Stories - Geet Vijayvergia

The Impact of Impressions

Aug 23, 2020 | 1 comment

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“Yo, dude. What are you so dressed up for? Going on a date at 9 in the morning?”

“Shut up, bro. I’ve got an interview. Gotta make an excellent first impression.”

“That explains the suit.”

We’ve all seen this situation, overheard it or maybe even witnessed it in person. First impression. Interesting thing, isn’t it? Make-or-break. Death-or-glory. But why? All I had heard as an explanation was because the first impression is the last impression. Okay, the first impression is the last one. So how does it matter? Why should I care about making a good lasting impression? I bet very few people actually have an answer to this. Answer this for yourself before reading ahead.

Be true to yourself. Answer it.

Good.

The answer to this is a simple concept of higher expectations and higher performance.

Whenever you appear in front of a person for the first time, they form an impression in their mind on how you’ll behave in the future, from the one time they see you.

If they see a hard working, dedicated and sincere you in the future, if their belief about you is strong. And what happens when you strongly believe in something?

You work on it, for it, towards it. Basically immerse yourself to achieve it. Similarly when the other person believes in you, they put their heart and soul to make sure that you succeed in your endeavours, that you come out better than the rest.

Don’t you just love it when people are working for you, rooting for and counting on you? Of course, everyone loves it. You know that there are people who will elated if you succeed and shattered if you don’t. You feel, “Oh! Maybe I don’t suck that much. After all, these people believe in me.” Therefore, your belief in yourself strengthens when you see people believing in you.

You start working for their sake, if not for your own. You start taking actions. The actions turn into results.

Results that reinforce and confirm people’s beliefs. This starts the cycle all over again, except with more certainty this time and becomes a snowball effect growing on its own results. This is called the pygmalion effect.

Source: https://www.theworldcounts.com/happiness/pygmalion-effect-examples

Like every coin, there’s a flip side to this coin too.

If they see a lazy, irresponsible and undisciplined you in the future, they don,t believe in you. They don’t want to put in efforts for you because they think you’re gonna do no good, and all the efforts will be in vain (even if it’s not true). This makes you lose confidence in yourself. When that’s gone, everything’s gone. You think “Oh! What good am I going to do anyways. Just let it be.” with this mindset, you take no action.

This also results in a snowball effect, but a shrinking one. The more this cycle continues, the worse situations get.

But the interesting part is that you can change anyone one of the two components which are in your control – your beliefs or your actions – to change the course of this cycle.

Now the next time you see your teacher being partial toward her favorite students you know what they did right 😉 and what you can do too. I’ve been the teachers’ favorite student myself 🙈

Just be confident, respectful, sincere and well dressed up 🙂

Slowing Down Your Overthinking Gear

Aug 16, 2020 | 3 comments

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Overthinking.

The invisible evil of Generation Z.

The same thing which keeps so many of us up at night (apart from a few smart people. They are truly very smart.)

UGHHHHHHHHH! Care to define the accused? I kinda do. According to the Oxford Dictionary, overthinking means to think about (something) too much or for too long.

For me, and I believe for many others too, it would mean to think about others’ actions and words to the point that things become something like what is shown in the tv.

Media vs Reality? | Media, Media lies, Funny pictures

Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/145944844144789331/#:~:text=Saved%20from%20funnyjunk.com

And what happens because of this? We often jump to conclusions and end up taking things personally.

Jumping into conclusions

Source: https://memeguy.com/photo/291254/jumping-into-conclusions#:~:text=Likes:%201

When your friend doesn’t text you back, you feel like you’ve annoyed them till the end of this world and that’s the reason they’re not talking to you. Oh boy! Don’t even get me started on that one day when almost all of your friends don’t text back and you feel like the most worthless person alive.

You know what actually happened. They werent ignoring you. They were merely caught up in their own work or maybe forgot to check their phone (honestly, a miracle in today’s times).

Someone cancels backs out on the plan last minute? First thoughts – they don’t wanna hangout with me.

We hold ourselves guilty for whatever happens with us. We think it’s because of our shortcomings or maybe because we aren’t good enough.

Newsflash! That isn’t true.

We need to be a little less self-obsessed and realise that it isn’t always about us. Actually, It’s not about us in most of the cases.

When you don’t get selected for a job, chances are it was because there was someone better. Not because you weren’t good enough. And it’s not in your hands to make sure there won’t be someone better. You can only make sure you are the best you can be.

If someone shouts on you, it’s more likely because they were angry, upset, or maybe because something was bothering them and not because you were bothering them (unless, of course you didn’t do your chores before your mom reached home. In that case, you are the reason buddy. And pretty dead too💀)

Imagine a referee taking every single word thrown his way during a match personally. They wouldn’t be very happy now, would they? They actually don’t even need to take it personally. You and I both know that the words coming from the players and the fans are not said to the referee because he’s bad. They’re simply coming because they want to be right.

