Why does it always happen to me? I mean i start over with a new purpose and a new motivation but only to lose it all in a matter of time. Why do i always find myself back in the beginning. Right where i started. Its almost surreal. My unfathomable inability to stay motivated. Its almost like i suffer from MDD. You know, Motivation Deficit Disorder? I’m sure there is such a thing. If not, there should be!

No seriously. Every few months i find myself facing the Great Wall of Depression (of course ignoring the small depression bumps in between, they don’t count) . It sneaks up on me at first. I mean i almost never notice it until its right there towering over me. Instead of fighting it and bringing it down, i take refuge in it. Almost enjoy doing it. Then it engulfs me. And its downhill from there until i hit rock bottom and i realize i am the one to blame for it. MDD slaps me right in my face. I realize that i helped build this Great Wall, brick by brick. And it is overwhelming to realize that i spent the past year tearing down my last Great Wall of Depression only to replace it with a brand new  more darker and ominous one might i add!

So here are the bricks that i helped build in my GDK (Great Depression Kiln):

1. Lost motivation to lead a healthy lifestyle. Stopped jogging in the Month of Ramadan this year and haven’t jogged ever since. Stopped exercising altogether. Took interest in fatty food. Took special interest in junk fatty food. Gained weight.

2. Gave family little or not time at all. Found mother  very annoying. Lost patience with mother on too many occassions. Found brother to be immature and irresponsible and a total waste of time trying to explain it to him. Came home late most days from work. Usually took detour while coming home and stopped at malls/shops to prolong getting back into household chaos.

3. Shamelessly ignored friends and their need to socialize with me. Shamelessly ignored my own needs to socialize with them. Gave up on socializing altogether, actually. Aspired to become a hermit of sorts. Lost my interpersonal skills in the process, leading to awkward silences, even with close ones! Thank God for Facebook and some really nice friends i’m not entirely friendless, yet.

4. Got sucked into a veritable black hole of laziness. Gave up learning to skate, reading books, any hopes of ever learning something new. Wrecked havoc at work with mind numbingly lazy excuses for not getting the work done, on time that is. Survived at work somehow. Fingers crossed!

5. Last but not the least, gave up trying to understand my relationship with my boyfriend. Not entirely though. But to a risky extent. Often “dazed and confused” like that Led Zeppelin song. No im not kidding. Still hoping for a miraculous happily ever after. Details in a later blog i promise .

So there you are. Upto speed on my deeds for the past year. Its that time of the year that i start over. Bring down the wall. Brick by brick. Only to re-build a few months later. Can anyone help me out of this vicious cycle of depression? Anyone?  Wait is that my echo that i hear? Oh whatever.

Whoa I’m really impressed that I did NOT forget how to log in to WordPress and actually write something. I realize its been almost a year since my last post and im glad that I do not have avid readers of my blog who were left wondering and sad! but I’m really freakin impressed!!

Well now that I’m back it means that its time for some personal shrinking again cause I am not ashamed to admit that this has been my original sole motivation for blogging. Yes very much so. Blog therapy I like to call it.

However, no matter the need to shrink myself back to being a functional and satisfied being, I will not jump into it and make a mess of things like I always do. Little baby steps of self psychologizing is what I’m aiming for. So i guess you’ll find me here more often now…hopefully..that is if don’t fall into that abyss of crazy lazy heaven that I’m so inclined to fall into these days!

Ciao for now

Whenever you write an amusing note on IM or on somebody’s wall on Facebook there is always the chance that the reader might not get your humor and end up thinking that you are being judgmental or pointing a finger at somebody. There is always a lack of context: a tone of voice or a facial expression to fill in the whole picture of a true intention.

I normally try to be myself and write funny notes because that is who i am and that’s what i like doing when im socializing via the various online social utilities available, particularly Facebook. At most, i pray that the people who read my posts, do so with an open mind and a funny bone in them. And it applies to my friends as well. I like to believe that the people i hang out with and call friends and share my humor and my life in general feel the same way as i do. Otherwise, i wouldn’t have hung out them in the first place.  Especially for someone like me who likes to crack a joke and tease friends about funny incidents when we interact with each other. That’s the way it goes, our hangouts.

