Author: Mohita Purohit

Enjoying the journey

Imagine a difficult time in your life. All of us have a lot of situations that broke us. Now imagine your life without that situation. In some cases, you must be glad it happened because now you are in a good place.

But, if you are one of those people who are thinking that your life would be better if that situation did not take place. Think of the good times you had because of the bad situation.

We cannot always avoid bad situations from happening. But what we can do is enjoy our journey. I am not saying to start laughing when bad things happen but learn to embrace the journey. We are always so caught up in reaching the destination that we forget what the journey holds.

We get to learn a lot from the bad situations of our life. We become more self-aware of who we are. There are a few things that we cannot learn from school. Those things only our life experiences can teach us.

It is on us whether we want to learn from those experiences or not. One thing that all of us should understand is that problems and difficult situations will come our way no matter what. That is what life is. But, it is on us to see what we learn from it.

For example: Imagine you got rejected in an interview that you really wanted. Now, are you going to cry and give up the idea of the job, or are you going to learn from your experience and go to your next interview more prepared?

We also face issues with our friends. Our friends don’t be there for us when we need them. Sometimes they break our trust. This also teaches us an important lesson in our life. It teaches us on how to be strong on our own. It teaches us that with or without people, we need to learn to be happy.

To reach our goal or our destination, we come across hurdles called experiences. They can be good or bad. But, we are supposed to enjoy these experiences because every experience teaches us something. As cliché as it sounds,  Everything happens for a reason.

People are so caught up in reaching their destination that they forget about the beautiful journey. They often forget to embrace their experiences and learn from them.

Do not be those people because “we can never relive the same moment again” Reading this quote for the first time scared me. But, it also made me want to live more moments and appreciate them while they last.

All that we are left with are memories. Think about your school life. Good or bad, I am sure it has moments you would always capture in your heart.

We are always looking forward to the next step of our life. We forget about the journey.

More than our destination it is our journey and experiences that made us into who we are today. So enjoy the journey while it lasts.

Doing what we love

My biggest fear in life is to settle down with a job that pays me well. A dream of many but a fear of mine. I want constant change. So, I can experience more. I want to live my life to the fullest. I want to make sure I do not settle anywhere.

I knew the life I wanted from a young age. But, that doesn’t mean it is an easy path. Our society expects a stereotypical decent job from us. Society wants to do what is easy. It wants us to start existing and forget living.

I cannot just exist. I want to live.

Living and existing both means to stay alive. But, existing is living a boring life and doing what is necessary for survival. While living is enjoying our time doing things we love.

Living doesn’t mean that you forget about your job. Our world is a place where we have to pay money to live. The concept does not make sense to me. But it is the sad truth. So we do have to earn to live.

For me living would require doing what I love and not just on the weekends. When I say I want to live, I mean that I want to enjoy my job. Which is a bizarre idea for people around me. To them, having a job or being successful cannot be fun.

What we all have to understand is that success is different for everyone. For some people, success will be settling down because they fear struggles. But, for me, success is doing what makes me happy. I know that my only way of succeeding in life is doing what I am passionate about.

When we are young, we all have a will to live our life to the fullest.  But we grow up and are forced into reality. We get trapped in rules and responsibilities. We forget our true selves and start falling into the trap of existing. Existing is always accepted by society. Society wants us to simply exist.  Even if it makes us unhappy.

We need to put a stop to that. We need to take life into our control. We don’t have to live a boring life for safety and security. All of us have a purpose in our life. Every single person has something that they love and would be good at. But, our society forces us to put our dreams aside.

A lot of people also fear not having a plan in their life. Which doesn’t make sense. You cannot expect 17-year-olds who barely have life experiences to choose what they want to do in their life. Things do not even go according to our plan. I know so many people who ended up doing things completely different than their plan.

So, I want you all to calm down. Take a moment to find yourself. Do what will make you happy.

It is your life. You are allowed to do what makes you feel alive. Listen to the stories of successful people.  You will see them talking about how they stopped caring about society and following their dreams. That is what got them to a place where they are.

Beauty Standards

Beauty is now being an issue for young girls. Growing up, we all remember Barbie. I love Barbie movies. They teach us about kindness, courage, friendship, values, etc. But, they also make young girls who play with Barbie dolls want to be like them. Barbie is the first beauty standard we were exposed to.

