The focal point of your life – YOU!

Imagine you are at a restaurant or a park and you see one of the famous movie director around. While you got busy conversing with your friend/family member, you are suddenly approached by that movie director. He/she says – they want to make a movie on your life and cast you as the hero/heroine of the movie. The storyline is your life – from birth till current life, with all your supporting characters being your parents, family, friends, teachers, colleagues etc. The movie will be your entire life journey but the plot of the movie matters – Your life is in the spotlight now! What story would you like to tell? Will it be your nature, the roles you played in other’s lives, the goals you achieved, the locations you travelled or the mundane daily life that you lived fulfilling others needs which most times is a struggle for you. When you decide your movie’s plot, would you cater to the audiences’ interest, your family’s or friend’s interest? do you want to showcase your life through their eyes or yours? How would you want to portray yourself? – A winner, a learner, a discoverer, or a selfless human being who keeps others first over self and lives his/her life? Remember, the decision is yours!

I have a lot of intriguing questions that I want you to ask yourself while you go through this blog – I want you to shift your focus to one important person in your life. Read on to arrive at the answer in your mind –

1. As adults, when it comes to decisions be it choosing career paths or life decisions or as simple as attires or food options or even doing happy stuff – who do we rely most on?
2. Whose thoughts or words or mindset do we most believe in?
3. Who is your favourite hero/heroine and why? What qualities of them do you admire?
4. We stretch for extra hours for work deadlines, projects etc or go over the limit for our spouse, kids or parents putting their needs over self (it is not wrong at all), but where do our needs go? Do they ever get fulfilled or they just drain out due to lack of time?
5. When you are alone in a lift or with a stranger – why do we get engrossed to our phones browsing or flipping through screens restlessly?
6. When deciding to go on a trip or even while commuting from one place to another, we either look for company or cancel our plans waiting – why is it difficult to enjoy our own company?
7. When we plan on getting fit or losing weight, it is either because our family coaxes us to or because we want our partners to accept us or to fit a dress that you want to wear to impress – why do we never think of getting fit or doing a workout because you want to for your own happiness?

If these questions have led you to the answer I am looking for, I will be thrilled. One last story before I arrive at the main plot of my blog. Recently, a colleague of mine had her farewell at office and we had a small celebration for her with cake cutting and her farewell speech of course. Then came the twist – her manager gave her a task to be done – one last time. To each of the 20-25 people available in that room, she had to mention the first and the last impression she had of them. Now this was a real task! Having interacted with some to no interactions with the others, this was a difficult task for her, because for some of them she didn’t know their names due to lack of interactions. this is natural, bound to happen. But this exercise kept me wondering – In my daily life, I meet so many people, interact with some, work with some, just smile at the others maybe but do I impact these people’s lives in anyway with my words or actions that I will be remembered by them in some way or the other, if not for life. All these questions, thoughts drilldown to one main role that we are playing and one important person that we tend to keep last or even forget in the whole race of life of living selfless and for others – You! Our life is like a movie – there are ups and downs, happy and sad stories, success and failures, new learnings etc and only we can play our role in this movie, no one else can play it for us. Each one is a hero of their own story/movie. If we are in the main lead, are we playing the role right or being a support to other’s life stories and letting time run out of our hands? We go out of the way to do things for others – family, friends, work etc or even worry what others think of us and commit to doing things for them but how many times have we done things for ourselves, for our own happiness and life?

The big discovery to self begins from you! Knowing your true self, knowing your strengths, your weaknesses and holding your individuality strong! Each of us are one of a kind, one of a billion in this entire big world – Unique and special in our own ways. Like the fingerprints stand out unique and do not repeat/match with others, same way no one can match us in anyways. This world has just one you! If this is your chance to live life, only you can do justice to your life by living in ways you want to – no one else can live for you. I always keep telling myself, “I am the one and only Zeba Abdulla. There can be no other in this world, now or later. I know my strengths, I know my weaknesses yet I am beautiful, strong, and special in my own ways and no one can be me.”