However, recently i have learned the limitations of social interaction on the web. Apart from the obvious constraints that i mentioned earlier, there is also the fact that every word i say on my friend’s wall, some deliberate and some on a whim, are all documented forever. It remains on the wall for everyone to read, the person intended as well as all the 169 people on that person’s “list of friends”. It remains there until the context in which i had made the original statement cease to be. And then Judgy Wudgy the Bear trudges along and reads my post and makes a judgmental comment on the person who is the proud owner of that wall, who also happen to be one of my closest friends.

So when i got home from a long day at work yesterday and logged on to Facebook to find a big ass private message from that friend asking me to be proper on Facebook, by writing proper sentences on her wall and on the wall of all our mutual friends so no one gets hurt in the process (:s), i couldn’t quite figure out how to react. So i did what i do best and joked about it and asked her to calm down. But she was quite fired up and sent me another big ass message! And i thought, i always wanted a big ass but all i got was big ass messages . KIDDING!! Actually i thought that she was overreacting and was being too concerned about what people thought of her. I have to admit i was a tad pissed. So i decided not to reply.

However later that night, since im not good at sleeping much, i got to thinking. Why am i different in this way. Why don’t i give a rats rear end as to what people might think about me  reading my blogs or the posts on my wall or my comments on other people’s walls? I do not remember myself this way when i was young. I remember living my life for other people’s approval. But what had happened to bring about this change in me?

Confidence, i thought. But that made me wonder where i got this confidence from. Which in turn led me to my job, which took me back to my hostel days searching for a job, and after following the bread crumbs of memories, i came to the conclusion that i am the way i am today because of this one person who loves me so much and was with me when i had neither family to rely on nor friends to run to when i needed to. And the rest of the night i felt blessed. I felt that there was someone watching over me. No make that two.

Sorry couldn’t help but digress. So in the morning i woke up feeling blessed and you know why (see i wasn’t quite digressing). And i realized that i am able to ignore these judgmental bears because i can. Not many people are as lucky as i am. It is hard enough to live in this world where people are constantly judging you every chance they get and if friends open the floodgate for you then its just not worth it. If i can’t keep them away at a safe distance from my friends, the least i can do is keep the floodgate locked!

Does this mean i cannot be myself on Facebook? Ofcourse not, i’ll go around commenting funny on people’s wall just like i used to, but i shall keep an eye on the Judgy Wudgies just so i don’t end up hurting my friends. But in a cafe or while on a rickshaw ride, there will be no stopping me, so you better hope the rickshaw rides tickle the right bones in you .

Now don’t go judging me!

I never thought that i will. But i do. I miss your cooking and i miss your hug.

I hope you’re okay.

I was never really a social person. I knew it from a very young age that i did not like hanging out with friends as much as being at home or anywhere else and alone. My mom used to worry that i preferred to play with my neighbor’s rabbit rather than the neighbors themselves.

I remember i had a neighbor, Leo, who was about my age and  had two most “adorablest” rabbits. And i used to go over to his house just to play with them. I used to feed them grass and follow them around on the lawn. Leo would sometimes hang around with us but i remember tolerating him only because he was the proud owner of the two rabbits. One day i had a fight with him over something so silly i don’t even remember. But i remember being so upset because i couldn’t meet up with my real friends, those rabbits. Seeing me all heartbroken my mother made us kiss and make up. However, neither one of us was interested in friendship. It was more of a trade. I made friends with him so i could hang out with his rabbits and he made friends back so he could play Atari at my place. So often he was at my place playing Atari while i was at his, playing with his rabbits.

Improvements started showing in my social behavior during my university years when i stopped being a zombie and started hanging out with real people, that is other than my online friends whom i’ve never met in my life before. It was definitely not a natural thing for me to do and took a lot of effort on my part. After a lot of faux pas and with time, my social skills got honed. And near the end of my “time” in university i bagged quite a few friends, some of whom are very close to me and i don’t know what i’d do without them.

