A trek to remember…

I have been meaning to post this earlier. It was sitting in my drafts folder for quite a while now. Apologies…

Next up on How to be unlazy…Here is an idea, pack your things and go on an impromptu trek with your friends.

Nothing much was happening on the unlazy front. But then, something big was coming up, like 20 kilometers big. I don’t know how many miles that is.

…(You can always google it…duh)…

Oh yes! It’s around 12.5 miles. Thank you.

…(You get all the intelligence from me, you know.)…

I am actually rolling my eyes…

Well, this ‘something big’ had mountains, lakes, waterfalls in it. It had un-lazy stamped on every bit of it. And to top it off, I dragged one of my lazy ass girlfriends, Shilpa into this. She was sitting at her home, watching sitcoms on a loop and being a potato. We both knew that we had to do something about it.

But saying that something needs to be done and actually taking concrete steps to do it are two different things. You plan something for the future and you plan it to the last detail, but then somehow something happens and the plan doesn’t work. All that careful, meticulous planning goes down the drain. But on the other hand, the plans which are decided at the last moment somehow turn up to be great successes. Does that happen with you, or is it just me?

I have learned one thing, being spontaneous always helps, when you get an opportunity to do something out of the ordinary…Don’t think or over analyze, just do it.

…(That is un-lazy tip of the day)…

So one fine Saturday, a friend invited me to be a part of a trekking group. I immediately said yes. This was the chance to do something productive and totally un-lazy. It was a decision taken on a whim.

The trek was on Sunday, it was all last moment. By 1:45 am, I was all packed and because, Saturday was a college day, I was very exhausted . It was high time I hit the bed, Sunday had already started. But first I had to do a very important thing, set the alarm to 5:00 am.

…(You mean, set the alarm to 4:15am, 4:30am, 4:45am, 5:00am. It’s her thing)…

Yes, I do that. If I want to get up at a particular time, I set a series of alarms. Its because, when it rings I always manage to turn it off. Not snooze, mind you. Sleepy me is still smart me.

The alarms do the trick, its early Sunday morning, I set off. I stay in Mumbai city, we had to travel to Thane district, it took an hour long bus ride. From there we took the train (1 hour) to Bhivpuri.

The journey begins.

Here we met the rest of the group. The trek was pretty straightforward.

First stop, Have breakfast.

Misal-Pav.

Spicy, tasty, yummy…

Ok this is one of the yummiest Indian snack. And incidentally, it is the ‘World’s tastiest vegetarian dish’, a title given by the Food Hub Global Awards. This dish is spicy and so tasty. Just google it. And while you are at it, also search Pav-Bhaji, Pani-Puri, Vada-Pav…

…(Hey stop it…remember the trek?)…

The weaver birds…

A coconut tree full of dangling nests

Next up, Walk to the lake.

In about 15-20 minutes after the lip smacking, finger licking good breakfast, we arrived at the lake. It was huge.

Beautiful, isn’t it?

…(This trek is turning out to be so easy. Whats next?)…

Drum roll, The waterfall.

The waterfall.

The waterfall was awesome. The water was crashing down with a great force. I had to experience it first hand, so I just went it. The water was cascading down on me with a tremendous velocity…It was difficult to open my eyes due to the sheer force of the water.

Yup that’s me.

And the astonishing thing was that there were some people rappelling down the waterfall. Now that is something I would love to do. Adrenaline is coursing through me. Unlazy rules.

…(Nothing can stop me now! I am on fire. Whats next on the menu?)…

Yup that’s me.

The waterfall.

Beautiful, isn’t it?

The weaver birds…

A bird colony

Spicy, tasty, yummy…

Meeting the gang on the Bhivpuri railway station

…to be continued.

Never stay down in life.

Be like diamonds.

Nothing gets done for free.

I must to strive hard and do my best. But even after working hard towards my goals, sometimes life pulls me down. Sometimes, times things don’t go my way. Sometimes, I wish for a different outcome. And when all these things happen, I feel defeated and disheartened. But that should not be the end for me.

In this journey called life, if some incident knocks me down, I will get up and dust myself and start with my journey once again. Remember diamonds are created only under extreme pressure. If I want to shine brightly, I need to stay firm and not crack. Just like diamonds.

Ups and downs are a part and parcel of our being. Its what makes me, me. If every individual is unique, then its obvious that everyone’s journey is unique too. I will never look at successful people with any amount of jealousy. Instead, I will take inspiration from them. I will aspire to be like them, but I won’t follow anyone blindly. I should also have your own individuality. I must never bask in the glory of someone else, instead I should create my own glories. Always be the sun, but never the moon. But to be the sun, I need to burn first. And burn I will.

My life is unique. My life is special. And to make it worth I should fight against all odds, I must challenge myself at every step. But most importantly, I should never stay down.

Of early morning jogging and weird company…

Yesterday I made some pretty heavy promises. The heaviest of them was that I, Bhakti will get up early in the morning and go out for jogging. This is all a part of my new un-lazy initiative. I am trying to improve my personality which is currently bogged down due to laziness. Let me make something clear at the start, ‘waking up early in the morning’ and I are not friends. In fact we are sworn enemies. I am known to sleep well into the afternoon, I am best buddies with sleep.