When you focus on the other person’s intention – when you see the world through their lens – you know there’s no reason to take it personally.

And this my dear friends works.

But not always 😬

Because it is hard to overlook comments aimed at you. It is really hard to not question yourself when someone undermines you. That’s when you should realise that it is about you. It is about the insecurities you developed. Insecurities that even a part of you feel is true. What do you do then? You empathise with yourself. You acknowledge the flaws and remember everyone has them and that you can work on them.

You also speak up for yourself. When you speak up for yourself, tell the other person about what’s bothering you – without blaming anyone – you give the other person a chance to listen to your side of the story and take your needs into account. After all, communication is the universal solvent.

This was my way of tackling a part (the biggest one) of overthinking. It has slowed down my overthinking gear quite a bit honestly. If you have a problem of overthinking, try these two methods consciously for a week and tell me how your week went. I’ll literally ask you.

You can check out my friend, Chehak’s blog (who knows we are awesome with our flaws too) Flawsome on the same topic, overthinking, to get another perspective on life.

This post was inspired by TED ‘How not to take things personally? By Fredrick Imbo’.

The Reading Breed

Aug 9, 2020 | 6 comments

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“They couldn’t keep students any longer in the school, could they?” Kavya sarcastically muttered under her breath while heading for the last period.

She dreaded school. It wasn’t the studies that bothered her. Why would studies bother such a bright student anyways? It was the people who bothered her. They were so into themselves, never cared to talk to anyone besides the friends they made in primary school. She couldn’t see why some people looked forward to coming to school. Studies could be done from home too. She wouldn’t come to school herself if it was not for the law. After all, there was nothing about schools that appealed to her.

What she did to get through her day was to attend her classes quietly without talking to anyone or bothering them and spend her breaks in libraries. Because spending your breaks alone seemed as sad to other people, even if it wasn’t. She felt that the library pretty much kept her out everyone’s eyes.

One afternoon when Kavya was going to the library after her Algebra class, she saw someone approaching her from across the corridor. They must be going to the people behind me, she thought. After all, no one talked to her. On looking behind her, there was pretty much no one there. She may have had to talk to someone that day. The approaching figure finally came to her and it was Vani, a smart, sharp girl from her class.

“Hi,” Vani said politely, surely not faking it.

“Hey.” Kavya reciprocated, slightly bothered that she wouldn’t be able to spend much time in the library now.

“I’ll not beat around the bush Kavya. The thing is, our school is participating in a reading and analysis speech competition. We need 5 people for the team and we’ve got 4. I have been noticing for a few weeks that you spend a lot of your time in the library. I think you’d be great for the team. Please don’t say no.” Vani explained all in one go as if she had been given a time limit.

Kavya had forgotten how to speak. She gathered her words and apologetically said, “Sorry Vani. But I don’t do competitions. I’ve genuinely never done competitions before. It’d be a shame if I came in and the entire school got its hopes high, only to let you all down in the end.”

“Don’t worry about that at all,” Vani said with a glimmer of hope in her eyes and her faint smile, “we’ll prepare you and we’ll prep you good. The entire team will help you out. Just say yes. I promise it will be amazing and we’ll win. But for that, we need you.”
No one had ever wanted Kavya so bad. No one ever needed her this much. She just couldn’t say no to this. There was just no reason to.

“Fine.” Kavya said, trying to hide a smile spreading across her face. “Who all are there in the team?”

“Yes. Yes. Yes. There’s Chaitanya, Neil and Kisha. Of course, apart from me. See you tomorrow then. Recess, your den – the library.” Vani winked and sprinted away.

*****

Kavya did meet the squad the next day and the following days for weeks. They – mainly Neil and Chaitanya – insisted on calling themselves ‘The reading breed’.

She had gotten used to Chaitanya laughing at the most serious moments, urging Kisha to speak up first and add in her inputs, and Vani being the mom of the group and bringing everyone back on track. What she had not gotten used was being the victim of Neil’s nasty pranks. What he had against her, she’d never understand. So she tried to stay away from him as much as possible even if it was in vain most of the time.

*****

The competition day arrived in the blink of an eye. The reading breed’s school won, thanks to Kavya for breaking the tie. Maybe because she had tons of potential, hard work and a dash of beginner’s luck.

And what came along with the school trophy, was a realisation for Kavya.

All the people weren’t into themselves. Not all the people talked only to the friends they made in primary. Some reach out to others too. Not all people think that school was for studies only. It was something beyond that. It was a place where you made connections, a place where you belonged. And then, you have things to look forward to. People you are eager to meet.

She now no longer felt out of place. Now it wasn’t the law that brought her to school. She felt like she belonged here.

Kavya is still spending her breaks at the library, but is often accompanied by The Reading Breed.

