The Hollow Living- Relationships of Convenience

Walking through the wardrobe of relationship specimens of our generation of millennials, many varieties come to the fore. While variation is at the core of all the relationships, one thing runs common in all of them like blood running in our veins!

That one convention, rather a tradition of all the relationships is the lack of “Effort”.

We have become a generation of easy-going, good-at-goodbyes, not-giving-a-damn fellas walking down all our relationships with the same attitude.

Friendship, Dating, and all other everyday connections and relations we make over and above the familial bonds are in name and not in essence. Best friend, sister-like, friend, brother, all this and many other bonds are named but how many are followed in its true sense.

We have build a pretence, or maybe we live in a pretence of easy living where finding replacement of any individual in our lives is as easy as making a cup of tea!

We find replacements faster than we get refunds from online shopping sites.

Are we so busy or are we just too lazy to put effort into our relationships? or have we become so hollow that relationships are just for convenience and social media posts?

We are just looking for an excuse to abandon it all and run from it that we leave no room for fixing problem let alone the expression of care and attention. Perhaps we are scared of attachments, we are scared of working on problems? We are the generation of effortless living.

We are more comfortable with goodbyes,
than standing by.
Effort is now a figment of imagination,
And convenience is the only foundation.

Our generation has forgotten what a real friendship means, what it means to put in efforts to build a bond, how caring and attention are all part of it.

We have become a generation affluent in hiding rather than expressing.

We have forgotten that words mean something, when we call someone close friend, it’s not just a tag, it’s a bond, built on love, care, attention and all the things that are based on efforts.

We have become legit runners, running away from responsibility, emotions, feelings, expressing. All these phrases: “I’ll be there for you”; “I’ve got your back”; “you can count on me”; now remain just meaningless fancy words, song lyrics and nothing more.

Where have we lost the most important ingredient of building relations, where are the efforts?

Maybe same day deliveries and online shopping has ripped us of this word effort, we don’t know the effort involved in going from shop-to-shop to find that perfect dress.

But, all is not lost, we need to blend in some effort in our relations and stop crying and cribbing on the short liveliness of all the relationships we have in our lives. We blame the time, we blame the people, but, we forget it’s made of you and me!

We are these people that we are blaming each second of each day and lamenting on the deterioration of our generation.

Are we really BUSY?

In the long long journey of our life, “busy” is one word we encounter a lot. Some are on the receiving end of this word while some are guilty of using it! For someone being on the receiving end of this word from people in the “Close” periphery, I couldn’t help but wonder Are we really busy?

When I talk about busy, more often than not we genuinely are very busy and this fast-paced lives of ours have made making time extremely difficult. We have a lot to do and a lot of people to catch up with and 24 hours are sooo less for all the jazz we have in our lives! But, it is then when I think is the time to step back and question ourselves, “Are we genuinely caught up or are we using this easy garb of oh-so-convenient excuse with us that we hide behind it always?!”

There is nothing wrong with being busy but are we busy to the extent that we do not have even 5 minutes to spare for the people we claim we love? Is that even Love? We cannot even get 2 minutes out of our daily grind? Now, this doesn’t mean calling every day just because you have to show, but, every once-in-a-while we can.

We often blame the person expecting for the sole fault of their expectations, but, have you ever noticed the pattern? We don’t expect from every other person, we expect from those who make us believe that this is what they can do and what they will do. Do you ever expect from every classmate of yours to catch up and keep up? No, you expect from those you called your best friends! Why? Well, you know the answer to why? And in this case then isn’t the fault of being nonchalant and ignorant on the shoulders of the person you are expecting from rather than yourself for expecting?

But yes, in the end when you know the fact that you may not be that important and that is where you stop expecting, if you still do then you are the fool! Life is complex, we move on, we meet new people, we make new relations and that is all natural and beautiful! One must move on in life sans complaints because there’s no point keeping it from anyone. We are all entitled to keep whichever relations we want, but it’s time we stop hiding behind the “Busy” shroud for that would make life less complex than it is. Admit the truth, learn from your mistakes, express your feelings, even if you cannot make it to meet your friends or to talk to them, tell them the truth. If you move and have new things, better things to don’t make excuses for them. Don’t steal the soul of the word BUSY from it, we owe at least this to the poor word!

 

 

The Fault in our Dreams?

Standing at a point, at the junction of floating in the faraway world of reveries of future and the dawn of reality, aims and ambitions make you go through this question again and again and you ask your own self where are we going wrong? When life really begins, freshly out of college or after completing studies when you finally have to come face to face with reality and the brutal real world the dreams stop visiting, they do it gradually, and slowly until you are left with nothing but the real world outside, where actions have to be taken and dreaming won’t serve the purpose and so leaves quietly…

Being there at that standpoint of the reality, I couldn’t help but wonder is our ambition the fault in our dreams?

There are all kinds of theories out there, some push you to activity while others toss you into the passivity of predestination… But the one thing that happens is that deriving conclusion can be a legwork! While growing up we all dream, have ambitions of doing great in our lives, achieving the goals, earning the best, we all have ambitions, but, are those the ambitions the reason of our unhappiness?