We then came to our early teens and were exposed to Victoria’s Secret models and the fashion industry. Early teen is also the place where we go through puberty. We all know puberty is not a pretty place. Trust me, nobody looks good when they are going through puberty.

Now, being exposed to the world of beauty and going through puberty puts us in a tough spot. We start hating ourselves. We know that most people do not look like models. We also know that models have a strict diet plan, they undergo surgeries, and there is constant use of Photoshop to make them look flawless. Our subconscious brain is aware of these facts. We still can’t help comparing ourselves to the pretty models.

We start looking down upon ourselves. We constantly try to become like models. A lot of girls become anorexic to be as thin as the models. A lot of girls also take supplements to reduce fat. A lot of them start saving up for cosmetic surgeries from a very young age. Most of the girls do these surgeries to feel more confident. I do not blame them. But I do blame our society for making them feel like they needed to change.

Our beauty standards are also being white-washed. We are now following western beauty standards. When we think of beauty, we imagine a tall, thin white girl. Even in African and Asian countries, this is what the beauty standard is. This makes people from those countries spend millions of dollars bleaching their skin even when it leads to skin cancer.

Our media makes millions of dollars selling products with the faces of white-washed beauty. These days when we see an advertisement, we look at the models more than the product. Are they selling the product or the beauty standard? 

Now our role in the world of beauty standards is to stop thinking it matters. Unless you want to become a model. People who have zero connection to the beauty industry have to stop worrying about their looks. It is not our work to look like that. So, we all need to end our obsession with beauty. If we are not being paid for being pretty, we do not have to obsess over it.

Next, we all need to stop thinking that every single woman has to be pretty. I know even men go through it. But, the American Society of Plastic surgeons reveals that women have accounted for 92% of cosmetic surgeries and men accounted for 8% of them. About 98% of the women feel immense pressure from external sources to look a certain way.

I really want to change that. So can we all start complimenting each other on qualities other than appearance? Instead of only telling a girl, you are pretty, beautiful, etc. Can we please tell them that they are talented, kind, intelligent, and caring?

I love getting compliments on my work rather than being complimented on my physical appearance. It is not in our control how we look like.    

Can we all start complimenting each other on who we are rather than what we look like?

A few tips to help relieve your period cramps

No one likes getting their periods. It comes with a lot of mood swings, bloating, cramps, and the will to die. Growing up, I have always searched for ways on how to make my period cycle less painful. I am here to share a few things that made me feel better. But every woman goes through different levels of pain. These might not work for all of them. But giving them a try would definitely make you feel better.

Get moving: When we are menstruating, we obviously don’t feel like getting up from our bed. But, exercising does release endorphins which help block pain receptors. Even taking a walk can be very helpful. I remember in lockdown when I would not really move so much. I had faced the worst cramps so, trust me moving does help.

Yoga: There are yoga poses you can try depending on which body part your cramps are at. You can always look up the internet to see what yoga pose would help relieve your cramp. Yoga does not even require you to move.

Stay hydrated: we are more dehydrated during our periods which leads to more cramps. So, it is best to increase our intake of water. It will also help reduce bloating. If you are not fond of the taste of water, you can try drinking fruit-infused water. You can also try eating water-based fruits such as cucumber and watermelon.

Do not skip meals: during our period, we often don’t feel hungry because we are already bloated. But skipping meals only makes it worse. We can then experience abdominal cramps.

Resting: during our cycle, we are more tired. So having a good sleep is very important. Sleeping will also make you feel well-rested. 

Avoiding a few foods: caffeine, alcohol, excess salty and, fatty food will make your cramps worse. So, you might want to skip on that. For all the people who cannot start their day without a morning coffee, you can try drinking ginger tea instead. I know it is not the best substitute, but ginger helps soothe muscles.

A few foods you can enjoy during your cycle:

Dark chocolates: This is by far my favorite tip because I love dark chocolates. Dark chocolates are a great source of iron, potassium, and magnesium. We must also avoid sugary food during our periods as it makes matters worse, so eating dark chocolate might help.

Banana: they are rich in potassium, and they help avoid bloating. I always eat bananas during my periods.

Leafy green vegetables: I personally do not like green leafy vegetables, but they do help in relieving cramps. What I like doing instead is drinking a green juice that has kale, spinach, lemon, ginger, and lettuce. It surprisingly does not taste bad.

