How To Guide - To Keep Your Resolutions

It’s another New Year and few new resolutions been made. After a month some of you might have already broken those resolutions and feeling guilty. Some of you might be struggling hard to keep the resolutions alive.

Good luck to those who are still continuing with the resolution and those are the only one who will be benefitted the most. You are already on right track and keep continuing the good work.

If you feel under the category who made resolutions at the start of the year but not able to keep that. You keep them for few days or months but never able to achieve your targets. You feel your resolutions are under "my impossible resolutions" category? Do not worry, this article will help you to keep your resolutions, going forward.

I was in the category where I made resolutions on the eve of New Year and break them in a day or two. Sometimes I tried for another 15 days and broke them. Everything changed when I started following these steps and find SMART way to keep them which benefitted me over the year.

  

Although, I still break some resolutions but keep most of them. So I am still learning and mastering this technique but it’s definitely worth sharing with you.

Create SMART Resolutions

Will you able to keep your resolutions or not, is decided by the way you make it. What is your resolution(s) this year? These are some sample common resolutions people make.

 To lose weight this year.

Stop smoking this year.

To write a best-selling novel this year.

To become class topper this year.

To transform self into a traveler this year.

You can add your resolution to this list and verify if you are making your resolutions correct way or not.

The intentions of making any of your resolutions will be always right. If you are able to keep them, then the fruits of benefits will be rewarded to you only.

The only problem with all these above resolutions, they are not SMART and hence will fail eventually.

Your resolutions are your target of this year. So treat them as targets to achieve with some strict deadlines, of a year.

Contrary to popular belief, it’s not necessary your resolutions must start on 1^st January and end on 31^st December. It can start on 1^st January but can be ended any date of the year. In short, resolutions are as good as goals of your life targeted specific to one year.

What is the SMART resolution?

The full form of SMART is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound. This means any resolution you make, must fall in this category.

Always make a resolution which is Realistic, Specific, Measurable, and also has a definite Time period, with a clear execution plan and completion date. Yes, everything must be incorporated into one or two lines of resolution.

Now, let’s make all the above resolutions SMART.

SMART Resolution Example 1

There was no harm in thinking “To lose weight this year”. The only problem is how much and till when. So that you can define your further action plan. 

• I will lose 10 Kg weight by 31^st October.

The first thing this resolution defined that you have to reduce 1 Kg every month to achieve this goal. Your resolution is Specific (1 Kg per month), Measurable (10 Kg), Achievable (Within limit), Time Bound (Defined target date as 31^st October).

To make it Realistic you need to ensure the weight you are going to lose is specific to your body. 10 Kg may be too low or too high for you to loose.

Don’t create a resolution that is not realistic enough to achieve. Like losing 10 Kg every month. What so ever exercise you do, initially 10 Kg a month may possible but eventually, it will not. Hence it’s not realistic.

Same holds true for realistic and achievable target dates.

SMART Resolution Example 2

It’s excellent to create a resolution that you will “Stop smoking this year”. Now how realistically you are going to achieve this?

If you were a chain smoker last year and want to make a resolution to quit smoking this year. Say, you were smoking one packet a day last year (300 cigarettes a month), then you can’t change that behavior from Dec 31^st last year to Jan 1^st this year with no cigarette a day. Unless you have the strongest mind and body possible.

Your resolutions should be realistic enough to reduce the intake gradually to 0 by end of this year and it’s should be measurable and achievable too.

Your resolution must incorporate reduction you will do each day or month so that you don’t have to smoke at all in December. Based on the above statistics, your SMART resolution will be 

• I will reduce my intake of cigarette in a month of January to 250, February 200, March 150, April 100, May 50, June 25, July 15, August 10, September 5 and 0 cigarettes in October, November, and December.

The above case is just an example. I am not a smoker, to provide you a perfect plan but I believe you got the idea which can help you to keep your resolution.

If your mind is strong enough to wake up one fine day and decide, you will never smoke or your life had triggered an emotional event that helped you to stop smoking from next day onwards, and you actually stopped smoking that way, then this SMART resolution is not applicable.

Smart Resolution Example 3

This resolution will help you to identify the unrealistic approaches while creating it. The Original resolution was “To write a best-selling novel this year”.

The unrealistic part of this resolution is to make your novel best-selling. To make a novel best-selling, will never be in your hand. It will be in the hand of peoples who will love to read it.

