Love From enjoying those late night heartwarming conversations to spending the night staring at the ceiling reflecting about ourselves, love has all got us there, sometime. Gaur Gopal Das, an engineer turned lifestyle coach elucidates love as a great blend of caring and daring, daring to stand up and accept the person completely regardless of their faults and shortcomings and caring to strive for the physical, emotional, spiritual welfare of the person whom we love. As a matter of fact, love is more about giving and less about expecting in other words it is an effort to love someone unconditionally. Love is to invest emotionally in to someone knowing that the rate of return is zero and the biggest disappointment is that there is no emotional insurance. It would not be an exaggeration to say that love brings with it, suffering. The Buddhism has suggested four elements of true love as: Maitri, Karuna, Mudita and Upekcha. As I finish explaining these elements, perhaps our perception o...

  What’s your excuse for doing things you shouldn’t be doing? “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently what that which should not be done at all.” These words by Peter Drucker hit me hard when I realized I was doing what I want but not what I need, the different things in life. My initial reaction or an immediate justification to it was–Of course, this shouldn’t be done, but I’m doing it anyway and that’s a problem. What’s your excuse to the things you shouldn’t be doing? James Prochaska, professor of Clinical and Health Psychology at the University of Rhode Island has developed a model for the six stages of change we go through before we completely work through any problem as: Pre contemplation, contemplation, Preparation, Action, Maintenance and Recycling/Relapse. I’ll be discussing these stages in detail. Pre contemplation is the first state of change when you have accepted that there’s a problem but you aren’t thinking of its solution just yet. If you find yo...

Understanding Are you ever dissatisfied to that extent that your chest feels like you can’t take it anymore? That rush inside I could feel you, when you try your best but still can’t make someone understand. Understanding, according to the dictionary is an ability to understand something or someone. Simple may this definition sound, but is actually quite difficult to understand. Understanding is more than just being with someone on the same page, relating to what the other person is trying to convey. Understanding is more like walking in the other person’s shoes and looking things from his/her perspective.   It is someone’s honest efforts to listen at least for a moment, leaving behind the predetermined understanding they have about the matter. Well, everyone has an ability to understand but do you really feel understood? I guess only a few of us do. But quite contrarily, the one to whom you are trying to explain yourself feels that they understand you because they think they’r...

An Elastic Man Uff! Sighs someone at their backyard, after sitting there looking past through everything for an hour. Who knows what might they be thinking of or be going through? If you’ve encountered that someone, maybe he/she might be an elastic man. They might be someone loaded with hefty responsibilities and stresses or someone who is on a humble pursuit for happiness. “Don’t grow it’s a trap” Jettie quoted it beautifully, life was much happier back when we were kids I guess. With your parents to lean on and you not having to care for anything, life seemed easy and happy back then. But life happened, didn’t it? We had to grow, and unwillingly accept that we are adults if not at least kids anymore. If you’re in your early twenties certainly you must have realized that it’s hard to be an adult and even more to live up to it. Yes, it is responsibility as an adult that I’m talking about–one as a son or a daughter, a boyfriend or a girlfriend, a husband or a wife, a brother or ...

Occasionally Yes “Hey! You want a puff? “Someone in our circle asks passing us a blunt. No, not really. I gave up smoking. This is the most common answer the occasional smokers have. I call these people the intermediate who can quickly transition from a Yes to No and vice versa. As time passes by and the smoke diffuses all over the ambient air, the moment comes when the intermediate people ask for the same blunt. If you pass this moment, congratulations you aren’t smoking today. “Eastern Hearts, Western Minds” is what we’ve heard and felt proud of. The problem with eastern culture is in providing personal space and respecting others opinion. Remember, how many times your relatives forced you for a drink when you were reluctant to. I call these people the blackmailers who want everyone to put up with them and don’t quite care if you are in a state of moral obligation. The intermediates are in a way a product of people’s habit to compel others join for their cause. It’s quite evide...

The Bus “Bus” the name already sounds so dear to me, and maybe it does sound a little familiar to you as well. And why wouldn’t it? The name in itself means “for everyone” and is being used in this sense since 1823. The struggling middle class makes up a large portion of that everyone in the bus definition. Being one of the cheapest and convenient modes of transportation bus is an inseparable part of normal person’s life. From cruising swiftly on smooth terrains to bumping across the puddles the ride is no less than an adventure trip in Kathmandu. “Banepa, Dhulikhel, Koteshwor, Rnac” sounds no less enchanting to me when I’m waiting on 28 kilo’s bus stand to set off for the day. The traffic here in Kathmandu never seems to really be shallow but we struggle finding our ride home many a times. No doubt you feel lucky if you manage to find a seat, luckier if that’s a seat without any reservations and luckiest, if there are less raised arm pits exposed to the ambient on that clumsy sp...

The loner Loner–A person who avoids company or assistance of others, the dictionary defines. I’m sure most of us can relate to as we read, but how much of a loner are you? Well, I’m a loner too but I believe I’m a little less when I’m around few people, the number that gets decreasing as life goes on. Maybe the loners are an introvert but quite amazingly expressive around a few people. I personally dislike being called a loner for I believe every individual is a loner at some time or the other and why wouldn’t they be? It’s a universal truth that everyone is born alone and dies alone so it should be cool if someone keep up to themselves. Having said that, I do not quite mean to say that all our relationships be it with a family, friends or someone special is obsolete–Of course, we can’t afford being a full time loner. Often expressed in songs “We need someone to lean on” It should be quite evident. When we lean on someone, maybe we tend to forget very soon that nothing lasts ...