Just Take a Year Off from Your Life

I am writing here almost after 6 months. I am happy to say that my health has improved a lot and I am very happy now. 9 months of the year have passed and the only thing I have done in the last 9 months is to take care of my health. Most of the time, I tried to do nothing and believe me it is the most difficult thing for me. All my life, I have been a hyperactive person and I love to work hard. However, in the last 9 months, I tried not to do anything unless I was forced to do it.

As a result, my health got the scope to heal and I am almost back to normal health. I am not suffering from insomnia anymore. My diet has changed a lot and I have become a much better husband for my wife. I hardly earned any money in the last 9 months but fortunately, I did not suffer from financial stress. An amazing transformation is taking place in my life in every aspect. I can handle stress much better and real improvement is taking place.

I have watched many movies in the last 9 months and listened to all the songs that I liked. I have read some books and watched some games. Followed my favorite football club Arsenal like a fanatic and read a lot about them. I tried to do the things that I like and it helped me to spend time and do nothing. Yes, doing nothing was a very big challenge for me but I have learnt an important lesson by watching so many movies. The biggest lesson that I have learnt is that if you keep on trying something, you get better at it.

May be, you don’t get success or win but you see life if really like a marathon not a 100 meter sprint. You really don’t need to win in every battle simply because you cannot. So, don’t get intense about that. I have realized that life is much bigger than I thought. I can see life from a different perspective now and this is the biggest blessing for me. I met my wife online 10 and half years ago and we have been online for most of the time. Even now, she is living in another country and I am here.

In January, it will be two years the last time I saw her and I surely miss her a lot. She also misses me a lot too. However, we chat via Yahoo Messenger and Google Talk every day. While most people that know me simply cannot understand how we can remain a real couple virtually, we both know that we are the happiest couple among all the people we know. Happiness does not come easily but comfort may come. I am happy that I have tried to select happiness and real love over comfort in life.

The sufferings of last 3 years have surely made me wiser and I consider myself to be lucky for this experience. Sufferings have turned sweet at last. There have been very tough 3 years of my life but after that, my happy days have started. Failure is the pillar of success and really, Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet. So, my advice to you is that when you fail in life, just try to take some off and do the things that you really enjoy. If you are suffering from any disease then take a year off and take care of yourself.

My problem was not bad health alone. In fact, my health became so bad because of some serious non-health related problems. My condition worsened so much that I almost gave up hope of staying alive. What a dramatic turnaround for me in just one year? I am getting back almost everything in life- health, skill, speed and happiness. The only thing that I need to get back is my career or work. However, that really should and must wait for the time being. At least, I have to wait for another 3 months as I am not still 100% fit. 

Getting Back My Life at Long Last

I don’t know if any of my 89 followers of this blog noticed the fact that I did not update this blog for the last 3 months but I surely missed writing in this blog. The good thing is that I have lost almost 11 KG (24.2 lbs) and more than the weight loss, I feel normal for the first time in many years. I feel great. I still need to lose 6-7 Kilo Gram but I really feel normal in my heart, chest, stomach and head. The best thing that has happened is to me is that 90% of my stress is gone.

I have missed almost 3 years of life and I could have accomplished so much in blogging in the last 3 years. Just last week, I was present as a discussant at a seminar on “New Media, Blogging and Social Responsibility” held in a university. I was not the keynote speaker but I enjoyed speaking at the event. Nearly 2 months ago, I took part in a discussion program in a local TV channel. I went there as an IT (Information Technology) journalist and the live talk showed continued for 45 minutes. Next week, I am supposed to conduct a workshop on Online Journalism and Online Writing in another university.

I was very happy that I could last for 45 minutes in a live talk show because, I had no experience of live television before that. By the way, I am also involved now with a research project with a university. So, I am doing things but still not back to full time work. I have realized that I still need 3-4 months or even 6 months before I can think of starting a full time job. May be, I will have to wait until the beginning of 2013 for that but I am not sad for it.