However, recently the motivation to be social has been somewhat dampened. I’m not so sure why. And i find myself limiting my social interaction with only my closest friends and my boyfriend :s . And interestingly enough i do not even miss hanging out anymore. And i also  find that i have been engaging myself more and more on non social activities such as blogging and bog reading, photoshop’ing, jogging, solo shopping, reading books, browsing and researching online about Islam! So much has been the lack of motivation for social networking that i am getting less and less active even on Facebook and have been MIA on MSN Messenger for quite some time now.

It bothers me now, though. Because if i know myself well enough ( i’d like to believe that i do) then this problem might not be just a phase. Unless you would like to call the last 6 years a phase. I think that a time period of more than a year cease to be a “phase” and become a radical change in life style. And that is why it bothers me. Because if i am to be this unsocial for say, the next 6 years, then this is not good news. Because, when it was quite easy to be a zombie, ignore the rest of the world and live my life the way i want to in the past, it is quite the opposite now. Both my work and my personal life depends a lot on my ability to build relationships and keep up with people around me and keep in touch.

So help me God!

No.Wait.

I need to fix this without any divine intervention. Dinner plans? let me know!

1. I do not make any sense sometimes

2. I do not understand office politics

3. I do not handle awkward situations well enough

4. I get hungry quite often

5. I let people take advantage of me very easily

6. I can’t be bitchy back

7. I can’t be mad at people for long

8. I am very very very forgetful (a total goldfish)

9. I am emotionally dependent

10. I am insomniac

My last post was a therapeutic post. It was a message from me to myself. In fact, that is one of the few reasons i started writing blogs. Many of the examples jumped right out of my own life. For example, me treating friends lunch in fancy Bella Italia in the same month i had to forgo buying much needed furniture at home. Its been well over two months and my living room still has only the bare essentials..minus curtains :s. Another example of “my pursuit of funness” is me smoking while i’m on trips with friends. I do not smoke otherwise. It is only when i am with friends having “fun” that i like to smoke one or two.

I thought that maybe i just need to write it down. Maybe if i see it in print it will prompt me to take action. Maybe. And so i did. But while i was writing them down, something kept me from disclosing the person i am really talking about. I thought, that i really do not need to disclose the person. It should be enough to just document the problems and faults and the situation. The printed faults would suffice in propelling me to fix whatever needs to be fixed.

Its funny how i can repeat my past behavior even when i am fully aware of its faults. Its funny how i cannot even face my problems and document it here forever. If it scares me to read my faults in my own blog, then how is it that i can expect myself to work on this realization for a better future?

But a certain comment of a certain friend hit me with an interesting realization. There is a fine line of difference between realizing the problems of life that plague  us and the problems that plague ME in particular. And the moment i can separate the two and shed light on them individually is the moment i will be able to correct every problem, at first on an individual level and then on a group level and maybe someday on a global level!

So here i go!

FUN. A word most people are stuck on these days. It is equated in every way possible in all the activities of life. Be it lifestyle, marriage, job, education, etc. You leave your girlfriend because she is not fun anymore, you leave your job because its not fun anymore, you change your location because its not fun anymore, you change friends because they are not fun anymore! Fun is the underlying motivation for life’s major decisions for many of us today. It is the deciding factor. We shape our lifestlyle in such a way that it has zero tolerance for anything that is..god forbid..not fun!!

I say this today but i realized it a lot earlier. When i was young it seemed very logical. But now, if not wiser but at least a bit more aware of life, i find it a bit odd. When it is true that life without fun is not..well..fun , but should fun reign over our lives to such an extent that it controls and guides each and every emotion we feel and every decision we make and every thought we think? Is it really that important in one’s life that reason itself should be ignored so that it makes way for fun and more fun?

I know of people who spend thousands of Taka treating friends (with bank accounts full of money) in fancy places while they live frugally at home just because its fun to hang out with rich friends. I know of people who left jobs because they need time to drop off CVs to organizations that are more fun. I know of people (non smokers and non drinkers) who drink and smoke at social gatherings just because its fun to do so. I know of people who moved from Bangladesh to the US because its a more fun place to live in.

And i could go on forever with examples of people who jumped the bandwagon of fun and are happily rolling down the bumpy road of life. However, pretty soon we will find people losing their beliefs and taking on new ones because they seem like more fun! Pretty soon we will be so lost in having fun that we will lose the motivation to learn, to love, to give, to share, to…live…because god forbid if these should stop being fun!