_____________________________________________

P.S. This is probably the first work that I can call fiction. Maybe? I don’t know, you let me know. My aim was to present something different while still providing a lesson. Hoping it was accomplished 🤞

Also, do you want more of The Reading Breed? Comment down below.

Open Letter To the Universe

Aug 2, 2020 | 2 comments

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Hi!

This goes out to everyone, literally everyone who is with me, was with me and will meet me. Hello to the ones I’ll meet, because we may not have talked to each other, maybe we are strangers or you may not even know that I exist. You may not know me, but you’re wishing for me. That’s all the reasons we’ll ever meet; You called me, you wanted me. And I will be with you. I promise.

You know when I realised this? There are times when you look at people and feel like, what would it be like to know such or such person. You feel like befriending them even if not a close friendship. Even if it’s just like an acquaintance. It happened to me too. There was one person that I simply wanted to know. Nothing else. Just get to know him. And one fine day, when I’m playing volleyball with my best friend like the noob I am, that guy literally walks up to me. Like literally walks up to me. Well not exactly me, more like us. But you get the point. Imagine how freaking crazy this is. It is crazy for us. For the universe, not so crazy. That’s what it does. It connects people. 24x7x365.

Mind you, this was not a one odd time, unless you consider 6 instances as coincidences too. There are 6 other very real people who I wanted to know and now they are in my actual proximity even if 2 of them are mere acquaintances. But they know I exist. For me it’s quite a fascinating thing to suddenly be acquaintances with someone whose universe previously didn’t overlap with mine. And the other 4 are actually my friends. Not like friends whom I see once a week and then forget them for the next 10 days. They are my friends that actually know what is happening with me, what I’m up to. These people have actually spent time with me. Remember my two friends who turned into brothers? One of them is one of these 6 people.

I really wished for these people to be my friends and now they are. I would say that I can’t believe these coincidences, and in fact I’d not even call these coincidences. Maybe unconscious intentions? These were probably the things meant to happen. As if they were destined.

So, this was for those, who are (and will be) with me, those who are listening to me and those who need me. Remember, I’m there for you; if not now then maybe someday. But I will surely be there for you one day. Maybe we’ve seen each other, but our paths are yet to cross. I’m sure that they will.

See you soon.

Sending you love, hope it gets there before I do.

______________________________________________

There. I’ve bared my soul in this letter. Honestly, it’s a very surreal feeling to even type this out. Because this is very very different from how we talk about life in general, in everyday life. We never think that we’ve brought the people that are in our lives. But that’s just how things work. The world will bring you what you wish for. I think you just need to wish hard enough for it.

Paulo Coelho Quote: “When you want something, all the universe ...

https://quotefancy.com/quote/221/Paulo-Coelho-When-you-want-something-all-the-universe-conspires-in-helping-you-to-achieve

I had written this letter almost a year ago back in August 2019 and I had written in it a very different state of mind that I am in now. I was in a state of realisation I would say. Somewhat a ‘Eureka!’ moment. I guess this is just a way for me to remind myself that life’s been brighter. It’s not like things are bad now, but just not the most lively and exciting. Feel free to consider this post and other ones too as a reminder for yourselves.

Please spread it so that I can meet the wonderful people who are yet to come in my life. I’ll be forever thankful to you for this.

And in case, I don’t know you personally, I’d like to change that. Just drop a comment below and I’ll write to you.

Let me know who you brought into your life unintentionally.

Polaroid and Me

Jul 26, 2020 | 4 comments

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Click.

That’s how we take our Starbucks coffee’s photo for an insta story, right? Five at one go. Only to be never looked at again.

You know, sometimes the irony of life really amazes me. Like beyond imagination.

We take pictures to capture our memories, to freeze them with the passage of time. Memories we will want to revisit. We click photos so that we can laugh again at the trip we took on our birthday, even 15 years later.

One can dig up almost any memory that is buried deep inside our hearts, solely with pictures and snapshots. And before you know it, the entire family will be bubbling with incidents to share. The elders will be sharing the events with great nostalgia and the younger ones will be listening to the tales like they were fiction. Soon enough you could live through an incident that had happened way before you were born.

All of this with the help of a piece of cardboard. Oh, the power it holds.

To accomplish this somewhat even more efficiently, we turned to digital photography, because it allows us to take as many pictures as we want. So that we don’t have to confine ourselves to the 16 photo restrictions of 120mm of the film roll. We can take pictures without the uncertainty whether they’ll turn out fine or not.

The paradox kicks in here. Unlike the 70s and the 80s, clicking a picture has become simple beyond comprehension. You don’t have to wait for days to get the photos processed, let alone edited. Now clicking photos is not reserved for special days and is definitely not a planned activity (we’ve got candids now 😏).We can pull out our phone and click pictures of almost anything and everything that interests us.