I am not sad because, I have lost 3 years because I was always in a hurry. I did not wait enough and any time, my health showed some signs of improvement, I just pushed myself too much to get back to work. I am after all a workaholic person and I enjoy working more than anything else. I believe in working hard and I enjoy working more than most people I know. There is nothing wrong in it and it is even an appreciable quality. However, what is wrong in me is that I always tried this quality of mine to the most extreme level.

As long as I was young and healthy, it was not a bad thing and I overcame many limitations in my life because of this quality. However, now, I am not young anymore and I am still not back to my normal health. Even after I become healthy, I must be extremely cautious about not working too hard. Now, when I look back to the past 6 years, I really regret for working too hard. On the other hand, I have stopped regretting for the past because I know that my goal was good. I failed to achieve my dreams in life but I am making a fresh start.

My wife has taught me one valuable thing. According to her, health is the first basic thing of a human being. I now agree with her and I will never neglect my health again. I just forgot everything and got completely engrossed in a project if I liked it. I did not care about diet or eating healthy but just ate a lot when I liked a food. I also enjoyed finishing an interesting book within a night instead of sleeping. In short, I was a very emotional person and when I liked something, I just rushed towards it with all my ability.

As a result, I just lost my health and for the last 3 years, I could hardly work as I was sick and weak most of the time. It caused a lot of emotional pain for me because I was forced to stop working at my finest hours. Perhaps, it made me more desperate to try and it made my condition worse. If I just stopped trying for 4-6 months then surely, I would not have lost 3 years I guess. I surely needed to become wise and mature and I am happy for learning this lesson.

So, I must continue putting my health first and then my work. Otherwise, history will just repeat itself. I really from my heart would love to thank everyone for reading this blog for the last 2-3 years. Your reading this blog has surely helped me a lot to get some mental strength. I wish that I had been more active with this blog as I never dreamt of earning money from it. 

Happy New Year 2012 and Eat Well

I just noticed that I have not posted anything in this blog for the last one month. So, I wish a very late happy new year 2012 to all the readers of this blog. There are now 84 followers of this blog and I really wish to write some comments in some of these blogs but then, I am really trying my best to get my health back.

From 1 January 2012, I have seriously started an effort to change my eating habit. In the past, I have seriously tried to decrease my weight 4-5 times and each time failed. You see decreasing weight is not that difficult and each time, I could lose nearly 10 KG in just two months but then I got back the 10 Kilogram or 22 pound very quickly too.

What went wrong? Why I failed each time in the same way? Now, I know the answer. First of all, I tried to decrease weight very quickly and went for extreme calorie reduction. Water fasting became my favorite tool. I did not take exercise seriously. Because I hardly ate, doing exercise was impossible too. This time, I am doing two things different. First of all, I am not obsessed with decreasing weight rapidly. I am eating every day and not thinking of any kind of water fasting- at least not for the next 2 months.

I am taking one or two meals a day instead of 3. So, I have cut back on my calories but not that much. In the past, during my diet days, I almost or even totally stopped eating meat. This time, I have 100% stopped eating beef and mutton (goat meat) but I am eating chicken twice a week. As a result, I don’t feel weak like past. I normally eat a heavy lunch of nearly or some more than 1000 calories and 5 days a week, I eat vegetarian foods (with the exception of eggs). Then, at night, if I don’t feel hungry, I don’t eat the second meal. However, if I do fell hungry then I eat the second meal and the second meal is always raw food like banana or peanuts (without oil or salt).

On the two days that I eat meat, I take care not to eat more than 2000 calories. So, I am slowly but consistently losing weight without being that much hungry. The only sugar I eat these days is in my tea. I have almost stopped eating shrimp as I have high cholesterol problem.

I have stopped doing any work or looking for work at this moment. Any work brings stress and I really need no stress for the time being. This is a very wise decision because without it, I would not be able to totally focus on my health at last. If you are really trying to decrease your weight then try to take a break from your professional life for a few months.

Most probably, this time, I will become successful in decreasing weight to the desired level. I wish to decrease nearly 14 KG more in the next 15-20 weeks. However, I need to think of the time after I really reach to the desired level of weight. Until now, my weight came back very rapidly after reaching to the desired level. It happened on each occasion in the past. So, I need to find a good strategy this time. Well, you see when you consume more calories than you should, your weight will slowly increase and when you consume fewer calories than you should then your weight will slowly continue to decrease. This is really as simple as that.

