Tuesday, January 27, 2009

PAUSE N PONDER

Pause and Ponder
“You do not know who you are, until you encounter who you are not.”
( Sorry, can not give the credit as do not remember who exactly said it. )

I am deliberately withholding my own elaboration/interpretations for a reason.
I am sure, these words would have definitely created a lot of thought bubbles in your mind, if you have read so far.
PLEASE SHARE as comments .

10 comments:

FH said...

When you do confront your own shortcomings, you feel like crap!! ;D

MW said...

That is why I love seeing new places and trying new things so much. I actively search out "who I am not".

Ironically, once I hit that apparent "wall of not", many times, I have chosen to go through it or around it.

avinash said...

Whoever might have said“You do not know who you are, until you encounter who you are not.” must have said this after a lot of deliberation i m sure. But i guess i have my own viewpoint on this.
The pursuit of knowing who we are is endless. It starts right 4m day zero of our lives to the day we breathe our last. Everyone of us is ambitious and wants to be someone who matters. How many times in the mirror do we look at ourselves and say "Well, this is me". Almost everytime we say "this is not me. I m destined 4 more".
Life never says 2 us who we are. We are genetically taught 2 find who we are not. In school we say" shit, i couldn't be the school leader". In college we say" i couldn't get that girl".
Life is an endless pursuit of finding our shortcomings and we are so absorbed in it that we never try to find out WHO WE ARE.


Thnx 4 commenting on my blog Snigdha. I really appreciate that.

Anonymous said...

Hi Asha, Middleage, Avinash ! Thanks a million for pondering and sharing your thoughts.
Hey, Asha ... it is soooo.ooo.. wonderful to hear you back ! Sorry, could not know when u came back from your long break! Renovation must be over - hope , u have posted photos of your house in new avatar ! I will check out all your blogs. How I like your mouth-watering, great-looking recipes !! Thanks for commenting - you will always remain my First Blog friend and my first blog-guru. You may decipher from my blog-posts over the last five months that a lot of water has flown in my life. Now I am on a mission to share - from food for pallet to food for thought - whatever I have .
Coming back to the thought in this post, well, Asha, it could be either your shortcomings .. or your hidden strengths !!
You know your strengths much better in trying situations which lay traps for u to behave as a person you are not. U might have seen some people, who appear very meek and submissive, and very often they themselves feed to that image unknowingly through their behaviour arising actually out of positive thinking, but interpreted by not-so-evolved people as acceptance of the weak. These people when they are taken for granted for wrong reasons, they discover that they are actually NOT weak or meek , but they are strong within and courageously stand up for a cause they are committed to. If you are inherently a person of values, you may not really get to know so seriously about yourself so long as you have not encountered a situation that demands compromising your values. If u come out of the situation clean, you know you are not a coward but a courageous person; if not, you were only fooling yourself if you thought u r a person of values. Yes, ther point regarding encountering the ugly self is equally pertinent. Many a time we indulge in self-delusion about ourselves being the paragon of all virtues and values; but when encountered with a trying situation that requires demonstration of these virtues/values, we sorrily find ourselves to be lacking. Then, of course, another story can begin – do we live with the lackings or having found out, we take action to do something about them in a positive manner – to use the words of Middleway – try to go through or walk around the “wall of not “.
Thanks Middleway for those thoughtful comments.
Avinash, it is great to see youngsters like you taking such keen interest in deliberating on issues of deeper import. If people of your age make time just to pause a bit and reflect over various dimensions involving life once a while, I am sure, this earth would be so much a better place for all to live! I appreciate your comments – obviously u have given a piece of your mind to it . Your observation is very correct that most of the time we are busy finding out our shortcomings and miss out on knowing who we are. But as I ve already said, think about it from the other standpoint – try more and more to find who you are, in terms of your strengths (e.g. u r honest, u r hard-working, u r enthusiastic, u r courageous, u r truthful, u r peace-loving, u are caring, u r a team-player etc. Etc. ) ... , and who you are not, in terms of weaknesses , e.g. u r not a coward, u r not an escapist , u r not a loser, u r not dishonest,.. etc. etc ). My take is : Knowing both (who we are and who we are not)would help us evolve to the next level of personal and professional development .

Anonymous said...

You see things best when the background holds the contrast. Well depicted in what you quoted.This makes you feel so incredibly small realizing what you are not in relation to what you are. Good one to keep one humble. It also gives you a small canvass to focus on and improve yourself rather than get distracted by the vast " you are not" zone. Makes the task more human.

Anonymous said...

Hi Sambit, great to hear back from you. must have been busy with ...ll those talks /negotiations recently.
Yeah, you have very succinctly put it .. we see things best, when the background holds the contrast. Thx for putting so much in so few words ! But I would request you to elaborate a bit on your comment - this makes you feel so incredibly small realizing what u are not in relation to what u r .

Rajeswari said...

Every step we take -away from who we are to whom we are not,only pulls us more aggressively back ,forcing us to appreciate the real beauty of our own self..Almost like a cheating husband who is harshly reminded of the lovely face of his innocent wife every moment he spends away from her.He finally crashes on his knees before her and offers the whithering flower of his love to her..only her.

Rajeswari said...

i wanted to quickly pen down what came to my mind before i read other comments...Well,lot of wisdom here...

FH said...

Hi S, e mail me(go to my profile). I will let you in, can see lot of pics! :))

Anonymous said...

Usually the space taken by " What you are not" is much bigger than " What you are".But then many areas therein are out of reach for you even when they are very interesting.You can optimise by staying in your zone rather than meandering into the other zone even when the grass looks greener thereat.