Yet we live dual lives – based on other’s opinions, following the herd etc. We look for validation from the world for our actions. If it is not as per the society, then we feel we are wrong and then follow the herd blindly. Yes, you may have circumstances, situations that might force you to follow the herd but there are times when you need to make your own choices, focus better and work it out for yourself, your own happiness as this is just one life you have to live.

Most of us find it difficult to focus on ourselves – as easy as writing about ourselves – mainly self-appreciation or even accepting appreciation. We all have faced this where people compliment us and we find it hard to accept it at times. At a recent training I attended, called the “#I am incredible” session, the trainer asked us to write down about ourselves, with each line beginning with ‘I am incredible because …’  in two sections – ‘Professional and Personal’, I must say, this exercise was so hard at first because every time I thought about myself that I am incredible for such and such, my brain began to add filters and questions to each line where I began to shift my focus to what the audience would think if I said this or they could feel this is so trivial, should I really write down this line, what if others find this so normal etc. It was weird when we shared it out to the audience – questions like what if I sounded boastful, what if people laughed at me, what if I sounded egoistic etc but it was a good exercise. After I shared my lines, I felt wonderful within and the audience was appreciative. It did not sound boastful or showy at all.

Recently, I watched the movie, ‘True Spirit’ on Netflix and was able to connect to the storyline and picturization very strongly. This movie is a real-life story of Jessica Watson who sailed across the world seas solo at the age of 16. The movie shows how she was fascinated by this dream/aim ever since she was a 4-year-old and how she passionately pursued it with her coach and family’s help and support. She sails through the seas all by herself, facing good times, hard times, rains, huge storms, no winds at times that did not move her boat for over 7 days leaving her dejected. During all these experiences, she had to take care of herself, be her own strength, all for herself, all by herself in this whole voyage and adventure she took up to fulfil her big dream. Obviously, there was the world questioning and criticizing her dream goal and raising brows because she was too young for this big feat but she chose to go ahead with it and she accomplished and returned home victorious.

Isn’t life the same for us? This is our boat/ship that we must run with our own decisions, our own choices, enjoy the good times like the sunshine, face our hardships alone that come like storms… storms that can either drown us or take us high above to the next level depending on how we are ready to face it. This is our journey, our time, our dreams and our one and final attempt to make it happen with this one opportunity we received called life. Imagine handing over our life boat’s steering wheel to others – our parents, our friends, family members etc and letting them take control – how would you feel?

The truth is – This journey called life is YOURS – you are traveling solo here in this beautiful world created by the Almighty. We are born alone, we die alone. Yes, we have relationships – parents from whom we come, friends that we make, relationships we get into from love to marriage, children that we bear etc but all these are for our survival here in this world. They are not coming with us when we die. There is separation in every phase – we will have people leave us – by death, by separation, by distance, by their own choices etc. What stays with us is their love, their experiences, the stories of togetherness but eventually it is your life, your living! Same for our wealth, properties, gold etc. We are mortal and our time is limited. I am not emphasizing that we all should leave everything and go live our lives in the woods or mountains. What I have come to believe is that each one of us has a purpose in this life – we must ask ourselves, “Are we doing things right or living our lives in the right way and creating our movies as blockbusters or just letting it go down the drain by living the way our people want to live for us, only to realize later that, “Damn! This was not what I wanted to do, I had other plans….” And then you may not even have the time or the age or energy to rewind back as time never rewinds, it only moves forward.

On my solo trip, I stayed in a room of an 80-year-old writer/author – she is the famous film director, Bimal Roy’s daughter who carries her father’s legacy and history on her shoulders. She insisted I read her newly launched book – ‘The Oldest Love Story – A Motherhood Anthology’. In the preface of the book, she writes on how she felt she was least needed or cared for when her children became adults as they all wanted to move out to pursue their dreams, their journeys. When this happened, she felt lonely and was looking for ways to keep herself busy after her children left.  