Fruits: fruits are rich in all the vitamins that our body needs during our cycle. They can also help prevent your sugar cravings. If you crave ice cream. You can always try eating frozen fruits with dark chocolate syrups. It is tasty and fun to eat. You can also try dipping fruits in nut butter. Nut butter is also a great source of protein.

I know these tips seem like a lot of work because all we want to do is eat, sleep and eat junk food during our cycle. But, I try to avoid the foods that would make my cramps worse. I’d rather eat healthily and follow these tips than suffer in pain. So, you can give these tips a try.

Why isn’t everyone a feminist?

It has come to my surprise that most people do not identify themselves as feminists. I have no idea what some people think feminism is. So, here is the dictionary meaning of the word feminism. 

Feminism is defined as the belief in social, political, and economic equality of sexes. 

I would like to emphasise the word equality. Feminism does not support sexism.Feminists do not put men down, nor do we support the women who put them down. Feminism is the belief in equality and not female superiority.

I was surprised to see some of the women not identifying themselves as feminists. I have come across women saying things like: 

I don’t face gender discrimination, so why should I support feminism. 

To all the women who have similar beliefs, it is the FEMINISTS that got you to a place where you can say sentences like these. 

Do you really think that without voices being raised, you got to a place where you are?

Women did not even have the right to vote, study, or work. Back in the old days, men did not even consider women. So, we have come a long way from women-only staying in the households to now becoming presidents.

 Secondly, there are still so many issues happening against women, and we must raise voices. If you have the privilege to face no gender discrimination, that is good for you. But do you not want that for every single girl out there?

To all the people who think that feminism is unnecessary, I would like to show some of the achievements done by feminists.

  • Right to vote
  • Gain access to birth control
  • Bought women out of household
  • Calling out on rape culture
  • Fought for legal discrimination
  • Making the workplace a little more equal

These were just a few of the things done because of feminists. So, the next time you think feminism is not needed and that we are already in an equal world.

Well, open your eyes. There is still a long way to go.

  • Saudi Arabia gave women the right to drive in 2018.
  • Each minute 28 girls are married before they are ready
  • One in three women have experienced physical or sexual violence
  • 62 million girls are denied an education all over the world
  • 4 out of 5 victims of human trafficking are girls

These were just a few facts out of 100 more issues that women face today. This data is for people who think we already have achieved gender equality. We have not and, we still need feminism.

If you are one of those people who does not like being labeled but believes in equality of both sexes. What are you afraid of? It is just a label for the betterment of our society. If you think people are going to judge you for it. Those are the people who did not do their research on what feminism is.

I am a proud feminist and, I am here to fight against the injustice that women go through. If you are with me, I hope you all identify yourself as a feminist.

If you are not convinced and, women with strong opinions on achieving equality bother you. Well, you can contribute to the world of misogyny. 

An escape from reality – Books

I can never agree with people who say watching a movie or series is better than reading a book. While watching a movie, we are just looking at a projection of the film. We are not using our imagination.

I have read the divergent series by Veronica Roth. It also has a movie trilogy. Well, the movie is a disappointment to what the book portrays. The book has so much more details which the movie fails to show.

Books allow us to create our own imagination. They talk about the prominent features of their characters like the almond-shaped caramel eyes and the brown hair with a tint of waves and a well-defined jaw of the person. They leave it on us to decide how the person looks. They describe the cottage with a warm and cozy fireplace but do not provide us with how the cottage looks.

Books allow us to create a world of our choice. Every person reading the book would imagine their world differently. I started reading books as an escape from reality. When I was going through a hard time in my life, books became my best friends. No matter how bad my day was, I was always looking forward to start reading. It made me forget about my life because books allow us to live the life of the characters of fiction. Their life would become mine till I completed the book. At the end of every book, I would feel happy and sad at the same time. I felt sad because I never wanted the book to end. Happy because I get to live the life of another character when I start my next book.

Now you see books are an escape from reality, but they are a good escape. Reading books comes with a lot of benefits:

Improving vocabulary: when I started reading, I would make sure to find the meaning of every word that I was unaware of. For me, reading is incomplete without knowing what every word means.

Improves creativity: A person reading a book isn’t just reading literature words. An entire world of imagination is going on in their minds.