This is like what happened to aluminium. When aluminium was discovered, Napoleon III served food to his more illustrious guests in aluminium utensils and the less honourable ones were served in gold and silver utensils. Later on, aluminium was widely used among beggars in Paris.

What we can see here is that as soon as a product became abundant, its value dwindled.

So is the case with photos. As much as I appreciate the pocket-sized convenience that a camera and a phone is, I’ve seen myself and others taking pictures just because we can. We take pictures till the time we are satisfied that we have enough to show people. When that’s done and statuses & stories are uploaded, there’s a major chance that you’ll ever look at them again and feel nostalgic. Of course, unless it’s a pic from your trip and not a pic of what you just ate. And doing the same, we often lose the awareness of where we are and what we are doing.

The result of this is a hazy memory of the place whose photograph is being taken. Hmm… Quite the opposite to the purpose of photos.

This happens because your brain starts to rely on “memory of the camera” and also starts to divert more energy towards visual imagery. And this is not coming from me. It’s a consequence of the “photo-taking impairment effect” first identified in a 2013 study.

So… How can we actually remember the memories from your photographs or we will continue to be Ghajini forever and lead our lives with photographic clues?

The resolution (pun intended) to this is – recalling your memories through photographs. Just like the old times wherein you click just enough photos that allow you to summon the memories, not give you the minute to minute details of the day.

You can do another thing. After you take enough pictures of the specific day or event, you should just sit back and absorb the scene. Take notice of the color of the sky, the smell in the air and everything you can using your senses.

I took this one step further and did an interesting thing to accomplish this. I bought a polaroid camera. The limitation of the film I’ll have to put in it will keep in check, how much time I am spending clicking photos and how much I am devouring what is in front of me.

Psst… I’ll tell you a secret. The camera has pretty awesome aesthetics too.

I’m dropping the link down below in case you too are interested in taking your limited photography a step further.

https://amzn.to/30L8Iro
Here is the video that inspired this post: How To Remember Your Life

What is Beginner’s Luck?

Jul 19, 2020 | 8 comments

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“That was fun.” I told my bestfriend after coming out of a bowling alley for the first time in my life.

“You were pretty good for your first time.” She acknowledged me, clearly impressed.

“Thank you. Thank you.”

“Well, don’t be too happy cause all it is, is beginner’s luck.”

The last part set me thinking on this phenomenon – beginner’s luck – a phrase that we use around so much without even knowing why it is the way it is.

According to the Cambridge Dictionary (who hopefully isn’t a beginner for the sake of our literature knowledge), beginner’s luck is an unexpected success experienced by a person who is just starting a particular activity.

That means, you are more likely to excel at an activity, sport, competition or a game, if you’ve never tried your hand at it before.

As I look back on that non-lockdown day, I figure that’s exactly what happened with me that day in the bowling alley. I had no knowledge, no previous experience of the game. And still I managed to come in second position. Maybe even first for all I remember.

Source: shorturl.at/giQUZ

Hold up. This makes absolutely no sense. Yeah. It is actually pretty counter-intuitive to think that a novice would beat an expert.

Well there are ample reasons for the same, the foremost one being the detachment between the beginner and the game, sport, competition or activity. The newcomer has no past record or history, thus he doesn’t have to live up to anything. He or she doesn’t have a reputation on stake. All of this because they are new at the activity and aren’t even expected to do very well. Unlike many others already in the race, they wanna perform well because they’re excited and not just dragging through it. So they perceive the situation to be in their favor. What we perceive affects how we perform And as it turns out, that perception can influence us in very real ways.

In short, these guys got no pressure. Just like I had none, when I scored a perfect 10 CGPA in 6th grade, because that was the first year we got CGPAs and hence, no past record.

The other reason prevails in the territory of games and sports or competitive scenarios. If you were to play any game, indoor or outdoor, with your regular buddy, you’ll surely know what move they’ll play when they’re stuck. Like said, being a beginner means having no past records. Which further means, no track of the strategies used by them. You can add two and two now. And for those who are unable to – it means that the opponent usually plans his own strategy based on your previous actions. So if he doesn’t know about them, he’ll be caught off guard and hence increase your chance of winning extensively.

Okay. Understood.

But why did you spend your time reading this? Because there’s something for you too.

Beginner’s luck is good to have, isn’t it? But it won’t be beginner’s luck after the first time. Although you can surely keep that winning streak.

Disconnect yourself from the pressure of the competition. From the pressure of the expectations. I am fully aware that this is way easier said than done. But we can always try. Looking at it, I can see my grade’s topper doing the same thing. After the exams when he is asked about what he expects, his reply is almost always, “Nothing.”

As Krishna ji said,”Karm karo, fal ki chinta mat karo”(do your duty without being concerned about results).

I think that’s what all beginners do knowingly unknowingly.

What are your beginner’s luck experiences?