You must not incorporate anything that’s not in your hand, inside the resolution.

Using keywords like Best Seller, Getting Published, become famous will be good for motivation while creating the resolution but after some time this will become the de-motivator to achieve your goal of the year.

Hence, the resolutions must not include anything which is beyond your control. In this case, your focus should be to write the Novel and at most publish it this year. So your SMART resolution will be

• I will write 500 words every day. I will finish my novel in 4 months. Ready the final draft by 31^st July this year. Then work on publishing this novel by November 30^th

Here it’s assumed that your Novel will be around 60000 words and you will able to write every day. This will realistically change based on the efforts you can actually make each day/week/month to realize this resolution.

Smart Resolution Example 4 and 5

You must have got the idea now about SMART resolutions. Let’s take the remaining two scenarios quickly.

When you make resolutions like “to become class topper this year.” Or “to transform self into a traveler this year”, your current and existing circumstances matters apart from your efforts too.

In the first case, while making a resolution like this in January when your exam is in February will only make sense if you can apply lots of intelligence along with hard work. 

Most of the school/college sessions are already half way by January and exams are anytime between Feb to April. So how much you have already studied last year will define your approach realistic or not. Unless it’s a new semester starting in January, this resolution may not be realistic.

• I will study 10 hours every day and will complete 1 chapter each of 3 different subjects every day.

The study capacity is dependent on the student and highly impacted by surroundings hence, be realistic will be the only recommended approach.

In the second case, you can transform yourself traveler based on your current financial situation, any spiritual, physical or mental dependencies. You need to plan your travel bookings by keeping all these situations in mind.

To transform yourself as a traveler you must mark the places you want to travel this year. Place them based on the coverage you can do each month along with other realistic dependent circumstances.

• I will go to Jammu and Kashmir in January, China in February, The United Kingdom and Scotland in March….and Goa in December.

Fill-up each month with some destinations (domestic or international) you really want to travel. Just keep the realistic features like budget, dependencies, availability and routes in mind while creating this resolution.

Execute SMART Resolutions

I have explained you in details about how to make resolutions. Once you have the resolution ready, write it down. This will become your goal. Identify who and what can help you to achieve this goal. Write that too.

Once you have the plan then your next job is to execute that plan on daily basis. If your resolutions are SMART you can easily distribute and target your daily goals.

Create a daily schedule to help you achieve those targets and also act on that schedule. You can either create your own custom daily schedule or can choose any online tools for this specific purpose.

In the first SMART resolution above, the person needs to lose 1 Kg of weight every month i.e. at least 33 grams every day.

To execute the resolution, you need to find what diet you need to incorporate or which exercise or instructor to choose. Your daily schedule and execution plan should only help to reduce weight and ensure you don’t put weight too.

Your plan must have weekly, fortnightly or monthly milestones and which will eventually accumulate to final milestones. Planning alone will not help, you need to execute it and also monitor your executions timely to ensure you are in right track or not.

This approach will also identify current or future obstacles early that can derail your resolution. Monitoring progress on time will also help you to analyze if you are going to achieve resolution on stipulated time frame or not.

Don’t forget to treat yourself, whenever you achieve some percentage of milestones. This will help to release happy and positive hormones and will keep you motivated along the way.

Example: treat when you reduce smoking to 25% or 50% compared to last year.

Smart People – SMART Resolutions

When a smart person fails to achieve targets, He neither blame himself nor others, he will just move on and try again.

Within a year while keeping your resolution, your environments or circumstance may change and will obstruct your resolutions.

Rather than losing hope or blaming yourself, luck or circumstances, try to find solution or workaround to that situation. Adjust and become flexible enough to accept the change. Work with the change rather than against the change.

Example: You want to write 500 words every day and some guests showed up suddenly. Your routine may get disrupt. In such kind of situations, change your schedule to fit in. If you write only in morning, and in this situation, it’s not possible then switch the writing at night or to different time accordingly. Still, if you miss your schedule then don’t lose hope. If there is a way to cover it up by putting some extra efforts go for that option or draw confidence from the achievements you got till your guests arrived.  

If you are going to miss your deadline but you are working consistently towards it then don’t worry about the time. You may only have estimated it wrongly and try to achieve that soon. 

Your SMART resolutions will only work when you adjust with your circumstances smartly. If you fail to achieve it within a year, then don’t wait till New Year to re-create your resolution. Just analyze the situation of what went wrong and then re-create resolution.