The best form of entertainment: it is better than looking at your screens for hours.

Creates a sense of understanding: when we read a book where the character has anxiety. It will make us understand how people around us with anxiety would feel like.

Inspires us: I have read books where the main characters do not give up, no matter how many problems come their way. This has honestly inspired me a lot in my life.

Makes us a better writer: reading makes our brain absorb the vocabulary and grammar required for better writing skills.

You must have also noticed that talking to people who read has always been interesting. People who read have a lot to share with the world. I remember talking to a few people who read a lot and our conversation never dies down. Reading also reduces stress and boosts our mood instantly. I want to end with my favorite quote by Mason Cooley

“Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are”

Kindness

Kindness is an act of showing generosity, empathy, and friendliness towards others. A kind person always possesses positive energy towards them. One prominent trait about kind people is that they treat everyone the same. We often notice some selfish people who only try to please their superiors and treat other people with disrespect.

Kind people are always surrounded by people who love them. Their friendly and helpful nature is what attracts everyone towards them. They are also very compassionate, emphatic, and sympathetic. They not just listen and understand the issues people face but they also try to help them.  

Kindness is important in today’s World, where no one cares about each other. Everyone just lives for themselves without helping the people in their surroundings. We all wish to be kind, but then we think about how selfish everyone is, and that no one cares about us. This should motivate us to be kind because we don’t like how people are mean and selfish. So, we need to be kind so others don’t feel this way.

Imagine this situation, a person mistreated their waiter and made them feel low. Now, the waiter comes to serve you. If you empathize with them and make them feel good about the situation, they will always remember your act of kindness.

 Even small acts of kindness given below help create a positive change in someone’s life.

  • Treating people equally
  • Helping the animals in need
  • Listening to people’s issues and empathising with them
  • Making someone feel better on a bad day
  • Not being rude to people
  • Forgiving people
  • Being a helping hand to people
  • Giving honest compliments
  • Being polite and not using harsh language

All these acts mean a lot to the people we are kind towards. Whenever we do something kind, we always feel good inside. It makes us happy. In the same way, we love meeting people who are kind and friendly. No one likes meeting selfish people who only care about themselves.

I still remember the acts of kindness people showed towards me. Once when I had to recharge my metro card, I was short of a coin or two I think I dropped it on the way. But, this kind lady standing in line paid for me. I asked her to take the money I have but she refused and went by. Now, this may obviously seem like a small thing to her, but I will always remember her act of kindness.

In the World of cruel, inconsiderate, and selfish people even small acts of kindness like opening a door for someone or helping someone pick the groceries mean a lot to the person we helped. Giving food to the needy or feeding the dogs on the streets are all things we need to do in our daily lives. We cannot just die living for ourselves. If we have the money and the resources that could help the people around us, we need to do it. Street animals do not have a job that would provide them food. We as human beings have built buildings and roads everywhere and took away nature from animals. It is our duty to give them food, water, and shelter.

Acts of kindness do not make a person small. It only makes them look bigger. People will always appreciate you for your kind behavior. I hope you are now going to help make the World a better place to live in where we treat everyone with love and compassion.

ANGER

Anger is an emotion which is a little more dangerous than the rest of them. Anger can be triggered due to financial problems, family problems, being surrounded by people you dislike, personal issues, etc. No one likes being angry nor do we like being surrounded by people who have a bad temper.

Everyone releases anger differently. Some like to shout at people, some like to break things, some tend to self-harm. Well, these methods do help release the anger, but they aren’t healthy ways of dealing with a situation.
Let’s have a look at how anger affects our relationships.
Some people take their anger out on the family. Sometimes when parents do not have control over things at their work, they come home and try to control the lives of their families.
Many parents often fight regularly at home and make the environment of the house hard to live in. Did you know that children who grow up in an abusive environment are usually too sensitive or completely numb? These children also show a sign of aggression or anger. They also suffer from anxiety and depression.
Some people also tend to substance abuse when they are angry. Using drugs, alcohol, tobacco, in large quantities. Some of these substances also cause more anger. Substance abuse is bad for a person’s mental, or physical health. It is also bad for the people around them.
Anger makes us do things we regret. It messes our relationships with people around us because we say things that we don’t mean to and do things we don’t want to.
I am not asking you to never take your anger out. Anger is an emotion that needs to be taken out. Taking anger out does not have to be destructive. We need to find constructive or healthy ways to take out our anger.
We are angry for a reason. So, the first step to calm the anger is to ask ourselves why we are angry. Once we find out why we are angry we can start working on it. Anger is our brain’s way of telling us to find a solution to an issue.
So, if it is a person that makes you angry, you might want to break ties with them.
If you feel angry with a job, maybe it is time to quit the job.

