From Tears to Smile : A Guest Post authored by Neha Sharma

The Introduction:
Neha, One of my most wonderful friends! One person, I know I can turn up to whenever I feel like the whole world is crashing down and I have no where to go. One fine evening, she was upset. We had a little chat. And then as goodbyes were said, Neha promised me a post for my blog. Thank you Neha for the honour. About her: She is a wonderful poet, singer and above all a beautiful lady at heart. Click here to read her poems.


From tears to smile
A couple of days ago I met one of my friends online. She was quite tensed about the market. Her joining has been delayed and as a result she’s sitting idle at home with absolutely nothing to do. I guess sitting idle is a very bad situation. I’m also waiting for my joining but thankfully I know how to keep myself busy. This friend about whom we are talking here lacks in this art. So as a result she was badly frustrated and negative about life and other things, so much that she was weeping!

I wonder how people can make simple things sound much complicated. And then they might see a tree as a monster, or a beautiful rainy evening as a disaster. Now, this girl has been blessed with a lot of talents. And she loves all of them. She loves painting, writing poetry, singing, listening to songs, cooking, gardening, observing, and the list is long. But during all this free time what she has been doing? Weeping over her circumstances, over things that she cannot control. What she is not doing is utilizing this immense free time by doing all or any of the things she loves, all the things she always wanted to do but never had enough free time for. At some later stage in life when she’ll become busy as a bee, will she not regret this beautiful time that she wasted in weeping? Of course she will.

But she’s not realizing this at this moment.

It is natural I think. It’s not only her. People always desire and long for what they do not have. I know you have read it a thousand times but then I know this too that only a few of you have pondered upon this. Other’s have only read it for the sake of reading or heard it for the sake of hearing. We often spend our free time by thinking about what we do not have rather than utilizing it to cherish and enhance what we have. Later when we’ve lost our precious moments we again waste our present thinking about how we spoiled out our past moments. So when do we enjoy? I’m not saying that I’m a sage or something. I too have my ups and downs. But at least I know how to spend and utilize my free time. And this is what I wanted her to understand.

I talked to her trying to give her the facts. One good thing is that she believes in me and tries to follow what I say. She opened up her heart in front of me and I saw the sad world that she had created within herself. She was talking as if her life was like an empty cup and that she was of no use. Yet somewhere deep inside she knew that all that was fake and very far from reality. She read this blog of mine and started talking big of me, talking small of her simultaneously. I know that she must have liked my work but when sad, people do this often either to make themselves feel worse or to make themselves feel better (by gaining sympathy). I advised her to enhance her writing skills and painting skills ignoring what all she said about my greatness.

I asked her whether she’s applying for other part time jobs and she denied it. Again, it is common with people, doing nothing and waiting for miracles to ensue to solve all their problems. I persuaded her to go out and search for some job.

Finally after a productive tête-à-tête both of us said our goodbyes. I was happy to know that she was smiling. She acknowledged my ‘superb’ ideas and then did engage herself into something.

This rakshabandhan her artworks that festooned her brothers’ wrists, earned her a lot of appreciation (and even money). She’s quite happy about all that now. Although she’s still sitting at home but she’s searching for a job seriously. She has even penned down something for me (I asked her to do so on the day of our long chat) and I’ve added it here in this blog. (I assured her I’d do that…).

So now when you have read (and are still reading) all what she has penned, I guess you are now aware that she’s not suffering anymore. She’s happy and I’m happy for her.

Written by Neha Sharma (the sad girl) for Mou. (The super supporter)

Thanks Mou!