Realistic approach and correct estimate in your resolutions will be the key for achievements.

The day you changed yourself to make SMART resolution, consider that particular day as New Year. Your resolutions should be any day resolution rather than only New Year resolution.

If you have missed the month or years to your last resolution, today is the good time to re-start, re-create and re-execute that again.

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If you have any further questions on this article please leave your comments and I will try my best to help you out.

©Tapas Majumdar, Not for reproduction without Author's permission.

Extremely Short Stories - Part IV

This is the continuation of the series where earlier parts are Extremely Short Stories Part -I,  Part-II and Part-III. None of these parts were inter-related.

Inspirational Stories

The dyslexic child had grown up to receive the Noble Prize in Literature.

A mother took her newly born daughter in her lap and said to herself “I will ensure that you will not sacrifice yourself at any stage of life, the way I did at every stage of my life”.

He considers the street light and the bench underneath his parents because they are the one who helped him to study since childhood and ensured his graduation without interruption.

Finding her father crying on television interview for corruption charges against him, her daughter promised to herself that one day she will bring back pride to her father.

The whole stadium applauding and cheering for the local hero who came back to play the soccer match with his artificial legs that got amputated due to a major accident.

He is been thrown out from a train compartment by some British officers, he thought “let’s go back to my country and throw all Britishers out from my country” – The story of Indian freedom fighter Mahatma Gandhi

In this universe, a perfect moment of coincidence generated a huge ball of fire and after billions of years, someone named that ball as “Earth”.

He is diagnosed with cancer with slim chances to survive updated his Whats-app status “Ready to inspire those who run away from life”

During the extreme torture, he had to choose between his life that is precious for his family and the precious top secret information that can jeopardize his country and he decided to give the life over the information.

This business made him broke and lost everything and after few days he thought “let’s try one more time with a new business”.

Once procrastination was his favorite hobby he revealed about it when he received the most hardworking entrepreneur award.

Love Stories

It was a love at first sight. He had only seen her photograph and subconsciously admired her beauty. He realized she is more beautiful than her photograph on the night he went to kill her.

He found his true love during a one night stand.

The childhood friend met after many years. After few hours of time been spent together they realized their love never diminished in all these years and they can’t admit this to themselves, to each other and to their spouse.

He always loved money and always kept every money with him. Then after demonetization in India, he realized the money never loves him back.

The strangers married with a hope that love will grow someday. They know each other now but love for each other is still a stranger to them.

They live happily ever after and then she knocks on the door.


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Note: Many of these stories were originally posted at some of my Quora answers and some are original specific for this blog only.



©Tapas Majumdar, Not for reproduction without Author's permission.

My Tryst In Competitive Exams

It was a hot lazy summer and I followed my instinct and announced to my parents

“I want to do Engineering like Sharma Ji’s Son and I will take a year break after my 12^th Grade exams for that”.

My father scanned me from top to bottom and said in an angry tone

“No, you are not. No engineering for you” 

I have grown up in a very small town of Madhya Pradesh (M.P) and that year was 1993. At that time, M.P. was the largest state in India but one of the state with very poor literacy rate. Due to limited resources and information, there was no guidance available on how to proceed in life and career. I was also not an exception and by the time I reached grade 12th, I was wondering what to do next?

 I absolutely want to avoid someone if he had asked me this question

“What will you want to do in life”?  

I can’t even think about the answer. I feel I have to say something but sudden I don’t have a voice. The whole body terribly shook and you can feel the heat within your body is causing the sweat on your forehead. It’s like you are been thoroughly interrogated in a criminal case and you know, you did it and they are about to prove your involvements and you keep wondering whether to stay and face the charges or just flee from the scene. Things don’t change much, even today but it’s good that no one ask me the same question now, else I may come up with the same response, which will be kind of no response.  

Now, When these tough kind of questions been asked in Kindergarten, I simply find myself amused when children’s can able to answer this question smartly and properly. In my case, even after spending twelve complete years in education, which includes Kindergarten, I was really clueless what I really want to become.

It’s human nature to find answers to any curiosity been triggered in mind. Me with same curiosity asked my brother, who was really younger than me and was studying in Grade 7^th at that time.  I asked him with same intensity about what he wants to do “in life”. He with weird and confused look asks me the same question back. I realized this question, needs to ask only to someone who is also on the same boat.