If we don’t listen to what our anger wants. Chances are the anger will keep sticking around until we make significant changes in our life. So, next time before you lash your anger out make sure to ask yourself what got you angry.
Some other healthy ways of dealing with anger are by doing physical activity like playing sports or working out. This will allow you to be constructive with it. In my boarding days when I would get angry, I would play squash. I would imagine the ball as my problem and hit the racket with full force. To tell you the truth it did help and make me feel good.

This way our anger is coming out in constructive ways. We need to learn to channel our anger to improve our lives instead of destroying it.

Parents

Growing up, our relationship with our parents is less complex. They are the first best friends that we have. We talk to them about everything, and they listen to us. We look up to them and want to be like them when we grow up.

 But after growing up, we realize our parents are not perfect. They make mistakes too. Well, that is not a bad thing because nobody is perfect. A lot of us then stay angry at our parents for being normal humans. We blame them for everything without realizing that they have a life of their own. Yes, we are their children, and they love us. But that does not mean they should stop living their lives. Our parents provide us with necessities, and they work hard to do it. They sacrifice their dreams to fulfill ours. But a lot of us do not give them the respect or the credit that we should. 

Growing up, parents would appreciate us for every small achievement. Now they don’t say much. We can sense they are happy but have trouble expressing it. We need to understand that it is hard for parents to express their feelings of love towards us once we grow up. It is mainly because their parents were not so expressive towards them.

Here are a few ways that can help fix your relationship with your parents:

If parents have trouble expressing their love, we can express it to them instead. If we can tell our friends, we love them on a daily basis. So, why not do the same with the people raising us?

Communication is the key to fix all relationships. We all get a gap in our relationship with our parents. That gap can only be erased by communicating with them.

Keeping the generation gap aside. We often get distant from our parents because they don’t approve of a few things. But, for that we need to understand where they are coming from. They are trying to accept our generation, but there will still be a few things they will not approve of. Instead of hating on them for it, we need to start understanding them.

We need to understand that they care for us. We sometimes tend to disagree with our parents but agree with our friends if they say the same thing. We need to understand that our parents care more about us than our friends ever would.

We all need to build a deeper relationship with our parents. We need to ask them about their day and tell them about ours. If they accept us with our flaws, we need to do the same with them. I know my parents don’t agree on a few things with me. Which is fine. It doesn’t have to come in the way of our relationship. We all have our ups and downs. Our relationship with our parents will only work when we are willing to make it work.

We say parents don’t understand us.

But do we understand them?

Procrastination

We all tend to procrastinate in one way or another. Procrastination is delaying important tasks to do unimportant tasks instead. 

 Why would we want to complete tasks when we can spend our time doing more enjoyable things like watching a movie, going outside, playing a game, etc.

There are several reasons why people tend to procrastinate. They are due to depression, anxiety, perfectionism, fear of evaluation, lack of energy, or lack of motivation.

The first step to stop procrastinating is to figure out the reason behind it. So, you can start working on strategies to overcome it.

Procrastination is a bad habit. It stops us from reaching our potential. Yes, we can complete the assignment one minute before the deadline. But will that assignment be good?

So, here are a few tips that could help you break this cycle of procrastination:

  • Stop waiting for the right time to do the task. I had a habit of waiting for the right time. There is no right time. Take the time you have now and make it right.
  • Remember to give yourself breaks after completing the task. We cannot just keep working all day. Our brains need a break to rest. So, give yourself a break after you complete the task.
  • Another thing to do is forgive yourself if you procrastinated for a day. I try to be productive every day but, there are some days where I do not feel like doing much. That is okay too. We do not have to be so hard on ourselves. Just remember to make the next day count.
  • If you are not starting a few tasks because you think it is a lot of work. You should try dividing them into parts. This will give you enough time to complete everything without feeling drenched.
  • Reward yourself after completing tasks. This will make you feel accomplished and keep you motivated to do more because it comes with a reward.

