Gerald D'Cunha

  O ne of the nails you and I hammer while we raise our houses of failure is - giving up when we feel discouraged. Trust me, it’s not easy to be optimistic and stay hopeful when this nail hits us hard. But, then, one thing is sure: If you and I love life, believe in the goodness our hearts possess – and, above all, if we recognize how fortunate we are for the blessings God has bestowed upon us, yes, right through this deep sense of gratitude for the gift of life, all our feelings of discouragement can dissolve. Nothing is going to cripple our souls till we choose to celebrate life... All of us start dreaming, because we believe in our innate goodness... not because other believe in us. Others belief in us can be a great help, but not before we believe in our own selves... Giving up when discouraged – when people say ‘No’, or show discouragement – yes, giving up when discouraged is a pure excuse. As Jim Rohn puts it, it’s a nail we allow ourselves to be hit hard with -   ...

  “Don’t waste your time in anger, regrets, worry and grudges. Life is too short to be unhappy.” Roy T. Bennett   G loom is contagious. So is happiness! These nearly-two years of Pandemic have taken all of us through this roller coaster of happiness and gloom. None has been spared. None. But, then, we all have relied on our respective coping mechanism. Getting into gloom may have seemed easy… Rather, automatic. Most of us have found ourselves simply slipping into the gloom – feeling overwhelmed by anxiety and worry about our future. From there, fortunately, many of us have bounced back. But, some of us have remained stuck, and some of us have, unfortunately, perished! I believe, this has been the familiar scenario during these unusual times. It’s tough to stay optimistic and motivated when gloom surrounds us from all sides. The more the mind focuses on ‘what we have lost’ and ‘what may happen’… yes, the more pessimistic and dejected we become. A person like me,...

    “Honesty is as rare as a man without self-pity.” Stephen Vincent Benet   W hose life is free from problems? Sometimes, I ask this question to others when I find them complain about some problems in life. And, sometimes, I find myself questioned by others when I complain about my own.   What I am trying to say is this: Nobody’s life is free from problems… And, nobody is fully free from complaining about problems in life! So, let us not pretend, that we do not complain about our respective problems in life… There ‘are’ problems in life, and, we ‘do’ complain about them! Perhaps, some of us complain more, while some of us complain less. It’s important, therefore, to examine to which category we belong – chronic or mild! “It’s alright to sit on your pity pot every now and again,” says Debbie Macomber, “Just be sure to flush when you are finished.”   A while ago, when a young girl was complaining about her own problems, I found myself tellin...

“Bad news travels fast. Good news takes the scenic route.” Doug Larson I nterestingly, many young boys and girls tell me, that they love horror films, and, they like to watch them late in the night. “Are you able to sleep after that?” I ask them. “Very well,” they say. One of my ‘nighttime problems’ is this: If I take any bad news to bed, I am not able to sleep. So, leave alone the horror films, I avoid watching the gory TV news and toxic debates at night… It leaves me disturbed. Another problem, in my case, is, that if a sudden phone call or something like that wakes me up from my sleep, I find it difficult to catch it back. So fragile my night ecosystem is! Last night, a mild beep on my phone broke my sleep. It was around 12.45. A relative of mine, had just sent to me this video on the ‘shocking’ incident at Mumbai’s Sion hospital (Wrapped dead bodies were kept along a Covid patient's bed). I had come across this news earlier ...

Pic.: Alwyn Mathais “If you don't get out of the box you've been raised in, you won't understand how much bigger the world is.” - Angelina Jolie T he ‘box’, Angelina is referring to, is our mind. Unless, we bring ourselves out of the rut – the image – we are in, we shall, always, be held captive there. Yes, inside the ‘box’. Someone had said it, rather bluntly, this way: “A rag-picker’s son will, always, remain a rig-picker as long as he has the image of the rag-picker.” And, that’s the story of each and every one of us… We have this image of the situation in which we are born and grown… That’s our ‘box’, our ‘image’… our ‘world’. So, till we don’t look at it hard and decide to re-sketch this image, decide to re-write our script, we will, always, remain caught-up in our ‘boxes’. There should be something bigger than us calling us, all the time… There should be something greater challenging us, all the time… A bigger vision, a greater cause… a ...

  It is not easy to believe in the philosophy:  “In Life, our problems are opportunities in disguise!” It is easy to believe only when problems hit other people’s lives…  But, when problems hit our own lives, it is tough to buy that theory… Very tough! But, then, are problems, really, not opportunities to learn from and grow with? No matter what our problems are, no matter how crushing they look, how intimidating and frustrating… I, seriously, think that our every problem does possess the seed of opportunity for us to learn from and grow with – become wise, strong and compassionate, in Life. And, to anchor our hearts on this philosophy, I also think that some things must be in place. Here are they. T here should be zest of life. Or, let’s put it this way: We should love life! Now, just imagine the power of this mindset… this paradigm! I think, everything else will automatically fall in place the m...

Several years ago, when I had founded THE DAWN CLUB, I was very young and all fired-up with enthusiasm. Hundreds of my students had come around me and their faith and support had given me the vision and the courage to follow what my heart wanted me to do… But then, I was a lot anxious, too. I remember meeting many respected individuals – some of them happened to be parents of supporting students. All these individuals were kind enough to hear me out… and, all of them had given me the timely advice. Even, today, I remember the counsel of these good souls.  One of these wonderful souls was Dr. Murthy, who himself had taken a big plunge by quitting his secure job and putting at stake the lives of his wife and college-going three children. I remember the late night talk we were having in his house, that day. He was very happy for the kind of zest I was demonstrating and the kind of initiative he had seen in me. I felt a lot confident as I was listening...

I had missed the Olympic Games opening ceremony two weeks ago. Last night, at our 1.30 time, the closing ceremony was to be telecast. I did not want to miss this time. So, just before the ceremony began, my son woke me up. I sat with my son till 4… and relished every bit of it.  I had been watching the events selectively during these fifteen-days-long London Olympics. As an Indian, I was rooting for our contestants. Felt happy whenever a Silver or a Bronze was won… felt sad when they lost out! But, Olympics, to me, are not about the nations, even though over 200 nations take part in it. To me, it is about celebrating the human spirit… it is about exploring new heights to scale… It is about self-belief… and, it is about admiring the best, the winner. Why should I feel so happy when Jamaican or Kenyan sprinters set new bench-marks for the world in those events? Why should I root for Usain Bolt as if he is from my own country? I felt...