Beautiful People!

Imagine a world where you had no one to share your thoughts with, share your ideas or rather share a pizza with (I know some people wouldn't be so keen as to share food!), it would be very lonely right? an idea is not so exciting when you see no reaction from the people around, similarly a pizza is not so tasty when you don’t have people fighting for every piece of it, my point being that, it is important for us to always have good company around us to fully take in the experience of that something that you care a lot about. Consider your recently celebrated 21st birthday, it wasn’t the venue that made it special, it wasn’t the food either, nor was it your fine black blazer. It was the people who you invited two weeks before in sheer excitement that made your birthday a grand celebration! as I would say "Birthday Blast!". Now why am I talking about the importance of people in our lives? Do keep reading...

Some people hold a very special place in our heart, a place where happiness is triggered instantaneously when you see that person. Every time you reach home from college/school/work, who do you always search for? when you come online, who’s conversation do you open first? Well... that is what we call 'love' right? please don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t refer to a singular person, it may be your family, it may be your cousins or it may be your special group of friends too. They are the people who really care for you and you too feel very affectionate about. They are the ones who always support you in times of difficulties, celebrate your small victories with a lot of excitement and also the ones who dance like crazy at your Birthdays! There are always those who you might hate or may be someone who can’t stand your presence. I believe we should always make an honest effort so as to understand the other person and also clear the misunderstanding if at all that is the reason you both are at odds with each other.

When we come up with something new, maybe a new design for a product, a name for our pet or in our case a new project idea, we generally seek approval from our family, friends or other loved ones. Ever thought about why we don’t go and ask the same to a stranger? trust issues? maybe... our mind tells us that the best person to talk to about software is so and so person or the right person to seek help regarding your relationships related issue is so and so person. We always look for feedback from others or at least a comment on your latest thoughts and ideas. Most of the feedback encourages us to strive for better results while the other type feedback tells us about where the road block is, but what matters is that you listen to it, learn, improve and decide what your best course of action is.

In a previous article I've spoken about the importance of mentorship. A mentor or Guide is a person who cares about your well being and provides a lot of valuable feedback and suggestions for improving yourself in the given field. This person maybe a close friend, a teacher, your parent or a close uncle. This individual has a duty of sharing his experiences and expertise in a topic of mutual interest. Consider your uncle, who is a very successful engineer, you would generally ask him for tips on company job placements rather than the uncle who runs a restaurant of his own.  

We often see athletes like Usain Bolt celebrate their Olympic victories in style, but what we fail to see is the work put in to get there. These efforts put in, are not only by the athlete, but by a team comprising mainly of his coach, mentor and manager. The coach is responsible for his overall fitness and agility on track, his confidence levels are at his highest due to the constant motivation provided by his mentor and his manager is the one responsible for his well being, health and making sure he is always happy and gets all the necessities for his training. So, if we were to say that we can achieve something alone, we must be kidding ourselves. The definition of a company states that ' It is a collective of people who work together, towards a common goal'. In other words a company cannot be run by a single individual to gain the scale as the likes of Facebook, Google, Tata group etc. Hence Teamwork is indeed and should be an essential part of our lives. This team work maybe for a Project with your friends, for a College event with your college mates or for a cousins wedding arrangement with your whole family.

Ever been in a conversation with a group of elders, sharing their thoughts about politics, culture or maybe a topic as simple as the weather? These conversations are intended as small talk initially but soon enough, these conversations turn into a round-table serious discussion. This is a good chance for the younger generation like us to really contribute in the conversation, listen and learn, take in feedback for your views on that topic and also test your general awareness of your surroundings and the world as a whole. These discussions add to your wealth of knowledge. Elders talk about their various experiences, hence giving us a general idea of how to tackle the situation if it may arise in our lives. In this way we can acquire knowledge and tips from more experienced people. We should also make a point to share whatever limited knowledge we possess so that others may also benefit from it.

Now talking about that new friend you had a conversation with on Facebook or the new Girl you spoke to at your friend’s party. These individuals are commonly referred to as 'acquaintances'. They are the ones who you have recently had contact with and enjoy speaking to. They may be considered as the delicious frosting cream on your already existing yummy cake (your existing list of close people). What they do is, introduce you to further fresh ideas, new perspectives and also provide a chance to get to know an individual from scratch (which personally excites me a lot!). Making new friends, updating your friends list and also (sadly) deleting some names from it always creates a sort of excitement and surprise element in our lives, which surely contributes to a healthy social life.

                             

Let us now talk about the way we communicate. We use social media for almost all forms/mediums of communication-  be it through voice calls, through video, through texts or through images by using various social media platforms. Considering all the advantages of social media, I would still give the upper hand to 'talking in person'. Discussing a hot topic on our class group is surely fun, but talking, laughing, teasing and screaming in our college canteen has a fun of its own! although social media has brought us closer than ever it surely losses out on the aspects of having a heart-to-heart conversation, where you can sense the persons presence, perceive his/her reactions, judge who laughs the funniest!, share a meal together and so on.

Rich conversations with people make us more rich, the quiet ‘moments of love' between two loved ones make their love more profound, endless laughter and selfies with your friends make those moments more memorable. We all have people in our lives who teach us different things in different ways. From some we learn 'how to be a better person' while from others we learn 'how not to be that kind of person'. So take care of yourself, take care of your loved ones and also accept their love with open arms.