So I started asking this question to my fellow classmates, I amazed to found my boat is kind of overcrowded. There are many of my classmates don’t know this answer either. We do found some of our brilliant, sincere and studious classmates who really know what they want to become. The brilliant answers came from them was either to become an Engineer or a Doctor!!!

Not sure how will I have reacted today but at that time the answer was a kind of a relief to me. It’s because I can tell to all those obsequious Uncles and Aunts who had already increased the frequency of this question whenever they find me. If you think, now I know what to do in life, you are wrong.

I have underestimated some of those Uncle’s, especially that one uncle whose daughter I was eyeing on. The one conversation goes like this with him.

“What you want to become in life?”

“Either I will become an Engineer or a Doctor” I will now able to answer this tough question with a grin.

The moment he received the answer to this question he started asking the next question

“So actually what will you become, Engineer or Doctor”?

I kind of tossed the coin inside my head and said “Engineer”.

The quick response to this question given me the kick and I have already started feeling the burning desire to become an Engineer. Which actually extinguished by the next question

“How are you planning to become an Engineer”?

I wish I knew the standard answer given in corporate world at that time, for this kind of questions

“I will get back to you on this”.

Unfortunately, at that time, my extra prolonged smile and Uncle’s nodded head and his disgusting look towards me the only way to end this conversation.

Same friends were my saviour who knows what to become in life. Since I already flipped my coin and it said engineering rocks!!  I enquired about all the ways to get into that. This time, I proactively asked some of the questions which I thought that Uncle may ask. I am now galvanized with joy to learn so many things in one day. I want to showcase my ecstasy to someone that I have all the answers now. Although somehow don’t want to meet that uncle so went to my friends place who was one of the members of my overcrowded boat to show off my newly find knowledge.

I reached his home and he was lying on a sofa with some Magazine in his hand and I reached near to his sofa and with a style uttered the magic word.  

Me: After 12th, I want to do engineering.

He: Why?

After prolonged thinking, I sat dejected on the sofa next to him and wonder why I always miss asking the most critical question. What If, that Uncle would have asked the same question and put me on the spot?

Then something inside me shouted…

“You Idiot, you need to learn how to answer these kinds of tricky questions”.

 I asked that inner voice back, how?

“Think of this as five marks question in board exam you are going to give soon and you need to answer this to actually clear the exam” and the voice diminished.

Me: It’s because Rahul, Rajat, Saran and Vaibhav are giving those entrance exams.

I paused for a moment and thought will this give me five marks in board exam? Then I added.

You are also giving this entrance exam. It’s because all the boys of our class are also giving this exam ……… and some girls too.

Someone taught me once in my childhood, each sentence can give you one marks. According to that logic, I scored 3 and 1/2 out of 5, not bad.

He: I meant to say, why you are not giving medical entrance exams too.

He continued and for me I started wondering was he the right person to show off?

He: You are very good in biology. I don’t even have biology as a subject; still I can tell your knowledge based on what you taught me from your coursebook in class 11^th.

Me: What I had actually taught you?

He: Do you remember the day when we had a big argument last year about choosing subjects after grade 1oth. You actually realised me, my mistake of not opting Biology as a subject by teaching Reproductive system to me from that biology course book of yours. (He said with a big grin on his face.)

Me: Yes, but that was for plants in botany and micro-organisms in zoology and wait…why those twinkles in your eyes?

He: I heard this year you guys in biology have human reproductive systems too. If what I heard is correct, that’s third last chapter of the book.

Me: Yes, I read that chapter as first.

He: Then you can tell me in details about your learning.

I felt irritated by his behaviour on a serious matter of my career and retaliated to him with a raised voice.

Me: These discussions are the matter of our future and career. If they don’t fall correctly and based on the Indian marriage system that I am aware off, there will be no marriage and no reproductive system for me.

He: Okay, calm down. You have both mathematics and biology that gives you an extra advantage; unlike me, you can give both engineering and medical exams.

Me: So what?

He tilted his eyeballs towards the roof like he is thinking something. I just wonder if he is also following that five marks principle in his head.

He: Just Imagine!!! if you clear both the entrance exams you will have the choice of becoming an Engineer or a Doctor. I know someone who desperately wants to be a doctor all his life, and also prepared a lot for it. Intelligently he filled up the engineering exams too. He got in waiting list for the both the exams. Coincidentally engineering got cleared first. He thought why not join the engineering. After some time, he started liking the engineering thing and when his medical seat got cleared he actually rejected it. Now he is a very big mechanical engineer.  

