100

Okay this is kinda landmark for me...Can you believe this is my 100th post??When I first started writing in 2005 the objective was purely the joy of expression. While this basic drive is still there, many other reasons for the blog came up in due course of time. It became a way to recollect the happenings of life, reminisce the good old days gone by and then ISB happened. I promised myself that during my stay at ISB I would try to give the prospective applicants a glimpse of life of an MBA grad and the emotional ride he goes through. Now that is over it is more about my life and happenings and feelings again. Anyways I want to express my heartfelt thanks to all the readers of my blog. Some of you have been the source of inspiration, critic and your inputs have been invaluable to me personally.

It has been quite sometime since this post was overdue and I kept thinking what it should be. Well to be honest I have not decided on that..so let the post be another of my rants about life in general and things that affect each of us.

"I Need someone to make me happy" - You hear this over and over again from people at different phases of life. While the basic tenet of the statement is undeniable, I think the finer and important point that most people miss out is that no one can make us happy unless we try to make ourselves happy. Each of us must "practice the art of being happy". People around us can try to make us feel special and happy but ultimately the onus is on us.

"You need two people to make a relation succeed" - Again an oft repeated and beaten to death statement. You need both parties to give an effort to make a relation succeed. Of course this is true but is there more to this? On the face of it this seems very natural but I think many a times it doesn't take two people to make a relationship work. It takes one person who has enough patience and maturity to ride out the difficult phase. Every couple goes through turbulent phases in a relation and the key to the relation is how to deal with this phase. And I think if one person gives the other time and space to sort things out on their own, things look really bright. Well the key assumption is that when things are better both people put in an effort to sustain it.

"You should never trust anyone unless they earn it" - In today's world you can literally be ripped apart if you do not follow this. Time and again it has been proven that we should be extremely careful as to whom to trust and how much. I somehow subscribe to a different view. Somewhat a judicial view that everyone is trustworthy unless otherwise proven. Does that mean I blindly trust people and get taken for a ride? No that would be foolish. All I am trying to say is not to look at everyone thinking they are there to cheat us. There are enough good honest people around us still. Sure you can end up getting hurt, loosing money and so one and so forth and hence I would advise you to think of the cons if you want to try this path out.

"Money doesn't buy happiness" - I am a total believer of this. But at the same point many people who use this statement are people who have money. The thing is while money cannot buy happiness it surely goes a long way in making our lives better. I mean these days you can literally throw money at any problem you can think of and get a temporary respite or a momentary high. But once the effect wears off you can be sure that feel good factor is going to vanish too. So in effect money is a necessary condition but not a sufficient condition for happiness.

I would like to end this very heavy philosophical post with a thought. Each of us are inherently nice and we have the ability to make some people around us feel special and help them be happy. We should give this a serious thought. Trust me it will make you happy too. So go ahead spend sometime with you neighbourhood elder whom you typically ignore or play with the naughty kid whom you generally find irritating or gift something to the hapless or just Say Thank You to an important person in your life whom you never told how special he/she is.