When you enter a cycle of completing your tasks and then enjoying your time. It will give you a great sense of accomplishment. It feels great to do things beforehand instead of delaying them. This will make you feel more productive every day. This way you will not feel guilty for having fun.

Now, the next thing to do is to imagine yourself in a situation five years from now. You have completely failed in your life. All the dreams you had could not be fulfilled. Think about your emotions in this situation. Give yourself time to really imagine this situation.

Now how do you feel?

It is your procrastination that came in the way of your success. You kept delaying things and never ended up working for your dreams and future.

Lucky for us, it was just a situation that could happen if we keep procrastinating. We still have time with us to change the situation. Everything you do from this point should contribute to you not being in that situation.

Are online friends better than real ones?

We all at some points have been more closer to an online friend than our real-life friends. The world of social media made it easier for us to connect with people from any part of the world. We made these online friends through games, random comments, or social media. We still talk to them regularly and sometimes they know more about us than our real friends.

I remember a time in my life where I was struggling through issues, and I did not want to discuss them with the people around me. So, I messaged my online friends and honestly, they gave me some of the best advice. I also remember talking for hours to some of my online friends about political issues, world debates, random topics, etc. We had way more to talk about than I do with the friends who live near me.

A few reasons why online friends are great:

Trust: It is always easier sharing things with an online friend because they will not gossip around. Real friends tend to share the things we tell them to other people.

Honest: Real-life friends lie sometimes to make us feel good. But online friends mostly tell the truth. If they think a dress is ugly, they will not let you go out wearing it.

Judge: Online friends do not judge us for who we are. We can tell them about our darkest secrets, and they would still be supportive and understanding.

A great place for introverts: starting a conversation through online mediums is less stressful than making real-life friends.

Group chats: There are also various groups for people with similar interests where you can talk to people with similar views.

Flexible: online friends are more flexible compared to real friends. We can reply to online friends after a week and they won’t question us. We can talk whenever we want to without any complications.

Deep conversations: it is easy opening up to online friends in comparison to real friends. We are likely to have more deep conversations with online friends about things like mental illness.

Before you get too comfortable with your online friends make sure to not give them too much information about yourself. You can tell them the city you live in but not the area because it is very easy for people to catfish. We need to be safe and smart while making online friends.

The Internet can be a dark place, with all the hate comments, trolling, and cyber-bullying but it is also a place to connect with genuine people. Sometimes, we connect more to the people living miles away than the ones living near us.

Online friends are great you will get to learn so much about them and the places they are from. It is always fun connecting to new people. You do not have to leave all your real-life friends but once in a while it’s good to connect to people who live miles away from us.

DOWRY

“Oh no it’s a girl child” started because of practices like dowry. When parents find out that they have to pay a huge fee in return for their daughter, no one would be happy at the birth of a girl child. We also have the society showing pity to parents of the girl child and saying things like:

“Oh you have a daughter in your family, you must have to pay a lot.”

“Thank God I am blessed with sons; money shall come my way”

Practices like dowry are what made female foeticide come to life. They check the gender of the child and undergo an abortion if it is a girl child.

Did you know that 20 women die every day due to the harassment of dowry?

You may think that practices like dowry only exists in the rural areas, but it also exists in the metropolitan cities. Well-educated families with both the men and the women working also believe in paying dowry.

Let’s talk about the concept of modern-day dowry. People no longer ask for dowry directly. They just expect “gifts.” These “gifts” make the bride’s side of the family go broke. The bride’s family spends so much money on the “gifts” and the marriage that a lot of the time they have to take a loan.

Do you think it is fair that the earnings and savings of parents are going to the groom’s family? I am sure a lot of us have heard sentences like “we need to save gold for the girl’s marriage”. Sentences like these are so normalised because the girl’s family has no option but to save money because the groom’s family needs “gifts”.

Tell me one reason why they deserve all the earnings of the girl’s family?

In old times the practice of dowry started because girls would not earn. So, parents would give the groom’s family dowry in return for taking care of their daughter’s expenses and living. But, even if the wives did not have a job they would still cook, clean, do the chores and support the groom’s family.

Now in modern society, when women do earn on their own what are we still giving the dowry for?

