute desire to do justice to the educational system.

Now,they get into different colleges....Most of them get into engineering...Although our character didn't wanna end up in engineering,he follows the herd and the anticipations,dreams,and other heavy stuff that his parents expect him to fulfill.

This is where it gets interesting,once again he decides that this is a new start and that he'll make the most of it... He attends classes,takes down notes, and works hard....Does well in the first year too...But fate finds him and again..and this time it bites him hard...He falls to a pit this time... He makes every possible effort to stay on course...but his efforts are like the struggles of a man stuck in quicksand....With every move,he sinks deeper and deeper...

And now,there's a stage where he's given up trying...He's stopped struggling...He's not going up or down...Stagnant...oblivious of the fact that the sand has dried up....!! Lying in wait of a miracle...for something drastic to come along and shake up his life...

But will this miracle ever happen?? Nope...We keep asking for miracles each day....But God sent us as miracles into this world...He made us suffer,he made us happy,he made us strong that we may face life,he made us weak that we may remember his name,he has tested us and given us the courage to go through these tests as well...

Are you one of these people? Looking for a miracle? Well, there's only one way you'll get a miracle....BE THE MIRACLE!!!

Change your life...It's yours...You can choose to live it well...to live as you want to...Priorities and necessities are different...Choose well..