My weekly blog #8 (it is early!!)

Stanley

Pic credits: Gwen Jorgensen's Twitter

This little man is Stanley. He just turned 1 on 16th August. He is son of Rio 2016 Olympic Triathlon Gold Medalist Gwen Jorgensen and her awesome husband, former pro cyclist, Patrick Lemieux.
I owe a lot to him in terms of my life. I spent a lot of my depression looking at Instagram and Facebook, venting out my negativity and the only positive thing online were Instagram stories of this little guy posted by his mom and dad. And somehow, those stories helped more than everything else.

I learnt a lot about life from this guy. You see, as we grow older, we begin to forget what really matters in life. There are a lot of people who enter our lives, we try to remain zen, we try to remain focussed but the stones they throw, they disturb the calm surface of our lake.

Now, rewind the clock in your head back to when you were a child. Did things/people really bother you? You had your own little world, that unconditional smile from the smallest of things. Life was a lot simple. Your world would absorb you and you would carry on building it, unfettered by the stress of other human beings. Even if someone bothered you, things would tide over pretty quickly and you were back in your own world. And I don't mean we should remain childish and oblivious to the rest of the world as we grow older, but off-late I have been wondering, if being oblivious is such a bad thing?

I am not one to blame, but your circumstances do shape you. The world isn't an oyster, it is full of bad things and bad people(not necessarily bad, just negative); facing them first-hand let me down so much I slowly became a bitter person. I never was one to open my circle to more than 5-6 people, but whenever I did it allowed the entry of people who brought down my mindset from positive to negative. It includes people who are always the victims, without really knowing that they are ones who are driving their lives; it includes people who are closet activists: creating issues and getting angry at the world. The world is a fucked up place, everyone knows about it. More demoralising is the fact that people try to cash-in on it, by becoming "activists", seeking the slightest bit of attention by doing things which hold no-real meaning instead of self-improvement (I am rambling in a negative direction, i'll stop).

They are not bad people, they just have bad vibes. Every time you talk to them, there are negative thoughts involved and they never have a solution. Even in my darkest hours, I laughed and tried to find a solution to my problems. I needed a shoulder to cry on, but in all honesty nothing good comes from crying until you are as old as Stanley. When you are older, responsible for your own life, a better option is to take charge of things and control the controllables, patience becomes a real virtue and eventually problems tide themselves over. Problems are a part of life, all of us have them and all of us react to them differently.

Over the last few months, I have rewired my brain. I had settled into the whining, loser mindset and it showed in my personality. Then came the bitterness phase, which showed in my writing. That bitterness with the rest of the world, my anger with people and how they are living their lives and who they choose to be. And I don't know which headspace I would be in later in life, but this current one feels a lot more sustainable to me. It is positive, it is calm, it is Stanley's mindset(not the crying to get what you want one, the smiling unconditionally one).

People do things: Good and bad; they all have their reasons and to all of them their ends justify their means. Being an athlete, I know the deepest darkest secrets. I know the secrets from the growing Indian triathlon world, from the Indian running scene. They aren't as dark as the world of elite athletics but they are bad. It is a collusion of liars, who all have joined hands to profit from this beautiful sport. And yes, it is sad. But, why should it matter to us? The most beautiful thing about running is you get what you put into it. If you move your legs faster, you run faster. If you move your legs from X kilometers, you end up doing X kilometers. There is no coasting you can do like you can on a bike, you can't just float around in the water like swimming. In running, if you stop you stop. If you are moving, you are moving. To many people it is about their finisher medals, they hang up on their wall and then use them as an excuse to boost their egos and increase their "stature" amongst a small group of people. To me, medals don't matter. The hardwork behind them does.



I don't like the medals I got from my Ultraman finish and from my Ironman in Mallorca because I didn't put in the hardwork I could have for them. I love the medal I got from 2015 Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon because I really worked hard for it. You can lie to the rest of the world, you can cheat your way through a race(or many), you can gain fame from those race but when this world comes to an end, only you would know what you actually did. You can't lie to yourself. So why then, do we bother ourselves with all the negativity of this world? If you are a compassionate person, go and help others silently. No one online really cares about the kind of person you are because there is a huge probability they will never meet you. You can post quotes online, be an activist or just be someone who loves to share inspiring videos but that doesn't define you as a person! What defines you is what you do in real life; day in and day out; how you deal with your problems and how honestly you live your life.


Me? I am increasingly becoming wary of people who talk to me only when they have something bad to share. I love to solve my friends' problems, I love to listen and then if they want, give them some perspective and a solution. But when people have nothing to offer other than dirt on others, nothing positive other than a bunch of selfish questions, I feel that maybe I should put keeping a positive headspace ahead of those people. I don't know how I would do that, I am known for my periods of silence, but as that is a little cryptic, maybe I should use this blog as an opportunity to say things out loud.