We as a society need to stop the practice of dowry because:

It financially drains the bride’s family: these so-called “gifts” which come as cars, gold, furniture, properties, money costs a lot and financially drains the family.

It makes the men more superior: if we pay the groom so much just because he is a man, the society is going to keep celebrating the birth of a boy child and look down upon the birth of the female child because it will cost them a lot.

It stops the women from growing: so many women are not able to study because the parents cannot afford dowry and education. Girls often sacrifice their dreams because their parents want to pay money to an unknown family.

Now, here me out. If all the bride’s family stop paying dowry or gifts to the groom’s family what will happen?

The girl won’t get married. Right?

Well, there are many countries where they don’t have to pay dowry to get married.

Shocking isn’t it?

Secondly, we all have to stop our so-called obsession with marriages. When a girl child is born why is marriage the only destination. The woman should be first encouraged to be independent on her own, have her own house, be successful without a man.

So can we all as a society stop these useless practices where we pay the groom’s family for no reason? Instead, can we start fulfilling the dreams of our daughters? The practice of dowry will only stop if all of us come together and say no to it.

Overthinking

This article is for people who overthink the fact that they overthink. Overthinking is thinking the same thought on repeat till it mentally drains us. We may fall into an endless trap of overthinking and overanalysing every single situation in our lives. 

Overthinking makes even the smallest of things in our lives get complicated. for example: instead of going out with a friend and enjoying the moment we could end up overthinking every aspect of that day.

We tend to spend a lot of time thinking about our emotions. They may be the emotions of jealousy, hurt, anger, sadness, grief, etc. It is good to acknowledge our emotions but not get trapped in them.

Different people overthink different things. Some are stuck in their past, some worry about their future, some overthink about the people in their lives. Overthinking puts us in a dark place where we only keep thinking for hours and days without doing anything. We keep replaying questions like:

 “what if people don’t like me”

“Do I even have friends”

“I should have done this in the past”

“will I ever be able to be successful”

“What if I fail in life”

“why can’t I do this”

What we don’t understand is how irrelevant these thoughts are and how they consume our time and energy. Our past is gone, even if we want to change it we cannot. What we can change is our present and that will happen by not entertaining these thoughts.

The future is yet to come and is determined by our actions in the present. For a small example: if I do an internship in my present, it will help me in the future.

So things are still in our control and we don’t have to overthink so much.

Did you know it is our thoughts that control our actions?

If before going to a job interview you think about things like

“what if they don’t like me”

 “what if I mess it up”

 “what if I say the wrong things”

 Chances are they actually might not like you. The people conducting your interview would sense that you are not confident in yourself and would want to hire a person who believes in themselves.

Did you know many companies also give jobs based on confidence? Because every organization needs confident employees who believe in themselves.

Another thing a lot of people do is overthink even when they know the solution to it. Instead of thinking about why you keep getting bad marks in a subject may be giving the extra time, you spend thinking to study that subject could actually help you.

I used to overthink a lot of things in my life. It used to be about things that I wasn’t able to control. But, thinking about them did nothing but exhaust me mentally. Now I don’t entertain any negative thoughts which would cause me to overthink. I now try to work towards the things I want in my life instead of debating whether I will be able to do it or not. We need to stop saying things like “I can’t do it” and replace them with “I can”.

Human beings have the power to think. It is the brains of humans that made us reach the moon. Now, what I want you to understand is that every human being is as powerful as the person who came up with the smartest invention. But, it is on us what types of thoughts we entertain.

The more productive things a person thinks about the more successful and mentally strong they will be in their lives.

Colourism in India

Colourism entered the Indian society through British rule. The British people would often prefer light skin Indians as candidates for important roles. Even the European or the Mughals were relatively light-skinned people. This made Indians start looking at light skin as a sign of superiority.

Even today the obsession with white skin tone continues. A lot of girls from a young age have to go through things like:

“you should apply turmeric and saffron paste to make your skin fair”

“you should do a particular type of wax which removes tan”

“he married her despite her being dark”

“you should use light skin makeup to look fair”

Well, these are a few of the thousands of sentences that a person with dark skin goes through. Growing up sentences like these make the person feel insecure about their colour. Nobody is born with insecurities; a child will never differentiate between a skin tone. It’s the people around us that make us like a particular skin tone.

