1. Get some professional photos taken.
2. Feel the snow.
3. Refresh my personal library and read my favorite novels again.
   1. Gone with the wind
   2. Doctors
   3. Love story
   4. Ponniyin Selvan (Tamil)
4. Have my hair permed.
5. Take son to the zoo or beach all by myself atleast once every month.
6. Visit Lake Palace, Thekkady and stay at the same suite we stayed on our honeymoon.
7. Sail in the sea.
8. Be awake all night doing whatever.
9. Collect favorite movie DVDs in HD.
10. Watch Ellen Show whenever I wish. And watch it live atleast once.
11. Buy Calvin and Hobbes full collection.
12. Maintain an Oil Pastels daily sketch book.
13. Inspire people and be a blessing in someone’s life.
14. Make my own personalized flash cards for son.
15. Sing on stage atleast once.
16. Perform with a professional dance group.
17. Go on a tour of Indian classical dances and learn a few steps in each.
18. Learn ballroom dancing with hubby.
19. Make a really good mouth watering curry.
20. Interview a famous person I really appreciate and admire.
21. Get son to spend quality time with my parents.
22. Spend a night at the beach with closest of family/friends.
23. Teach son to read tamil.
24. Camp in a jungle and not be afraid.
25. Read a book in a lonely beach.
26. Consciously allow myself to be addicted to something and pamper and nurture the addiction.

I’m sure the list is not complete yet, but I have some raw material to work with in life.

I believe in believing. Why yes, it all dates back to the days in my past, with disbelief in the almighty, even though I was an optimist in actions. I believed in myself and everything was possible. Except that I didn’t realize that I was missing something important. That part which I didn’t know, I either was ignorant about it or I subconsciously chose not to dig into it, lest I have to face a truth I’m not prepared for.

Anyway, things turned out well and before it was too late, I understood this important thing in life. The thing that changed me, my life and family and undoubtedly will continue to do so, in a positive way. I’m sure I wrote something related here and here, but these are topics that keep showing more new meanings in life, the more we look. There’s always a lot to explore and the things that we are going to learn shall never end.

What the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve. -Napolean Hill

Belief. All things tangible are so because of belief. All things superstitious are so because of belief.

A couple of days back hubby was wondering why he was fine when he ate ice creams as a child, but now when he takes ice cream, he gets a sore throat! I said, ‘yeah, when you were a child, your mind was not poisoned with the thought that ice creams cause sore throats, but now that you do, you believe in it and end up getting one’.

The demonstration of Power of belief starts early in life. Everyday when I get ready, son stands next to me and insists that I do makeup on his face. I act as if I’m applying makeup on him but he doesn’t know that I actually closed the accessories safely before putting it on his face. This happens everyday and then he would stand in front of the mirror and admire the work I had ‘done’ on his face. Sometimes I play along saying how the eyeliner made his eyes more beautiful. He feels proud and sometimes when he is not in mood, he even tries to remove the makeup with his shirt, you know, the makeup that really isn’t there.

Belief is a basic of everything. If not for this factor, what would the world look like today?

It started like this.

Hi,

Greetings from ABC, erstwhile PQR.

First of all, I know neither ABC nor PQR but I didn’t give it much thought because the second line was more interesting.

Regret the inconvenience caused to you by this unsolicited mail and would like to apologize for the same.

Oh so Mr. X who sent this mail confirms that his mail is “unsolicited” and goes on to the extent of apologizing for sending the same. And then he expects me to read on!

Seriously, I thought this was darn funny, and I continued reading because I really wanted to find out what Mr. X was up to. The mail went on like this.

We presently offer the following solutions which are exclusive in our service offering.

Yeah so they are offering exclusive “solutions” to problems I don’t have.

We also offer the following on a financial planning basis in case you feel there is a need to explore these options as well.

And then the “following” talks about everything on the face of the earth that I might possibly ‘need to explore’. More interestingly, the mail ended like this.

It would be great to meet you at a time convenient to you and explore how we may be able to add value to your portfolio.

