Shades of Green

I can't wait to go home! There's nothing like home. I miss my sister. I miss my dog, Teddy. I miss my mom, dad, and grandmom. I miss them so much.  A few months back, my sister and I sat along with our mom reminiscing memories from our childhood. We love teasing our mom for how rude she used to be and how bad teachers were those days. It's just beautiful. Days just went by so quick that, before we even realized we've become young adults.  I sat laughing to myself as I came across this particular childhood memory of mine -- I, my sister and mom went out for some evening shopping. Those days mom had just learnt how to drive and so we usually travelled everywhere on our Maruti Alto.  We'd almost been done with our shopping. But, mummy had to get some medicines for our grandpa. It was probably six thirty by then and was getting dark. She parked the car by the side of the road and told us to sit inside the car, while she would go get the medicines. We both happily agreed

"Don't give up, even if the path seems narrow" Every woman deserves just as many rights as a man does. When I first got into the corporate world, landing my first job after university, I was happy beyond words.  One month into the job, I realized I was being paid lesser than I deserved. I came to senses on the fact that I could have negotiated for an increase in my pay. But, what pulled me back then from even thinking about a negotiation? When I paid exactly the same fee for a degree in the University as every male counterpart of mine did, what possibly could have made me refrain from a salary negotiation?  I was highly unaware of this widely prevalent gender gap that still exists until I came across Sheryl Sandberg's TEDx talk show on YouTube.  "The phenomenon of capable people being plagued by self-doubt has a name - the impostor syndrome" She writes about the reason why women consistently underestimate themselves and that in moments when men judge their p

My thoughts have since always and forever bothered me. I never realized the kind of impact my thoughts had on my life until I came across a few books that helped me realize it. Have you noticed how we self-sabotage ourselves most of the time. Accepting everything else around us seems possible, except us. We tend to always place our failures on billboards and our achievements in small bits of paper, folded and hidden somewhere.  When we were little children, we always did things which made us happy. We loved ourselves naturally. But then as we grew up, we were taught to put others before us because self-love equaled selfishness. That led us to completely ignoring anything we did for us and prioritizing everything we did for others.  Over time, we started to find solace in other people's approval of us. Any time we got reprimanded for something we did, especially by the ones we loved, we were sent straight to gloom. If we were good today, tomorrow we were nothing but trash. Okay. If