Why do I travel?

I was asked to write for the Logica’s Women Network blog on Travel. They couldn’t  have chosen a better topic for me to write on. Below is what I posted on the Garam Chai blog.

The world is a book and those who do not travel read only a page! -  St. Augustine

I love to travel, explore new places and re-explore already explored places!
People who know me say, my eyes twinkle and I become a different person when I talk of old travels and plan for new travels.
Why do I travel? To learn and grow – when I visit better countries, I wish to improve my own. I have now realized it is possible to drive without honking and I do try to do so. And if I travel to a country worse than mine, I learn to appreciate my own country.

The perspective of the word Still changed after my visit to the Amazon Forest.
Visiting Hampi, Ajanta & Ellora, Golden temple, I learnt that as we build the so called ‘state of art’ sky scrapers, we forget Beauty.
Fear was redefined after being chased by an elephant in Kabini.
Skydiving in New Zealand instilled in me a new found Respect for myself.
Scandinavians give a new character to the word Honesty.
As we travelled in the Norwegian Fjords, I discovered Majestic.
For the first time we Listened to our guide to stick together, after my friends were mugged on Copacabana beach in Rio.

I could go on and on but for now I want to leave you all with a beautiful quote from Mark Twain - “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Behaviour!

"Tell me how you will measure me and I will tell you how I will behave."

Our Destiny, Life and Prayers

From Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Overall, an OK book, a one time read. But there were these 2 or 3 bits that I just loved …Simple words…but so profound.

Coincidentally, all are from the Pray section of the book….surprising because I wear this badge of being a very unspiritual person!!!

****************************

Better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody’s life with perfection. So now I have started living  my own life. Imperfect and clumsy as it may look, it is resembling me now, thoroughly.

God dwells within you as you yourself, exactly the way you are. God isn't interested in watching you enact some performance of personality in order to comply with some notion….

*****************************

Richard found himself praying all the time. His prayer was always the same. He kept begging God, “Please, please, please open my heart.” That was all he wanted – an open heart. And he would always finish the prayer for an open heart by asking God, “And please send me a sign when the event has occurred.” After a few months of praying constantly for an open heart, what do you think Richard got?That’s right – emergency open-heart surgery. His chest was literally cracked open, his ribs cleaved away from each other to allow some daylight to finally reach into his heart, as though God were saying, “How’s that for a sign?” So now Richard is always cautious with his prayers, he tells me. “Whenever I pray for anything these days, I always wrap it up by saying, ‘Oh, and God? Please be gentle with me, OK?”

*******************************
Of course God already knows what I need. The question is – do I know? Casting yourself at God’s feet in helpless desperation is all well and good – heaven knows, I’ve done it myself plenty of times – but ultimately you're likely to get more out of the experience  if you can take some action on your end. There’s a wonderful old Italian joke about a poor man who goes to church every day and prays before the statue of a great saint, begging, “Dear saint – please, please, please ….give me the grace to win the lottery.” This lament goes on for months. Finally the exasperated statue comes to life, looks down at the begging man and says in weary disgust, “My son – please, please, please…buy a ticket”

Remember…

Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.

An ignorant person is one who doesn't know what you have just found out.

     ~Will Rogers

Calvin’s Serenity Prayer

The strength to change what I can,
The inability to accept what I can't,
And the incapacity to tell the difference.

Some of us prefer it to the original…which goes like…

God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.

Quotable Quote!

"Better to get a sore neck from aiming too high than a hunch back from aiming too low”

Anonymous

Help

Dear Lord,
So far today I've done all right. I haven't gossiped, haven't lost my temper, and haven’t been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish or overindulgent. I'm very thankful for that. But in a few minutes, God, I'm going to get out of bed. From then on, I'm going to need a lot more help.
Amen.

Being myself

is my greatest strength.

Unknown Lands!

The gladdest moment in human life is the departure upon a distant journey into unknown lands.

Sir Richard Francis Burton

Another nice quote!

Whatever you do, don't do nothing.

Hope...

is NOT a strategy!

My Opinion!

Almost Single

Recently I was in Alipurdwar, where my friend and her friend insisted that I should read 'Almost Single'. The author is alumni of my school, so loyalty to a fellow Welhamite demanded I read this book.
I was stuck at Siliguri airport due to bad weather and managed to complete the book in a couple of hours. I won’t say anything about the book. The reason being simple...recently a visitor to my house saw the book lying around and wanted to know what I thought about it. And I couldn’t remember for the life of me what I read in the book...and that is so NOT like me at all. If someone asks me what I think of a book like Kite Runner, I can point out the exact sections which I liked the most, what moved me, what I didn’t like etc.
Someone has rightly said "Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it."

The blues is like looking down on planet earth when you're stuck in outer space

~ Sulman Rushdie

For years there has been a theory that millions of monkeys typing at random on millions of typewriters would reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare.
The Internet has proven this theory to be untrue.

~ Anonymous

...Eventually all the pieces will fall into place. Until then, laugh at the confusion, live for the moment, and just know that everything happens for a reason...

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.

~ Albert Camus

Illusions - Richard Bach

I just finished reading Illusions by Richard Bach...for the 2nd time if I don’t count all the times I have just opened it on a random page and started reading it.
Once again Richard Bach emerges a star as this book helps clear up my mind...helps me address all the apprehensions and concerns I have been facing lately.
There are 2 parts in this book that are my favourites. One is when Don is on the Radio Show and the way he insists that we have complete freedom to do just what makes us happy, is really inspiring.
The other is when he talks about the typical rant that we all hear in our lives –"I do unto others as I would have them do unto me but..." The results are never as we expect ...are they? His explanation as to what makes us think that the other people want to be treated like that, in the first place, makes one rethink all the times we wonder what went wrong?

A few of my favourite quotes from this book…

If your happiness depends on what somebody else does,
I guess you do have a problem.
**********************************************************
Don’t be
dismayed at good-byes.
A farewell is necessary before
you can meet
again.
And meeting
again, after moments or
lifetimes, is certain for
those who are
friends.
**********************************************************
You are
never given a wish
without also being given the
power to make it true.
You may
have to work for it,
however.
**********************************************************
Your
conscience is
the measure of the
honesty of your selfishness.
Listen to it
carefully.
**********************************************************
There is
no such thing as a problem
without a gift for you
in its hands.
You seek problems
because you need
their gifts

Remember…

"You must remember this: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think." So said Christopher Robin to Winnie the Pooh…

This is something that I have always agreed with…but somehow I need to jog my memory once in a while…and today…or rather this week is one such time when I need to tell myself…I am braver than I believe!!!

The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work.