That sums to the big question here – ‘How do we write our life’s storyline here? By the lives we lived for them or for ourselves?’.

I have done my certification in Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and there is a method by which we solve our problems neurologically or take our decisions on the choices, but it is also a way of understanding our true self and connecting ourselves with those choices or decisions –

1. Identity level – What sort of a person are you? getting a sense of yourself and what you want to accomplish in the world?
2. Beliefs and values level – What is important to you? What do you find worthwhile about what you do? What empowering beliefs you have about yourself? What are your values that you live by?
3. Capability level – When focusing on your skills, what skills do you have in your life? What is the quality of your thinking? what communication and relationship skills do you have?
4. Behaviour Level – On a daily basis, what are you doing? describe your usual day. How does your behaviour fit into the environment?
5. Environment – Describe your surroundings – Where you live, who is around you and what do you particularly notice about this environment.

One must begin a quest to self – it is never too late at any age and I must tell you, you will not be disappointed. Knowing yourself, your passions, your choices and being proud of it in your own ways and not looking for any sort of validations except your own is a different feeling of greatness altogether. The best way to take a journey to self is a solo trip.

A solo trip teaches you lessons for life I must say – right from planning and choosing the place, trusting your plans, your decisions to travelling to getting back – it is all on you. You have your own company, you eat alone, you meet new people, go to new places etc but you are in your own company most times. I did a solo trip recently and it has taught me life lessons that I had written them down with all of my experiences and thoughts around each of them, so that anytime in my life I feel low or less confident about myself, I can always read these stories, experiences and know my real strengths and weaknesses.

With the solo trip, I learnt to trust my decisions, I understood my choices better, I enjoyed my own company –

• I learnt that planning well, being organized and responsible are my strengths.
• I had the confidence to travel.
• I learnt to eat alone at a restaurant (as per my friend, that is the biggest fear of doing things alone).
• I did not have to fret or worry about the choices I made – I learnt to take each experience as new and was welcoming.
• I went out of my comfort zone by trying new adventures.
• Enjoyed and felt accomplished for every small win, small visits etc.
• I learnt to trust the fact that there are kind people in this world, who genuinely want to help and guide.
• I learnt the value of gratitude – I was constantly thankful for the timings of my commute, the kind people I met who guided me well, for the food that kept me energized, for new experiences of nature, for being safe in all places – this gratitude helped me get more of such good experiences.
• I learnt the value of prayer – I believe in divine intervention and I was confident that I will be protected, safe and away from all hardships.
• I overcame my fears of motion sickness, nauseous feeling etc.
• Overthinking is my weakness but on a solo trip, I did not waste my time weighing options and instead went with the flow – be it visiting places or choosing food options. Every choice was different and worked out well for me.
• You had to be your own friend in the entire trip – right from taking decisions, eating on time, keeping your stuffs and money safe, taking meds in case you feel sick, travelling safely and enjoying every bit of this solo trip.
• Overall, I felt free, even in my head – no tensions, no worries of anything – the entire time was for self, enjoying the places and just me.

Usually, when your decisions work out, you feel accomplished, but if they fail, we sulk and also blame ourselves as we do not have others to be blamed here. But one lesson I learnt from my friend, who does solo trips herself – she said if something does not work out right, do not let that affect your mood and get low, you must accept it and move on with it as a new learning and it worked. There were times when things did not go my way or I didn’t reach to the places I planned on time, but eventually whatever worked I began to accept and go with the flow and it gave me a good feeling in the end.

My entire purpose of this blog is to help you as a reader shift focus on self – We will have our daily lives grinding us hard, relationships and their needs keeping us busy – but if we live our lives for them fulfilling their needs, in their ways and methods – when will we live our lives for ourselves and fulfil our needs? We all are someone’s hero in our lives – for our children, for our friends in some or the other ways and most importantly for ourselves. So as a hero of your own story, what are you doing different today to make your life worth living?

PS : This is the first of the two series blog on Quest for self. Look out for my next blog on more on self-discovery and finding the best of self.