I am grateful to the opportunity to interact with people in my life. Everyone has their own USP, and it is a great way to gain perspective and become a better person. And negative emotions hold their own in life, they are a part of life and no matter what, you cannot fully become Stanley as you grow up. There will be sadness, there will be a lot of bad things and if you are facing them and you are my friend, or not even a friend, but just want to talk to me about it, I will be more than happy to. But if that is all that you do, I would suggest you should walk out of my life. I am happy to give you my advice, but if you do not follow it and come back to me, complaining about how bad your life still is, then I am sorry, I cannot help you. Part of being an adult means solving your problems on your own, yes others can support you, but if you are just hanging around, spreading negative vibes then please, spread them someplace else. And especially to those, who send me negative news and then act like highly positive people, if I receive that from you from now, I would gladly block you from my life.


This is not me being selfish. This is not me being negative. I went through a dark dark phase in life, with minimal support, not bothering a lot of people and am on the path of getting out of it. Part of my life transformation was my mindset, which, believe it or not, gets affected by the people around me. And the people I choose to have around me is my choice, because in the immortal words of Jon Bon Jovi, "It's my life".

Alors, mon cher, À tout le monde: Be positive and spread positivity! Be glad about the problems in your life because they will help you grow, and while I am happy to help you solve them, if you bring them to me expecting pity, then I am sorry but you have to go someplace else.
But if you want to bring cheer, like Stanley does, you are more than welcome!

And while we are talking about mindset

I owe an apology to everyone for my aggressive attitude to people who have thin-shammed me over the course of my life, or bitched about me behind my back or said/done things to harm me in any way.

I was thin-shammed, again, very recently. And this time, this guy, a family member, who I have no respect for as a human being, decided to be sarcastic. So instead of telling me how "thin I have become", tried to be smart and told me that I was becoming as a fat as him. My parents, who have followed a similar diet as me and become fitter, also bore the brunt of "thin-shamming"(not of this guy) but from someone else.

Now, the old me would have torn this guy into shreds. And believe me, he is a very easy target and my innate hatred for him would make it a no-holds barred contest. But turning 28, I decided to change my mindset and approach towards incidents like these. So, I thought to myself "Why is this guy behaving this way?".

If he had access to my medical records, and an MBBS degree, if he found something in my records which would concern an educated person, it would be the sign of a someone being caring, but that wasn't the case with him. And then it hit me. Negativity! My being in a positive headspace about myself and my life impacts this particular person in such a way that it has manifested into feelings of jealousy. That particular person, is a model antipode to a successful, happy, well-meaning human being.

When you do something right, when you begin to succeed in life, there are often 2 kinds of reactions from people. The ones who actually wanted you to succeed are happy for you. They rejoice in your success, they cheer you on and infact, they take your advice, your help, apply it in their lives and grow the happiness. And then there are people like him, who correlate every positive emotion with a negative one.  But should we be bothered by people like this? I used to get ruffled by this, let out angry reaction and 2-3 weeks back, my blog would have been full of negative emotions about this guy. 

But no, you see these people are there to test you. Test your mind, test how strong you are to your commitment to a positive, healthy life. They serve their purpose well, because their purpose is easy. To lie on the road and be roadblocks, to try to bring your down. And you should be grateful to have such people in your life too, because without them you a.) Wouldn't be able to reaffirm your success! (Their increasing jealousy = Your increasing success!) b.) Wouldn't be able to develop a feeling a compassion.



So my apology goes out to all the naysayers, all the negatives and to all of you, who think I would have fallen to your level and become utterly negative. Infact, I feel sorry for you. I feel sorry that you cannot be positive, that you cannot be happy, that you could only sit in the sidelines hoping for failure which even if it happened, would not deter me from my goal. You know why? Because I am too strong for you and your negative vibes.

And infact, I want to thank you and give you my love, because thanks to you I am able to test my will and trust me, when the feeling of anger dissipated and my thought train began to run in this positive direction, I felt so good and happy! It genuinely warmed my heart and best of all, it gave me good writing material!

So please, continue to be the way you are. You are serving a beautiful purpose!



I know, I said keep negative vibes away from me but I meant that for people close to me. People who I don't care about can enjoy to serve their purpose. Maybe as time passes, I will create better categories?

Oh, by the way.

I was in Zurich for my birthday last week and I took my camera, and took some pics.

Some of them turned out nice:

You can check more out here.