When I asked that person why he had chosen mechanical over medical, he said it’s all same. If I would have opted medical, probably I would have dealt with human body parts; here I am dealing with machine body parts. 

His reproductive system will initiate next month, I mean he is getting married next month.

Me: Are you sure?

He: Yes, I have his marriage invitation.

I wonder if he really has that five marks system in his head, then he had definitely scored more than ten marks with this one.

He: This happens quite often. I know another guy who actually gone through the same scenario. Did his first semester in engineering and then did the first semester in medical college too. He was able to clear both the exams and this gave him the edge over others.

Me: Wow, so what he finally joined?

He: Ummm…Actually His family business

He said it with a straight face and continued.

He: I know you don’t have a family business but this will give you the highest probability of success and a probability of success increases when someone have multiple options. It will just take some of your parents money to fill the entrance examination forms. Everything else you have to do.

I know it’s time for my father to invest some money in all my engineering and medical entrance exams. If you think, now I know what to do in life, then you are still wrong.

I now know which entrance exams to give but do not know which are not to give or give as per your calibre only. My parents never objected me to fill the form of any of these exams, and that's why they didn’t question me when I dare to pay IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) entrance exams fees too. The word daring is chosen intentionally because none of my classmates had actually applied for that entrance exam, not even the brilliant, sincere and studious ones.

Being in that small town, during that time, everyone in that town believed in themselves, that you can’t crack any national level entrance exams. Anyone who is really serious about any entrance exams will only go for regional entrance exams. I wish, I had the statistics but I believe I was one of the rarest candidates, who actually applied for IIT entrance exam up to that year, from that town. The number of peoples who actually cleared IIT entrance exam till that date was countable from Madhya Pradesh (M.P) and there was none from my town. So all my classmates are sceptical in giving this exam and actually raised their eyebrows when they came to know about my daring. I am sure, my step to give IIT exam, under those circumstances, will be treated as research material of Dunning–Kruger effect.

We need to travel to the nearest examination centres for all any entrance exams. This includes the cost of travelling and staying at that place. None of those entrance exams will be in that small town. It’s no fun to go for an entrance exam, alone when you can’t do much by studying just before the night of exam. IIT is also such kind of exams for which you have to prepare for years to actually clear that out.

I have a huge task ahead to convince my classmates to at least apply for IIT exams. It’s no fun in going to a place alone and not able to enjoy in between exams.  I actually had to come up with plan A, B and B and a half, the only problem is they are not at all pre-planned, else would have started with B and half first.

The Plan A was, I started preaching them verses from Bhagwat Geeta which said work hard and do not think about the results. Asked them to just fill up the form, work hard for the exam and then for next exam which includes IIT entrance exams and so on…do not think about the results. It took me some years to realize, this kind of preaching doesn’t work in real life. The problem was, those of my classmates knows that already.

Then I started the plan ‘B’ with blackmailing, the emotional ones.  Sample this - “You will not fill the form even for your best friend?” or “You may never know where we will be next year and onwards, these are only some of the time we can spend together after board exams”.

 

Finally, I was able to convince the same friend who actually convinced me to opt for medical entrance exam. Off course, I convinced him with emotional blackmail only. That’s why its plan B and a half. Now, I am not alone in that town who is giving IIT entrance exams that year.

To Be Continued

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Disclaimer: All the peoples and incidents depicted in this story are the mere act of fiction. No person living or dead exists.

©Tapas Majumdar, Not for reproduction without Author's permission.

Dimple’s Diary

“Dimpy Dimpy, please save me”

 I am able to hear him out loud, desperately uttering this word. The sound started to echo in the dark dense forest. His voice in desperate and danger seems crisp and clear and only coming from a very short distance. He kept shouting this word again and again.

I am feeling nervous; shaking from inside and my nervousness is clearly visible outside. I am trying to gather courage and run, as faster as I can. I am well determined, I will do right, this time. I am short of breath but I know I have to run as fast I can. While running, I am trying to pull up the red gown I bought for today’s special date. His charming and smiling face keep coming up in my mind. I can imagine him stretching his strong arms to embrace me tightly. 

He never was a miser to showcase his feelings towards me. Unlike any other relationship, our relationship was always very good.