So, I need to continue eating healthy food items as well do regular exercise to prevent the lost weight coming back. Of course, I cannot continue to be without any work for a long time but I am not that much worried for it because when my health improves then I can work hard and compensate for the lost days. After all, the hardest part is now not doing any work. I am fond of working more than most people.

How to be Happy in Life?

No, I am not giving you some tips about becoming happy in life. I am just going to explore this question and hopefully give my own opinion. We all seek happiness and often we get confused between happiness and comfort. I feel that it is different from comfort, luxury, success and achievement. To me happiness means a state of condition where sadness can attack you less. If you are happy then you are cheerful even in most depressing and desperate condition. On the other hand, if you are not happy then you don’t find peace although you are successful and rich.

I am a big fan of the concept of Four Noble Truths of Buddha but real life is more complicated than what Buddha said. Just think of this sentence: Suffering ceases when attachment to desire ceases. Is it so easy to overcome desire? In fact, it is impossible to overcome desire or ceasing of attachment to desire. So, this advice sounds impractical for real life but may be, you should not discard it totally without giving a serious thought.

May be, we should try to be selective about which desires to pursue. We should try to pursue the desires that bring most happiness to us. Well, a new problem would arise because how do you know that the things you like a lot are good and would bring real happiness for you. For example, if you are fond of drinking wine (alcohol) then you know that drinking too much wine may lead to addiction and can cause serious damage to your health. So, if you want to be happy then you need to have some wisdom. Without wisdom, even if you can get happiness for the time being, it will not sustain on the long run.

If possible make a list of the changes that you want to make. Suppose, you have a bad temper and you get into trouble with others for that. First, try to accept your problem without giving any excuse and then you must want to change from your heart. As long as you give excuse to yourself, you will never be able to overcome it. It is really a very tough thing to accept our own mistakes. I can easily point out 10 mistakes of another person but it becomes very difficult for me to accept my own mistakes.

Until we can learn to accept that we make mistakes and we can pinpoint our own faults, it really becomes impossible to find true happiness. When you can find your own faults and can accept that they are really not good then you move a long way in your quest for real happiness. You see actors and actresses try to portray good qualities and good values in movies but in their own life, often they are very unhappy. So, they run into all kind of problems and often they end up being very unhappy. As long as you learn to accept your own faults and mistakes, you are just pretending like an actor.

So, you have to learn to embrace the reality and the truth. If you can accept your mistakes then you can try to overcome them and change yourself. Why not make a list of the 10 problems that you have with yourself? After making this list, just think about them and try to want them from your heart that you want to get free from them. You must want very strongly to get free from the mistakes or faults that you have.

Of course, you need to be patient if you want to get free from your faults or mistakes. It does not happen overnight. You will experience many defeats and as a result, you will feel frustrated. Failure is indeed the pillar of success. Secondly, when you try to change, you may find that people around you are not that eager to support. Even some of you may laugh at you and think that you are crazy. Don’t bother about them because it is your life and you must decide if you want to be happy or not.

If you are trying to quit smoking and all your close friends are fond of cigarettes then it is natural that you will get no support from them. Often, people think that honesty is stupidity, kindness is weakness and by being good you become a loser. No problem, let them think what they wish to. If you look around then you will notice that most people are not happy. They are not satisfied with their life. It is mainly because we live in a world where goodness is not valued and it was never valued in the past either.

When you can overcome your problems, mistakes, faults or sins even if not all of them but most of them- you will start to feel happy from your heart. Just being alive will bring you a lot of satisfaction.

If you have come to read this entry with the hope of finding some tips for becoming happy then I am sorry about that. Really, some tips cannot bring happiness for you unless you really want to change from your heart. If you are looking for some tips then read the following two articles:

20 Simple Ways to Get Happy

How to be happy in life: let out your anger

Why not to overcome the Writer’s Block!