Looking forward to meeting you.

Warm regards,

Mr. X

ABC

My reply should be this:

That’s a great positive business-like ending, Mr. X. Adding value to my portfolio and your confidence in looking forward to meet me are great. But do you really think I would have come this far in your mail after reading the second line unless I wanted to write an interesting blog post?

People are busy and they want to make best use of their time. Amidst all the work and personal mails and hundreds of forwarded mails (forwarded mails may not be important but we do prioritize them as ‘urgent’ and even mid day at work, we read them and keep forwarding, don’t we?), do you think we will have the time to read and respond to a ‘meeting request’ that is unsolicited and apologetic?

Come on Mr. X. I’m sure you don’t receive a favorable reply often and unsolicited mails easily hit the ‘junk mail’ folder unless the reader is either jobless or is intending to make a funny blog post about it.

Leave your apologetic mask behind and meet people with confidence. Or try picking up the phone and say hello with a smile.

I tell you, I bought most of my credit cards and insurances from sales people who were nice (and who came with a good free gift) even when I didn’t need them.

Anyway, I don’t have any particular reason because the concept of ‘not having enough time’ doesn’t even exist. I just didn’t want to write even though I had quite a lot to write. My childhood habits are still taking over every now and then. The habits that I totally ignore these days and let it do whatever funny stuff it wants to.

I have always had so much to do. I could paint well, I could sing and dance pretty good, recently I started writing too. And then I had to read continuously for 3 days in a stretch without caring much for food and sleep. Oh yeah, I really did that when I start reading any novels. I just had to complete it before putting it down. And there were times when I couldn’t breathe without listening to music. All of my so-called habits had designed my life. I’m an addict.

My hobbies are like my alter egos. Every now and then, one of my hobbies take over and pull me into it completely.I forget everything else and I don’t even struggle my way out. People used to say that this is the factor that pulls me down. I was under that impression too, until recently when I decided that I need freedom; freedom of choice, freedom of decision, freedom of time, freedom of money and freedom of hobbies. When my heart flows for something, I give it my fullest potential. But I can’t afford to think, I’ve been painting nicely these days, so I need to force myself to paint until I become a master of painting. If I find my interest shifting from painting to writing one day, I’d rather start writing when my passion is completely into it, rather than forcing myself to write when I really don’t want to.

I’m probably one of those very few addicts that are proud of their addiction.

No, I was not suffering from a blogger’s block. Could someone be having a writer’s block when they have so much to write about?

I could have written about how wonderful my son is and how he is learning to ride his tricycle.

I could have written about how he responds to all my positive speaking madness all these months and he behaves like an angel, that when he sees the yellow alarm button in the lift, he smiles and and never attempts to touch it anymore even though I never said “No” to him.

I could have written about how happy I am about our new prayer routine holding each others’ hands every night in bed and even communicating our dreams regularly.

Or I could have written about how lousy I felt on diwali day morning when hubby and son were still asleep and that I wrote a post about how I missed diwali in India and then hubby remarked that my post passed a negative energy to him talking only about what I do not have right now and I immediately took that post down without any explanations to my dear readers.

I could have written about how we went shopping to one of the busiest places in singapore and I had to change son’s poopy diaper sitting in the most uncomfortable position and his toddler butt doesn’t clean the way it used to when he was a new born that I convinced myself that I would wash him well when we reach home and I passed his diaperless body to hubby, attempting to put on his diaper. I could have definitely added how hubby got poop on his new formal shirt and how his angry and disgusted face suggested to me that he might cry in front of anyone and how I rolled on the floor laughing.

I could have written about how I usually record my ideas as voice message in my phone and how one night just when my son and hubby had slept, I got a flush of follow up ideas to my “where is god” post and how I also felt lazy to get up from bed and that I whispered into my phone those wonderful ideas. Oh yeah, I should have added that I wanted to listen to my ideas now and all I could hear was strong ‘S’ ‘S’ ‘S’ sounds with the hum of the fan in the background. I have no idea what I had been thinking that night!

