Valentine's Day is marketed everywhere as the day of love. There are pink and red hearts all over the city from ice cream parlours to bookshops, movie halls do special film screenings, restaurants have curated multiple course meals for the day, flower-sellers make a killing on their roses. Love is celebrated as if it is the one thing that really matters in life, and for many of us, it might feel as if it really is all that matters. For many who aren't in a relationship despite really wanting to be in one, Valentine's Day can be the worst - it is like a diabetic being forced to really through candy stores, chocolate factories, cupcake bakeries and the such one after the other without end.
There is probably just one category of people who suffer a lot more, and that is the people who are bubbling over with love on that day, only to have their heart crushed by their beloved. Did you know that a significant number of breakups happen around Valentine's Day? Some studies have shown as much as 7 to 10 percent of all breakups happen on this day. Another lot happens around New Year's, and a third lot happens around anniversaries. What is it about Valentine's Day that makes some people call off relationships? It is not just the quick Christmas - New Year winter loneliness triggered coming together that gets called off with the early signs of spring. It is even relationships that have stood for years that often get broken up on this day. Has Valentine's Day become some sort of a day of testing of one's feelings for another person? Does the heightened focus on love in all its colors, flavors and sizes make one check in for the authenticity of their emotions towards their beloved? Is it harder to lie to oneself about what one feels towards someone when it is blown up extra large and one can't ignore the superficiality of those feelings? So many of us are in love with the idea of relationships, of being a 'we' and 'us' together, of finally not being alone that we might take up a relationship just because it allows us the temporary relief of not being lonesome, of belonging with someone, of being seen as 'taken.' These seen such beautiful phases in life and we want so badly to feel those emotions that we take up relationships that aren't really soul-satisfying. We might even make do with such connections, feeling satisfied that atleast there is this much and it is better than nothing. When we are really pulled into looking at our relationship by the social magnification that happens on days like Valentine's Day, we have no choice but to take a deep, hard look at ourselves. It becomes really hard to deny our truth if we aren't really in love, just as much as it is if we are and if we need to break up to give ourselves freedom to get to real love, so be it. As written for The New Indian Express The Golden Globe awards are over, and so are the BAFTAs. The Oscars are around the corner. If you are excited about feature films, documentaries and the entertainment industry in general, you might be really interested in all these celebrations of the craft, to the extent of staying up or taking time off to watch the telecast live, track it on twitter and if you are really a huge fan, you might make it a full party at home, perhaps with chips, salsa and drinks, or go the full hog and have a barbeque with friends and family dressed up to cheer their favourite movie, maybe even have a side of betting to make it spicy.
Awards season can be exciting, but for many others, these awards mean nothing at all, and they would be doing all these party-like celebrations for other things, like cricket, for example or American or European sports. Maybe some of you had Super Bowl parties and got your game on for Kansas, and others did something like that for European football. Maybe it is neither movies or sports, but pageants or MasterChef – the lists of awards and celebrations are endless. In a world where practically anything has an audience and special occasions are live telecast somewhere or the other, on the internet if not on cable TV, we get to celebrate these things live and on as big a screen as we want. Whatever the hobby or interest area that you are keen on, there is something magical about watching it happen. The movie buff could very well just read about it on social media next day, and the sports fan could just watch the highlights along with the news or on Hotstar during their commute, but there is so much joy in watching things live, especially with loved ones. Love is something like that. One could also be in a relationship where everything is functional, and things happen by calendar appointments, routines and structures, with hardly any emotion. Most of us though, want to love like it is the big awards night. We want out love to be the big winner, to be celebrated with friends and family, to see it live. That probably is one of the primary reasons why people have major weddings and commitment ceremonies for which they call hundreds if not thousands of people, throw enormous feasts and make sure it is an event everyone will remember – like having Jennifer Lopez and Shakira dance together for a Super Bowl and keep this one so special. One could love quite privately, and really not want the huge big blowout of a party, but chances are that you’d still want to celebrate it in a more intimate manner, like the sedate but special ceremonies of the Nobel Prize announcements and the dinners after. The scale and size of the awards, and how public they are might be different, but loving and being loved can certainly feel like the Best Picture award on Oscar night, and by all means, celebrate it. As written for The New Indian Express How often would you like to be told that you are loved? Just think about it for a moment and honestly consider the question - would you like it if your beloved tells you they love you every day, a couple of times each day? What if you hear these words whispered first thing to you reach morning, and last thing before you go to sleep? How about if they tell you the three magic words once every few days or even once in a few months back when there is something extraordinarily lovable going on? And what if they tell you these words really, really rarely to the point that you can't even remember hearing it?