Each and every writer on every corner of earth suffers from the writer’s block at one or another point of life. You will literally find hundreds of articles on this topic and many articles surely contain valuable tips on how to overcome this problem. In this blog post, I am going to try to convince you not to try to overcome the writer’s block. Don’t get shocked or alarmed before reading the post. Believe me, it is not my goal to prolong your writer’s block but I am going to discuss this topic in a different point of view.

I am mostly concerned with the matter that often we face serious problems in life and as a result, we cannot work properly. Some of us may mix up these problems with writer’s block. Let me give you an example from my own life. If you read this blog regularly then you know very well that I have been suffering from ill health for the last two years and I hardly could do any work. Sometimes, when my condition was not bad, I still could not write. When there was too much stress in life, I could not write either. You see for writing, you need some sort of mental peace and calm.

When we face too many difficulties in life at the same time, it becomes almost impossible for many of us to write. Perhaps, depression is another major obstacle and almost all of us have experienced depression in our lifetime. At first, I wrongly thought that I was suffering from writer’s block and tried very hard to come back to writing. This only made the situation worse for me because in addition to my other serious problems, assuming that I was suffering from writer’s block became even a bigger headache.

As a result, I became more ill and I felt more frustrated. That is why, although, I have recovered almost 100% now, I am not putting up any serious effort to start fulltime writing or blogging. I have offers of at least 3 projects now and one of them is really very attractive. Still, I have decided to take some more time and let the so called writer’s block continue. I want to come back when I feel I am 100% ready to write and I can work without putting any stress on my health or mind.

Enough of my problem. If you are really suffering from writer’s block then the first question you should ask yourself is: Is it really and only the writer’s block? Do I have any other serious problem at this moment?

Unless, you are struggling to pay your bills and you are in desperate need to earn some money, never force yourself to come back to writing when you are suffering from sickness or may be suffering in your love life. This may only make the situation more complicated and your returning to fulltime or part time writing may only get delayed.

With this post, I am going to stop talking about my health and from now, I am going to write about the things I want to write. Still, it somehow got related to my long illness. Sorry for that. 

The Real New Beginning

I know that I have suffered a series of false starts in the last two years. So, I am afraid to state that I am not sick anymore and it is a new beginning. Then, there is nothing wrong in dreaming. Yes, I need all the motivation and encouragement from myself to start again in life. There is my wife whom I miss a lot but she is supporting me 100% online.

Now, the only thing I wish to do is to get back full time work and the only skill I have is writing. There is no doubt that I enjoy writing more than anything else. At least, I can try to update this blog more frequently. I hope that I can do it from now. I really wish to write more in this blog but it never happened for the last 6 years. Yes, this blog is going to be 6 years old in coming February.

Most of the time, I just wrote here for increasing some entries for the network. For the last one year, I wrote mainly about my ill health. Most probably, after this post, I am not going to write much about my health. Instead, I just want to write about anything I like- I really miss it a lot.  

The wisest thing that I have done is not to try to come back to work in the last few months. In 2009 and 2010, this was the mistake I made- I tried to use my will power to come back to work. It was a stupid mistake but I am happy that I have learnt from my mistake. This time, I waited as long as needed and I am ready to wait another 2-3 months before getting back to full time work. 

The last Chapter

Yesterday, I could exercise for nearly 100 minutes. No, I could not do it at a stretch but I could not imagine of doing exercise for 100 minutes in a single day. Today, naturally, I am tired but I feel good inside. I have almost forgotten when it was the last time I felt this level good. So, you can be sure that I am enjoying every moment of life now.

I have lost almost everything in life. However, there is still one thing left- my marriage. I am grateful to God for this marriage because my wife is really very supportive. Because of her constant support, I have survived very tough conditions in the last one decade. I met her 9 and half years ago in Internet. These days, getting married through Internet has become common but 10 years ago, few people could imagine it especially if they were from two different countries.

These days, I am listening to the songs of the movie A Walk To Remember and here is one:

It is like the final chapter in my sickness saga. I am near to get back to normal life. I know that it will take another on year but I am not sick like past anymore. The worst is really over and from now on, things will hopefully get better and better.