Suddenly the distant voice of my husband stopped. I tried to hear if something can be heard apart from the distant occasional cry of hyena and all unusual noises inside a dark dense forest. No way can he die, in my heart I believe he is still alive. I didn’t cry yet, and my courage lapsed. My whole eye is moist now and the tear started flowing out. There is no stopping of the tears and it’s very difficult to cry when you are short of breath too. I stopped. Trying to catch breath and rub tears off my eyes. It looks like it will not stop flowing even if I tried to stop.

After all, they are the tears of happiness. I was feeling weak, for so many years now and suddenly I felt strong. Finally, I am able to get rid of my husband. I am able to do right, this time. Killing him in well-planned fashion in an abandoned forest and running out from him is not a small task.

I consoled myself and tried to relax. I know it’s all over now. My mind kept running over for all the incidences so far, how I planned this for so many days now. How I tricked him to agree for a date night inside this jungle. How I managed to take him to this lake and how I managed to pushed him inside that water. Where only surety was gradual entangle by the vines and mud inside water. The more you struggle the more quickly you will go inside that water. There are no ways anyone can come out of it without help. When he got entangle inside, I told him I will come back with help and ran way. That poor fellow waited there in despair and finally died. It is not easy for a 5 feet 7-inch height Indian woman like me to kill a strong and well-built man of height 6 feet above.

When I was enjoying with these thoughts, the sudden realization made my heart stopped for a second. What if, my husband is still alive? What if, someone else had heard his voice and rescued him? What If, he found his way out to the surface or found something to move out of the water. I realised there is no way I can leave this matter here, I need to go back and confirm if he is still alive or not.

This thought actually prompt me to think about the crime I committed. I sudden felt my change of heart. What I committed is a murder, if he is still alive then it’s an attempted one. Is there a way I can still save him? If I find him struggling hard to survive should I try to help him or walk away from him again? In my sight, he is bad but he was not bad enough to be killed. Then I realised, I should go back not to check him out but if possible to save him up. He deserves another chance.

I started feeling nervous again. My whole body is now trembling from inside and again nervousness started showing clear visible sign outside. I am now trying to gather courage and run, as faster as I can. I again become well determined, I will do right, this time. I already ran a lot and running again is tiresome, I am now short of breath, but I know I have to run as fast I can. While running with the red gown I bought for today’s date certainly causing the interference with my speed. I tore apart that gown from below to speed up my running. His charming and smiling face keep coming up in my mind, the way he made when he want to hit me with sticks. I can imagine him stretching his strong arms to embrace me tightly, I used to grasp some breath and he determined not to release me till I almost choke to death. He never was a miser to showcase his feelings towards me, by verbally and physically abusing me as much he can. Unlike any other relationship, our relationship was always very good, for him and it was a living hell for me.

I am now back to the same spot, where it all happened. I know even if a small thought came to my mind to save him, my heart never wants to do that. I can find a log lying next to me. Somehow the log was always there. It’s like if, somebody fell inside this trap can be pulled out using this log. I took the log in my hand and I put the other end on my husband’s finger.

The only visible thing was my husband’s few fingers which probably tried to hold some vines desperately to save himself. The whole body had already submerged and gradually the last part was going down. I already noticed that due to his last act of despair, his ring was coming out of his finger while his whole body had already gone down. Somehow the body is stuck with the vine and finger with that ring. There is no movement so I can surely assume he is unconscious if not dead. His body weight is pulling him inside the water and the ring which is stuck with the vine is holding him from complete immersion. It’s the pull on the finger is causing the ring to gradually pop out.

I put the other end of that log on my husband’s finger, where the ring is coming out. The moment he had gone fully inside the water the ring stuck on perfectly placed at the end of the log. I carefully tilted the log up 45 degrees and the ring start coming towards my hand.

I already know how to hide this murder as it was perfectly planned and executed. I did right this time. I will wait for another 24 hours and go to police station to write complain about my missing husband. No one will imagine finding someone at the remote jungle, distant from the city. Even if they come they will not able to find his body as it’s entangled inside water and will never come up.

So what’s next, I looked at the recovered ring at my palm with a smile at the corner of my lips. I will find another suitable person who will be worthy enough for this ring. After all, I need to find another man who can be easily fooled, to murder. Tonight I found a new passion, for the time being, we will call it a hobby.


©Tapas Majumdar, Not for reproduction without Author's permission.

How To Guide - To Avoid Taking Things Personal and Avoid Hatred Due To This

Before I proceed to provide you a solution to this problem, we must analyze your problem first by a small fable. My apologies as the inclusion of this fable will make this very long, but it’s somehow needed. This is how the story goes.