For most of us, just thinking of the decreased frequency of hearing these words can be quite the dampener. We can feel our heart rise at the idea people of being reassured of being loved often and on the other side of the same, if we imagine being never really told we are told, we can feel our heart sink. We might tell ourselves we don't really need it and that we are quite alright without hearing it, or we might try and read that meaning into many different things, but the truth is that we do want to know that we are loved. Now, consider the other side of the same question: how often do you express love for your beloved? How often do you say those words, or do things that clearly show you love this person? Do you show or say your love as often as you would like to hear it? Do you say it a lot more than you hear it? Or are you more tentative in your expression of such love, waiting for it to be told so that you can reciprocate? Is it easier for you to love or to be loved? Chances are that we are different in how much we express love and how much we want to experience being loved on an ongoing basis. The difference is rarely genetic or just how we are built - it is a result of how our previous experiences were. How we were loved, whether it left us hurt and made us retreat into ourselves just so that we feel safe, or did we get to love deeply and safely, and were able to let it go lightly - that is what makes the difference. If we were beloved in our lives and if we had good endings, we learn to cherish being loved and not fear its loss so much. We are ok to share those emotions even at the risk of losing it, and we have faith in ourselves and the world around us. A good love, well-remembered doesn't usually take away the ability to love again and as deeply. In reality, a well-loved person is usually able to love again deeply, and that is worth aiming for in all our lives As written for The New Indian Express When was the last time you were at a clinic for a regular health check?
Ideally, all of us need to go in for a regular full-body health scan every so often. Doctors recommend annual check-ups for all people, half-yearly for people over forty, and quarterly for people over sixty, even if there are no known health issues. If anyone has a chronic health condition like diabetes, thyroid issues, blood pressure or any of the hundred things that could go wrong with one’s body, then there is a definite requirement for ongoing monitoring and management. Chances then are that you probably go for these health checks every quarter, if you are a good patient, and in any case, at least once a year. While the first visit or two might be nerve wracking, after the first few visits, you get to know the routine really well, become quite familiar with the staff and maybe even really friendly with them. You know them by their look, might even know them by name and definitely smile at the staff with a sense of recognition and familiarity, and they very likely return the warmth, even if the place is crowded and you know they may not really know you or remember you personally. It is the rare patient that remains cold and aloof in such places, and the rarer doctor, nurse or staff that is curmudgeonly in such a place. Even though it is a clinic, there is little that is clinical about such places, with the staff acting as though they were indulgent teachers in a nursery school and the patient behaving as if they were naughty children hoping to get the approval of their elders in the class. The family of the patient assume the role of parents in such situations, at once protective of their ward while at the same time, behaving like the guardian of the patient. It is evident in how the staff and the patient look at the blood and other body function test results – it is hardly different from how they might have behaved in a parent-teachers meeting when they were in junior school. When you treat your body with this much regularity of care for its health, what would it be like if you took similar care for your mind, and more to the point, how would it be if you checked in on your relationships in this manner with regular checkups, and if you discover any issues, then to really work on it? Love and relationships are like any other function in our lives. They can be running along peacefully for a long time, and you never know that some issues are cooking below the surface till they explode, like how we might discover an underlying blood pressure issue or diabetes quite suddenly, or discover there is a slightly off heartbeat in a regular ECG as part of an annual health check. Issues in our relationships may not be readily apparent. Maybe we need regular health checks for love as well. As written for The New Indian Express |
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