The media never fails to make money out of the beliefs of people. People consider white skin good, so they decided to bring products like fair & lovely. There are so many more products and creams which say things like natural fairness, or natural white to attract consumers. Many young men and women use these products daily. What they don’t realise is that these products contain bleach, steroids, and other harmful ingredients that lead to skin cancer and liver damage in the long term.

After #blacklivesmatter, products like fair and lovely were trolled so they decided to change the name into glow & lovely. But it is still the same product that was built to support light skin.

A lot of other brands also did initiatives like Johnson & Johnson stopped their line of skin lightening products. They also told how they will include all shades of skin colour in their band-aids.

 Changing the name of the product doesn’t mean that people won’t buy it and use it as a fairness cream. But, let’s still appreciate the little changes the multinational companies made. But, there is still a long way to go.

 Another thing you must have noticed is the matrimonial ads in your newspaper. If I got money every time I saw the word “fair” I would be a billionaire.  

What people fail to understand is that our skin tone depends on the geographic conditions, that is how exposed we are to direct sunlight. In places that are sun-soaked people have a dark skin tone. This is because their skin is rich in the pigment melanin. Melanin creates a shield from the radiation of the sun.

This is why when light-skinned people visit places with a lot of sunlight they experience sunburn because they don’t have enough melanin to protect them from the sun.

Our skin colour solely depends on how far we are from the equator. So, I don’t really understand why light-skinned people are given superiority when clearly this isn’t something we can control. Our skins are built of a certain tone to protect us from the environment we live in.

Next time if someone around you shames you or anyone for their skin colour make sure to correct them scientifically and also tell them how much money white people spend on tanning regularly. White people tan for hours, buy lotions, get spray tans to get the colour that we have. I am not stating this to hate on them, I just want to point out how they spend money on tanning while we bleach out our tan.

INTROVERTS

Introverts are people who like spending time alone or with a few close people. Introverts enjoy being by themselves or being with a few people they trust. There is nothing wrong with being an introvert. One in every third person is an introvert.

Our society fails to understand what introversion is and, has labelled introverts with people who are “shy” or have “social anxiety”. Yes, some introverts are shy or have social anxiety but not most of them. They think introverts are scared of social surroundings which is not true. They just would rather do something else than interact with every single person.

Even characters of fiction make introverts look like bookworms, and that no one knows they exist meanwhile, extroverts are the social butterflies that everyone loves.

Our society apparently doesn’t like “introverts”. They think that extroversion is the only way of living. You can often see this at workplaces and schools. Only the children who are extroverts are appreciated in schools.

Did you know introverts are likely to get more marks in school or become leaders?

Another thing that our society does not understand is that people have their own ways to recharge. Extroverts like to seek out social stimulation and engage with people to recharge. While Introverts need solitude to recharge.

Another annoying thing that people do is expect introverts to become extroverts. I remember a few of my friends making me feel bad for not being as social as them. Which is wrong and is something a lot of introverts go through.

Introverts and extroverts have very different brains. Studies show that:

  • Processing events and interactions are more complicated for introverts. This is because introverts have a longer pathway for processing stimuli.
  • Introverts and extroverts also react differently to dopamine. While extroverts thrive on engaging and interacting with people, introverts feel drained by it.

People need to stop expecting introverts to become extroverts cause clearly, their brain does not work like that. Forcing them to act socially will drain their energy.

If you are an introvert who is trying to be an extrovert to be accepted by society. You need to stop. I show traits of both extroverts and introverts based on my mood. There are some days where I don’t feel like socializing, and because of the pressure, I would try to socialize and It would just drain my mental health. So, trust me it’s not worth it.

Our life is not a social competition where only the people with the most social skills will succeed. Introverts have way more knowledge and more understanding of themselves and their surroundings. People need introverts just as much as they need extroverts.

We need to do what makes us happy. If staying in a room and reading is what makes you happy do it. If only going out with two friends is what makes you happy do it.

People need to start understanding and accepting introverts as who they are. An extrovert may feel bored by themselves or with a few people, the same way an introvert may not like being surrounded by a bunch of people.

Our social skills do not define who we are. A workplace will always need both extroverts and introverts. Introverts have skills that extroverts don’t have and vice versa. So, only appreciating extroverts and making introverts feel bad for being themselves does not make sense.