In a jungle of modern times lives one Wolf and Hyena. The Hyena always jokes or passes sarcastic comments about Wolf and also to other animals in his friends circle. He makes fun about everything, their looks, the way they work, the way they talk, about their community and also about any achievements they made. Everyone including Wolf does know the Hyena‘s behavior, so they try to avoid or ignore him when his personal jokes started about them but do enjoy it when he do the same to any other animals. In contrast, other animals find Wolf very calm and composed in nature and very likable.

Gradually wolf started taking the things personally whenever Hyena jokes about him. On the passing of each day, he started getting irritated easily and Hyena is now started getting into his nerves. Wolf thought to ignore this problem of growing hatred against Hyena. In reality, this hatred is started destroying him internally.

He is not able to focus on anything fully; his hunting his personal life all started getting impacted because of this hatred. He was once a star hunter of that jungle now became a shadow of his own self. His failure in work started impacted his personal life where small incident caused huge fights with his wife and children. Since he kept everything to himself nobody knows what the actual problem is. He even thought of switching his friend circle to ignore him as far as he can.  Since their line of work forced them to keep crossing their path so avoiding him fully was near to impossible. Soon wolf started feeling that Hyena’s joke about him are no longer joke but are personal attacks fueled from Jealousy or something else from Hyena’s side. Wolf keep assuming things about Hyena and the fire of hatred started to fuel further than to extinguish.

One fine day the king of the Jungle declared a party where every animal was invited including the Wolf and Hyena. There are amazing food, fun, and party games. One of the party games was to aim water balloon to a target, not to any animal since their party dress should not get ruined by water. 

Once all the activities are over Hyena took the advantage of spare water balloons and started throwing towards other animals. He started throwing the water balloon close to the other animal but not on them so that animals have to save themselves from the water of the balloon which popped near them. Even if you get wet it will be always only your legs. Soon everyone found this game interesting and got involved in it and started throwing balloons filled with water towards each other. Wolf also started enjoying this game and since he has good reflexes got saved by most of the water balloon been thrown towards him. After a while playing this game Hyena came very close to Wolf with a water balloon and jokingly said “I will pop this balloon on your head.” Wolf thought, it’s not a joke, so to save himself he tried to move his whole body but Hyena being close enough, that movement actually caused the balloon to pop on Wolf. He got all wet and everyone started laughing on him. Hyena being finds this as his mistake ran away to another place of that huge party. This action of Hyena triggered the burst of anger in Wolf. In terms of everyone’s eyes, this is an accident and fun, but maybe not for Wolf or Hyena.

Wolf thought Hyena is trying to humiliate him in public and that hit his limit of patience to the maximum. He tried to find Hyena in the party and ran towards him and started a huge fight. Hyena also in his defense retaliated. All animals in the party got amazed by this behavior of Wolf. They thought what a spoil-sport this wolf is. They tried to stop this fight, but Wolf and Hyena got insane and want to rip each other apart. Finally, somehow all other animals are able to stop this fight and blamed everything to the Wolf and thrown him out of the party. Wolf by seeing this mean behavior of other animals can’t hold his tears and started crying.

He realized that he lost from Hyena in every aspect. Then he also thought everyone is against him and all are here to do just, personal attack on him. Now Wolf’s problem of taking the things personally started for other animals too. This behavior gradually made him the most quarrelsome animal that does the most arguments or fighting with others. Who was once liked by many became likable by none.

Here in this fable Hyena’s are the people who trigger these kind jokes or sarcastic remarks knowingly or unknowingly towards other peoples and Wolf are the peoples who do take them personally and continuously fuel the hatred inside them. None of them is fully sane or totally insane, but finally they behave it that way.

I assume if you can relate yourself somewhat to this story then you are either at stage mentioned in Paragraph 2, 3 or 7 of this fable.  Each paragraph of this fable defines a stage of the hatred you are going to accumulate and the fate it’s going to receive at the end.

Stage 1 -> Paragraph 1 –> You enjoy when it happen with others but try to avoid the joke on himself.

Stage 2 – Paragraph 2 –> You started taking things personally.

Stage 3 – Paragraph 3 –> This get converted to hatred and then started impacted other aspect and relations in life. The fire keeps on igniting.

Stage 4 – Paragraph 4 –> That one fine day comes when it’s going to meet its fate.