What.to.write.about? My mind is as blank as a blank A4 paper on a slow day at work. If you are one of those rare people who harbor the motivation to browse through severely lame blog sites on lazy Saturday afternoons, then you might have noticed that i got a tad burned out on blogging lately. I need motivation to write a post and that is what has been missing (again :s) in the last few days and thus the blog burnout . But i realized today, squeezed between my numerous tasks at work (facebooking and twittering mostly :s),that there is a special type of motivation that got me starting a blog in the first place! That motivation stems from boredom. And today, as i am click clicking away at my keyboard, i feel like i am the queen of boredomville! And so, here i am. And blessed is your presence to help me out of this boredom into something a little less boring than dull.

Boredom can be very…engulfing. It starts off at work and follows you around to your house and stays with you for the rest of the week and then surprises you on your trip to Manikgonj or other get away places over the weekend. So when I finally arrived at Manikgonj for the weekend with friends, i was quite shocked to see boredom lying flat on my bed and grinning at me with its oh-so-wicked smile. I grinned back ofcourse. Looked upwards towards..something…and then i looked back at it with such contempt that it flinched a little. I froze my grin and mocked it a bit until it “smartened” up to figure out what i was trying to do. It accepted my challenge and disappeared. But i could tell, it was lurking around somewhere in that room and followed me around, but always keeping a distance (the coward thing )

The war was on. It was a cold war though. Because every time we mistakenly stood face to face, we grinned while contemplating on our moves to outfox each other. The place was in its favor. There was absolutely nothing to do or see at Manikgonj. But i was not prepared to accept defeat! So i engaged myself in activities that were even vaguely interesting, like posing as a supermodel (:P ) for pictures and sneaking out with my boyfriend every chance i got

Overall, i was careful enough to not give boredom a chance to reign over me and my travel buddies as often as it had planned to. And it was a very relaxing trip with people most of whom i had met earlier and were very friendly and fun to just “hang” and do nothing much significant.

Back from the trip, back at work, and everything is still the same. Nothing ever changes much. All we can hope for is a break once in a while from routine life! Be it boring…or not!

I love meeting new people. This is a recent development in me. I was never really a social person, but recent experiences and such has caused this change in me. So today when i was asked to attend an iftar party of a colleague of my boyfriend, i was immediately on my toes for it. Although coming back from office never fails to put me in the worst mood of the day, i was determined to go to that iftar party today no matter what mood i was in. It was not really the first time i’ve met Aman bhai and his wife. We had a brief encounter at Sangam (the hot spot of uttara) one day and i immediately took a liking of the couple .

The house was very near to their office and my house too, in fact. So the short rickshaw ride helped to put me in a better mood, thankfully, and i was able to manage a smile when i entered their house . It was packed with people. And i met all the people i keep hearing about everyday. I may be a bit more social than before (the minimum requirement i presume) but too many people still scare me. However, the few familiar faces helped me to regain some sort of equilibrium :S.

The house was very comfortable looking and the people there were the comfortable-hanging- out-the-first-time type . Thank god . Especially the father of the host He was a very friendly person and just like the couple themselves, i instantly took a liking of him too. The wife, Roshni apu, is such cuteness that i found myself chatting and chatting with her in her room. We talked about their marriage, the places they visited and checked out pictures. She is a fun person to talk to.

I am not a good host, neither am i a good guest. A good guest creates less hassle and helps the host in preparing for iftar and dinner. I did neither. Not that i didn’t try, i did. But Roshni apu is too nice to make her guest do the work. So she multitasked. She talked and kept me entertained and served iftar and later dinner. I was impressed. Well iftar was delicious and so was dinner which we helped ourselves to a lot later. The reason for late dinner being “addapitafying” . And when dinner was finally served, it was so yummmm .

One very interesting outcome of this little soiree is that i have finally met a couple who share my passion for traveling. And during my few hours stay there, we sketched a few trips in our heads and i am really looking forward to them. Can’t wait!

Thanks Aman bhai and Roshni apu! for such a wonderful evening