I made a commitment to wake up early and go jogging. So when I was setting the alarm on my phone for 5:30 am, I had a nagging voice in the back of my head saying that…

…(That was not a nagging feeling, that was me saying, ‘Are you out of your MIND!!! 5:30 am!!! That is practically night! I wont let you, You would never get past me. I just want to see you try.’)…

Like I said, a nagging voice. Don’t you have something else to do? Like singing that terrible song again and again and again, till I pull my hair in frustration.

…(Wait till you go to sleep, I ll put that song on the loop)…

Anyways, long story short. I actually woke up at 5:20 am! On my own, no alarm was necessary. What I am trying to say is that, even if you have a personal obstacle and that obstacle looks so huge, you can easily clear it with a little amount of determination and will. I did that, just believe in your commitments and put a small amount of effort. Putting efforts is absolutely necessary. But the rewards that you get are wonderful.

The picture that I shared in the start, that looks like a painting, is the view from my window. I live in Mumbai, India. Mumbai city is called the city that never sleeps. The city that is always in motion. It is all true. But in the early morning hours, it slows down a bit and here in that small time window you can capture a completely different aspect of my Mumbai.

Early morning the world looks as if it is back from a laundry. Fresh, clean and fragrant. With neither the blaring of the car horns nor the noise of construction, I could actually hear birds chirping and without the smoke and pollution, the air smelled divine. Would I have ever experienced this if I was sleeping? Being un-lazy is not a bad thing at all.

One more cute thing happened while I was jogging. Our building has adopted a stray dog and he is such a goofy. He saw me jogging and came sprinting towards me. And when he saw what I was doing, he started jogging right next to me, I kid you not.

Look at him looking all adorable and stuff, wagging his tail and saying, ‘What are you doing here? Its early morning…Oh you are jogging!…Hmm let me accompany you.’ Un-lazy, you rule!

So bottom line, my experiment to convert myself from lazy to un-lazy has set off with a bang. And now I am more inspired to continue. Now I need to sleep and carry on with this again.

…(Muahahaha I got a list of all irritating songs)…

Not funny.

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What does your city look like in the morning?

Time to take action.

“I ll do that later”, “Not now”, “Maybe tomorrow”. These are some of my favorite phrases. It seems that inertia has griped me and griped me bad. I am suffering from a serious case of laziness. But now enough is enough. Its time to take action.

But how to do that? For a person suffering from an acute case of laziness, ‘doing something’ is quite impossible. How to make a person who does nothing to a person who actually does something? How to make the transition from lazy to unlazy.

…(unlazy? That’s not even a word)…

I know that. Instead of unlazy, I could have used active, energetic and industrious, but none of these words give the motivation to beat laziness. Unlazy, captures the essence of not being lazy quite beautifully. So you get it inner me, unlazy is here to stay.

OK so on with our problem at hand. How to tackle laziness? I am going to try to do an experiment. This experiment, if successful will make me unlazy. This blog will be a record of that experiment and its results. I have decided to do a blog about this because I needed a sense of responsibility. It is very easy to break promises made to ourselves. But if the promise is made to an audience, then its quite difficult to break it.

The first step is identification that you are lazy. It is fairly simple. If you are lazy, it wont take you much time to confess that you are one. Because, we sloth-heads actually take pride in admitting to the fact that we are lazy. If someone calls us lazy, we will simple acknowledge it, since we are too inert to defend ourselves. We know that we are always inactive but we wont do anything about it. Why?

…(The answer is simple, we are too lazy to even try.)…

Step one: Admitting I am lazy. Done.

The next step involves a little observation. I have to try and find out my lazy actions. Lazy actions are those things that you do instead of doing any productive work. They are like procrastination tools. They can range from sleeping, lying around pretending to be a potato, aimlessly surfing the internet, zoning out etc.

…(Believe me there are a lot of them.)…

Step two: Identifying my lazy-actions: Done.

Now I need to be on a lookout. Laziness like like a huge force of invisible energy that grips you when you are scared of failure, overwhelmed or you are not motivated enough. And before you know it, you are caught doing those lazy actions. To tackle this I need to make a list of all lazy actions and against them write some productive actions. So whenever I catch myself being lazy, I will simply do the corresponding productive action.

…(This is going to be difficult)…

Oh just shut up!

Step three: Make a list of lazy and productive actions: Done.

For step four, I need to plan at-least one big activity everyday to make myself unlazy. This activity should involve significant amount of handwork and determination. One of my biggest lazy actions is sleeping. I ll give up anything but not my sleep, I need to attack it. So I am going to wake up early in the morning and go for jogging. And I am going to post pictures to prove it.

…(Are you out of your MIND!..I cant give up sleep. And JOGGING! You have to be joking. No never!)…

Step four: Do at-least one significant activity every day. I am going jogging tomorrow. Lets see how it goes.

Lets get unlazy!