I could have written about how my posts are getting longer and longer these days and that I have to admit that I hate reading long blog posts.

Too many things to write about. May be I was just thinking too much that I found it difficult to settle in front of the computer. May be I should start another NaBloPoMo. May be.

Recently we got into discussion with one of our spiritual friends who was sharing about how he experienced God, that he had learnt from many spiritual mentors and had searched for so many years before finding his answer. And then he went on to explain what he believed. Surprisingly, I didn’t talk back or get irritated by what he was talking, for that was more or less my reaction in the past whenever someone talked to me about spirituality. Rather, I was listening attentively and took mental notes of what he was saying. But whether or not I agree with him was not important to him was it?

It was interesting when I realised how complicated God was to him. He searched for many years and had even cried to his pillow amidst his prayers asking to experience God. He went to many spiritual masters to learn the path to God. I was amazed by his desire to learn, but what made me respect him more was his belief. He had absolute trust in his spiritual mentors and whole heartedly believed whatever he said. I enjoyed the discussion even though his theory that God lies in the upper portion of our heads and that the entrance to God is in between two eye brows and that exactly is why hindus wear ‘bindi‘ and last but not least, that hairline is the path to God (God being compared with the ‘chakra‘ or rotating disc on the vertex of our heads) was NOT appealing to me.

Here’s my take on the subject. I didn’t search for as long as my friend. In fact when I told people that I was searching for God, I was actually searching for evidences that God didn’t exist. But somehow, somewhere down the lane, I found faith. The unknown scintilla that I always believed to have carried with me began to take form and I realised the truth; truth about belief; truth about faith. I understood that faith is the foundation of everything in the world. The whole world is tangible because of faith.

I found God in my own heart; a believing heart. I found God embedded in faith. It was logical and magical at the same time. Every question I had always asked started answering on it’s own. The truth is surprisingly simple. You experience God where you want to, by believing. It is that simple. God is always there, waiting for us to explore, to seek and to find. Why would we experience Him unless we seek? People seek in different ways. For me, it started with belief, which is the simplest and easiest way of doing it.

I’ve been thinking of this for a while and now is the time to make the change. I thought of putting this into action and making it a habit to bless and praise people. I promised Hubby and I promise you, my dear internet world, that I shall say atleast 5 sentences everyday either blessing or praising (or both) somebody other than my immediate family members for the next 21 days.

Why 21 days? Because I believe in the 21 day principle. If you just make yourself do something for 21 days, it becomes a habit. Try it on your own, it works.

I still haven’t decided how to keep track of it, or if it’s important to keep track at all, but I might send tweets of the 5 sentences I say or I might write them down on paper. If they are appealing enough to publish, I shall consolidate them into a blog post. Okay, my ‘bless and praise challenge’ (BPC) starts todayand ends on the 6th of October. Here I go to mark my calendar!

Recently I have gotten a habit of getting into stores and not be surprised or embarrased about the prices there. Ever since reading The Secret, I had stopped telling that anything is not affordable for me. Why yes, even a 1000 dollar dress is affordable for me right now, I just have priorities and I don’t want to spend 1000 dollars in a dress. I’d rather spend that money on a better laptop, or my monthly rental.

Couple of days back, I was at Loewe and found this long purse. I’m surprised that this is just what I wanted and hadn’t been able to find it elsewhere. The listed price was SGD 1100. Dear God, all my other purses I use are 20 to 30 bucks and the one I currently use, which I love too was a freebie. A few months back, I would have told the salesman that it’s too expensive and I would never ever think of buying it. But I did something different. I asked him if I could take a picture of it for my visualisation board.

And I said “We are definitely buying it pretty soon”. And saying that itself gave a pleasure of having bought a 1000 bucks purse. It is ready to be put on my visualisation board and my refridgerator.

And as I write this, I notice something. What am I saying my dreams aloud on the internet and making a virtual promise that I AM going to achieve my dreams. But that gives more confidence and more reason for me to shut down the computer and get out of my house right now to do some more business work.