Stage 5 – Paragraph 5 –> The moment arrived when it’s going to meet its fate. It’s the moment when the volcano of hatred inside you erupts out from you.

Stage 6 -> Paragraph 6 –> The eruption will always be in the form of negative emotions, arguments or fights. Although the chances are, peoples who witness this incident judge this incident in favor of other persons only.

Stage 7 –> Paragraph 7 –> You will start feeling the whole world conspire against you and you will go forever in loop from Stage 2 to 7 and sometimes directly to 6 or 7 by skipping some of the in between stages too. You will no longer remain same. The chances are you may give your impression to peoples around you as a confrontational person.

Before I provide you the solution and you start searching the internet about this fable, I must tell you this fable is self-written and I had closely followed this incident to unfold in front of my eyes. Where, they were two of my very closely known persons involved in this incident and just used Hyena and Wolf to symbolize them.

Mentioned below is the solution if you are facing any of the problems mentioned above.

Don’t do what you don’t like – Yes, if you don’t like someone tease you then you should not tease others too or enjoy when someone else tease others. If you like making fun of others then when someone makes fun of you takes that as a sporting spirit rather than a personal attack. Try to make fun of yourself, crack some jokes about yourself too but do not try to degrade yourself via those behaviors. This is the start point, as long as you are able to recognize the fun side of the thing which comes towards you, your mind will not recognize it as personal attack so the hatred will not grow up. Joining a laughter club will be a good idea for those who forget to laugh.

In any case, if you still not able to recognize the fun side of anything then learn to ignore. If you keep ignoring certain peoples or things then after some time they will stop coming to you. It may project you as a rude person, but it will be far better than projecting you as a quarrelsome person.

If you still can’t ignore people or things then switch company, job, home or your current location. There must be some way to avoid those peoples or incidents, try to find what works for your case. The people who try to drag you down should always be avoided.

Never allow growing the Hatred inside you – The seed of hatred once planted it will always keep growing in some form or the other. If there are cases when you don’t like something been told about you, then say it then and there itself to that person to stop. Most of the peoples do listen and try not to repeat that again. If you find the person persists even after your frequent ultimatums then the simplest way to stop the hatred inside you is to forgive and forget that person and turn his behavior into some form of love. The elaboration follows.

If you find someone is persistently irritating you and even after asking to stop had not helped then find some of the good quality of that person and try to appreciate him whenever he tries to irritate you. So he will keep spitting venom and you will keep showering love. One day he will fully stop spitting venom's toward you. This policy had given the whole country India to independence, so will work for you as individual too.

The bad part of hatred is, it keep on working even when the person is not in front of you.  If you are the victim of that, then the best way to stop that is to forgive that person. You may need to imagine regularly in your mind that you forgave him for all the wrong doings he is doing or did. Gradually with a lot of practice you will able to forgive him/her to restore your inner peace. Although forgetting that person will be totally up to the individual and their techniques. Do meditation, yoga or exercise which will help you in achieving this step. This step may be necessary even when you find a way to ran away from that person as described in technique 1 above.

Go behind the scene of the actual behavior – That person may be frustrated about you or a sadist and want to frustrate you or he doesn’t know he is frustrating you and that’s his natural behavior. The behavior of a person is totally dependent on the perception you have about that person. If you like that person, then anything they do you will find is fine with you and if you hate the person, then their showcase of love may also irritate you. So find out the real culprit, is it the person or it's you? This task goes complicated when you have more than one person in the list of hatred.

Fortunately, we have a solution here. First rate the entire list of persons in terms of the hatred you have for them. Then find the reason why they behaved that way with you and why you hate them. If you are able to have some logical conclusion then use the Technique 1 and/or 2 above to stop the hatred about that person. Do this for the entire list one by one and at the end you will have the solution. You will realize even the hatred for every person is same, but the solution to handle them will be different for different persons.

In short the solution of the problem lies in resolving the step 1, 2 and 7 of the fable. All other steps are just the by-product of these steps. In my real life, I really surprised to find the calm and composed wolf to behave something like this suddenly.  The hatred took the toll on him and busted as a form of anger without him know about it. So do not try to be that wolf of that story and if possible try to avoid being Hyena too.

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Originally wrote for my answer to this question How-do-I-stop-taking-things-personally on Quora. Image coursey Google.

©Tapas Majumdar, Not for reproduction without Author's permission.