I sometimes wonder at ambitions of my own self and ponder over the whole point of having one when apparently some dreams and ambitions are too big to be true, is there anything like that? When reality thwarts those ambitions and crumbles them down, what’s left except sadness and disheartenment!They make us go out of our boundaries and constraints and apparently to those unachievable targets which turn us into a shooting star and does more harm than good! The whole crisis that the modern man faces is actually due to their ambitions, they want to go up and this makes them restless, tensed and the whole life is spent in this modern crisis of the modern man! It does not let us be content or happy in our own lives that we live and disturb us psychologically, physically, and emotionally. Makes us go against the social order, the class order, and challenge the accepted, makes life troublesome, endless struggles and full of dissatisfaction…

It seems to me like the “Fatal Flaw” the “Hamartia” of the modern man just like the classic tragedies, the protagonist has a fatal flaw which results in the downfall or the tragedy. Well, ambitions seem to work the same way. Is it good to have ambitions? Is it bad? Should we abandon all our ambitions for a “happy life”? Is it the flaw in our dreams?

I probably don’t know the answers for I myself am looking for them. But I know one thing for sure if we won’t have ambitions we won’t have any driving force to get out of our living conditions. What would push you into working for something better? True, it can make you unsatisfied and sad when not realized but the present conditions don’t make you happy anyway, hence, the ambitions! But yes, only ambitions won’t solve the purpose we need to pull our socks and work in the direction that ambition gives us! That’s my take on ambition you can share yours, perhaps you have got a better answer to the questions we have every day! If not anyone, the answers to these may help your own self.

The lost charm?!

Being in and out of a couple of messy relationships and being single has turned many of us into keen observers and relationship critics, well, not that we are any bad at it, we have had experience after all! But after having a deep thought over a cup of hot cocoa and watching the good old romantic classics and the “new age” romance out there, I couldn’t help but wonder has love-relationship lost its charm???

From the monogamous relationships and the growing love between the two “soul-mates” in the golden age, love and relationships have come a long, long way… From spending time with each other privately the priority has shifted to having great Snapchat stories together; from being a private expression of love, a relationship is all about social media cahoots! It has become a platform to boast. Monogamy has left the building, the idea of one true love, has been replaced by casual escapades! Things have become racier and emotional attachment is left at home to safeguard oneself from the relationship. Did you notice something? “Safeguard“, when did the need to protect oneself came into the relationships? Well, that certainly is the larger scenario of the modern version.

Love has taken the backseat while peer pressure and the “branding” has taken the steering wheel of the new-age relationships! Another changing facet of the modern relationship that can be observed more often than not is that it is all about infatuations and temporary feelings and that’s probably why they are short-lived! They have reformed into being solely about sex rather than sex ‘and’ love, that’s right sex and love aren’t together anymore, seems like they’ve broken up! The modern “sham” of relationships consists of so many rules and boy, it’s not easy! Also, being detached and feeling-less is the rule number 1. really is that how it works?

These new transformations and the absent ingredients have made us all wonder at one point or another that the good old charm has been lost and such would be the fate of “materialistic” modern relationships after some time! What is missing is probably stability and love! We ought to love ourselves first before loving the other, and when we are not too comfortable with the single tag and go on hopping into relationships for the “image”, I don’t think we love ourselves enough! I believe the right guy or girl is worth the wait and the namesake farce that has largely become the face of modern relationships have become is so not cool! Change is good, and getting accustomed to the changes around is but a necessity but some things should not be changed to the effect that it loses it charm!

 

Love… IS it enough?

Since time immemorial it has been a fact that love is the most important thing. Well, it surely is the most important, and most essential thing, but,  I couldn’t help but wonder when it comes to romantic relationships, is love enough????

Couple all around swear by love and true, love should be the reason for being together but should it be the sole reason?! I don’t know but this seems to be a lil flawed idea.

My favorite metaphor, rather an analogy for this situation would definitely prove my point here… If a relationship is like a building to be formed by the mingling of two hearts, souls, and body, then love for me is the cement which binds it together. But in the end, it is just a binding force which needs other things as well, bricks, wood, etc, etc, to make it stand. Yes, it is important, yes it is the foundation, but, trust me it is not the only thing that could keep the relationship going or the only reason to keep it going and think of it as an ideal relationship!

Yes, you heard it right; there are things that are equally important in a relationship as love! From times unheard of, we have gone on to believe that love is the only thing required to form and sustain a relationship, well, with changing times the dynamics have changed as well and it’s time we update our definitions and pre-requisites of a perfect relationship! It takes more than “just” love to have a sound relationship! It’s time we get out of the highly romanticized versions of relationship and take a step in reality! (Caution: there will be an initial phase of disapproval but no worries, the great teacher that experience is, will teach you all!)

With time, love will take the back seat and in many situations, there would be a need for compatibility, intellectual sync, similarities… yes opposites attract is a great theory, but, in real life, you need similarities so that the Titanic never drowns! And that’s the whole idea behind soul mates, seriously! After a certain time period when all the attraction and jazz of a new relation settles, you come closer, you ought to find some level of similarities, where your partner is complimentary to you, they compliment or support or agree with your thoughts, ideologies, and so on and so forth… What’s the point of being with someone who does not match you mentally, or emotionally! Mutual respect is another thing which is really important to preserve the beautiful relationship, you cannot go on being with someone who does not even respects or whom you don’t respect. Comfort level, yeah, yeah, of course, you are comfortable with your partner that’s why you are with them in the first place but are if there are chances that your partner gives you discomfort, or you have to think before doing or saying anything, then that’s not comfort! Yeah, you may have got my point by now that there are so many other things as well, but let’s not delve into that since it is not the topic of this blog most certainly!

The reality check, in the end, remains the same, that there are other important imperatives, and love alone is not the ingredient of a happy, healthy, perfect relationship! We should come out of our bubbles and one should not go on watering a dead plant only because they think love is the only thing required!