Gerald D'Cunha

“Whatever we perceive as good in the world   has always endured, and it always will.” Carmen Agra Deedy   L ast evening, while returning home, I met a stranger. Though I just said, he was a ‘stranger’ to me, I wasn’t a ‘stranger’ to him. “I read your blogs regularly, though you do not know me,” he said enthusiastically, “I look forward to read them every time... How do you find your topics, the simple but touching stories?” Obviously, I felt nice on what I had just heard from a person, who, without my knowledge, was reading what I have been writing, almost every day. I had to answer his question: “How do you find your topics, the simple but touching stories?” Well, I do not know whether or not my answer to this question was what I will be writing in this Post, today... W e all step out into the same world, each day... and we only find what we all are looking for. I do not know what you were looking for in the world outside as you stepped out of your house, this m...

  “Children are not things to be moulded, but are people to be unfolded.” Jess Lair   I have not played any competitive game in my life, leave alone a high-pressure game like the one (Cricket) going on, today, between India and Pakistan… Yes, leave alone playing such a game, I haven’t even played a competitive gully-game. But, I know this: without experiencing pressure, there can’t be a competitive game… And, what about the exams – board exams, the regular school and college exams, entrance exams, and high-profile exams? I don’t think, we can free some amount of pressure and stress from these exams… And, I believe, that a reasonable amount of stress in life is a ‘good stress’… It is necessary to keep us alert, agile and prepared… Imagine, a student who is just not bothered about his/her exams? Is such a stress-free approach okay for you and me? A s a teenager, I remember getting stressed out before my every exam. I had been an anxious kid, always… I had high de...

    “The cause of poverty is not scarcity, it’s fear and small thinking.” Alan Cohen W e find the poorest of the souls, often, sitting on the mightiest of the thrones, or owning largest ‘wealth’ on this planet… Poverty is a state of mind… the state of lack of love and gratitude towards life and people around… Be it Donald Trump, or be it Elon Musk… These guys are nowhere near the treasure called ‘Love’… The more they crave to sit on the thrones, the less secure they feel. Forget about their outlandish dreams and promises to make the Nation, or Life, great… “Enough is abundance to the wise,” said Euripides… People who are consumed with the ambition to conquer the world – yes, they will never understand… what ‘enough’ is! The Bible… Sorry, why do they need help from ‘the Manger and the Cross’ to woo people - to place them on thrones? Jesus Christ, Gautama Buddha, Shirdi ka Sai Baba, Mahatma Gandhi – were they ‘poor’ souls? Did they suffer from insecurity? T here ...

  “Anxiety is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do; but, it doesn’t get you very far.” Jodi Picoult   I know, beyond a certain point, it is futile – even senile – to worry about the future. Still, like everyone else around me, anxiety about my future doesn’t spare me. At no stage in my life – of 65 years – there was an ‘anxiety- mukt ’ time… I had something to be anxious about in my teens and I have something to be anxious about in my mid-sixties… I worried abut many things while I was a bachelor, and I worry about so many things when I am a family man, now. Good health or bad health, no money or more money… let me tell you this: Life never seems free from worrying! Am I generalizing here? I believe, I am not. What we ‘know’ and what we ‘do’ – are different… I am quite sure about it. For example, I know, that living in the present moment is the key to reduce - and even get free from - our anxiety. I write about it in my blogs… and strongly encoura...

  “Our anxiety does not come from thinking about the future, but from wanting to control it.” Kahlil Gibran   W hy do we call some things in our lives – ‘a pleasant surprise’? For these two obvious reasons: 1. It’s pleasant 2. It comes as a surprise. No matter how frantically you and I try to control our future, we simply cannot. We can only think about our future… plan for it, work for it and, even, pray for it. But, beyond that, we cannot do anything. Like many around me, I, too, have spent too many sleepless nights worrying over my future. But, what has happened in my life, yes, a large part of it had not been thought over or planned about. It has come as a pure surprise. Yes, mostly pleasant… Some, unpleasant. When I see this reality, I learn to let go of my need to control the outcome of my efforts. I learn to do my work with all my heart, with total focus and dedication. That done, I learn to simply trust the kind Universe to do the rest. Money, health,...

  “The best kept secrets are those in plain sight.” George Banister   “T he whole Universe conspires in your favour when you really want something.”…   Is this what they call a ‘Conspiracy Theory’? If not, this one must be: “When your mind is idle – and heart is bereft of trust -   the whole Universe conspires against you.” “Idle mind is devil’s workshop”… Whoever said this first, he must have been a true angel! He must’ve, also, said this: ‘A heart bereft of trust, is the breeding ground of unhappiness.” Why would anybody – I say ‘anybody’ – be so obsessed to see me doom? Why would he be so sadistic to pull me down? Yes, there IS jealousy and there IS insecurity in this world. Yes, there ARE some people who believe, that my success means their failure… My happiness means their unhappiness and so on. But, that’s not the ‘Whole Universe’… Everything is not a ‘Plot’… a ‘Coup’… a ‘Conspiracy’. Sorry. Everybody, out there, is not a ‘conspirator’. Sorry....