u/Infinity_here

I've been volunteering online for an NGO project for the past 2 years. It involves counseling teenagers from rural areas about career choices.

I always accept such opportunities, hoping I could be useful in some way. And I also have my own selfish reasons...

I'm 40 & single and had always dreamt of being a mother with lots of happy children. So these virtual interactions help me enjoy that feeling ...momentarily 🙂

Yesterday, at the end of the session, after I finished my endless blabbering... when I was about to close, one of the kids suddenly took the mic and said "thankyou so much ma'am... you don't know what you mean to us" 🥹🥲

Even my bones were smiling I guess...when I heard this. And by coincidence, today happens to be mother's day :)

Maybe motherhood was never only about reproduction but also about inclusiveness.

The girl didn't realize, but in that moment, I felt like she gave me a virtual hug ❤️

I've been volunteering online for an NGO project for the past 2 years. It involves counseling teenagers from rural areas about career choices.

I always accept such opportunities, hoping I could be useful in some way. And I also have my own selfish reasons...

I'm 40 & single and had always dreamt of being a mother with lots of happy children. So these virtual interactions help me enjoy that feeling ...momentarily 🙂

Yesterday, at the end of the session, after I finished my endless blabbering... when I was about to close, one of the kids suddenly took the mic and said "thankyou so much ma'am... you don't know what you mean to us" 🥹🥲

Even my bones were smiling I guess...when I heard this. And by coincidence, today happens to be mother's day :)

Maybe motherhood was never only about reproduction but also about inclusiveness.

The girl didn't realize, but in that moment, I felt like she gave me a virtual hug ❤️

My boss is an elderly gentleman.
He had just come out of a pretty chaotic meeting. He came out saying his “brain was rigged”. Despite a packed schedule, he still agreed to discuss a project, I’d been pestering him about.

He logged in right after his previous meeting ended, and he had another one an hour later.

Instead of diving into work, he started playing this funny song ... Rasputin 😂 that’s become super popular again. I'm not a big fan and just nodded in disagreement.
He completely ignored me & played the entire thing... nodding his head in tune😂 for a full 3mins. Then he said my brain is refreshed now. Let's start work.

And honestly… he was right.

We discussed the project in ridiculous detail. But the conversation was so easy that I ended up confessing a pretty horrible blunder I’d made recently. I had accidentally sent a WA message meant for him to an entire group from the opposing side.

I was expecting atleast a lecture... eye rolling, some annoyance atleast.

But he simply read it and said, only the last line was a bit too blunt. That's it!!!

By the end of the meeting, he was holding his head in his hands. Probably exhausted by my endless blabbering. I even dared to say... sir, maybe you need to listen to the song once more.🤣😂🤣. He laughed.

I’ve had some rough experiences with bosses in the past. And this one seems almost monk-like. (touch wood)

It’s such a relief working with someone who doesn’t dramatize mistakes.
And so super cool to know that sometimes three minutes of silly music is better than forced productivity.

Good managers really do change your entire experience of work. For me personally, this was an oddly wholesome workplace moment... and I couldn't help but share.

My boss is an elderly gentleman.
He had just come out of a pretty chaotic meeting. He came out saying his “brain was rigged”. Despite a packed schedule, he still agreed to discuss a project, I’d been pestering him about.

He logged in right after his previous meeting ended, and he had another one an hour later.

Instead of diving into work, he started playing this funny song ... Rasputin 😂 that’s become super popular again. I'm not a big fan and just nodded in disagreement.
He completely ignored me & played the entire thing... nodding his head in tune😂 for a full 3mins. Then he said my brain is refreshed now. Let's start work.

And honestly… he was right.

We discussed the project in ridiculous detail. But the conversation was so easy that I ended up confessing a pretty horrible blunder I’d made recently. I had accidentally sent a WA message meant for him to an entire group from the opposing side.

I was expecting atleast a lecture... eye rolling, some annoyance atleast.

But he simply read it and said, only the last line was a bit too blunt. That's it!!!

By the end of the meeting, he was holding his head in his hands. Probably exhausted by my endless blabbering. I even dared to say... sir, maybe you need to listen to the song once more.🤣😂🤣. He laughed.

I’ve had some rough experiences with bosses in the past. And this one seems almost monk-like. (touch wood)

It’s such a relief working with someone who doesn’t dramatize mistakes.
And so super cool to know that sometimes three minutes of silly music is better than forced productivity.

Good managers really do change your entire experience of work. For me personally, this was an oddly wholesome workplace moment... and I couldn't help but share.

A couple of days ago, I met my cousin in a worn-out state. He’s normally very exuberant &  talkative. It was a pain to see him so low.

He’s going through a rough patch at work … anxiety, work stress, the works. This reminded me of my older self. My sisterly instincts kicked in, and I wanted to help him out of the pit he seemed to have slipped into.

I just poured my heart out:

I told him how my ex-boss was super nasty to me a couple of years ago. He’d cancel my leave applications, ask me to pull off shady deals, pull me down amidst juniors… all for calling out his corrupt practices. I tried complaining about him to my superr boss then and after being given a patient listening i thought my case was settled. Only to receive a transfer order to the remotest town possible…

Realized later that the superr boss would receive cuts from my tormentor so i clearly f*ck*d up my own case so badly that only divine intervention could’ve saved me. My best friends (so called) were scared of speaking to me in public to be in his good books. I felt alienated in the office.

Even after my transfer, that slimy creature kept sending creepy clients to my place so that he could receive cuts from them. The whole system was so rotten… I had no option but to leave. 
Being a federal job, my parents were not very happy with my decision. But I felt so out of place & uncomfortable, i just had to exit. 

They weren’t even letting me take a single day off, refusing to accept my resignation letter & what not. I was pissed off big time and in pursuit of mental peace i signed up for a meditation program called Sam - yama (heard SZA talk about it) while still at work. 

Since leave wasn’t being granted, I had to fake having fallen sick to get a week off from work. The practices i learnt helped cope with the shit during my notice period and beyond. I finally left that *ucking job 3mths later.

I told my cousin all this just to convince him that solutions existed and that he could find a way out of this mental mess. 

Happy that I may have shown my cousin a bit of a silver lining, i left feeling satisfied after comforting him. 

But, it seems my story pepped him back to his spirits. Soo much... that he blabbered my story, including the medical leave bit, not just to his parents…our entire extended family... But also his friends, one of whom happens to be my ex-colleague at the old office. 

Today… I woke up to 15+ missed calls and messages from my ex-colleagues asking,
- Why didn't you tell us you became a monk??
- If you’re enlightened now, why don’t you re-join and face the shit!?

I was only trying to be helpful but i completely f*ck*d up and the fallout is still vibrating in my pocket. Literally.

My Current mood… I wish I was back in that silent retreat where no one had a phone. Lol. I dont really care now, but I just had a trailer of how dangerous “talkative” people get.

TL;DR: Tried to help my stressed cousin by sharing my meditation retreat secret. He blabbered about it to my ex-colleague. Now the toxic coworkers won’t stop calling & texting to ask if I’ve reached Nirvana yet.

Until a few years ago. I was easily triggered by difficult co-workers/relatives. 
I was peaceful by myself. But! amidst real world chaos I would get all stirred up. 

This pushed me towards self-help & meditation and I had this insanely simple realization: When I stop labeling a chore as "draining" or a person as "unbearable" and simply do what is needed in the moment, the mental friction disappears.

If someone is difficult, i try the Love-Compassion-Distance filter I picked up from S J Vasudev: Try kindness first; if that fails, recognize their behavior comes from their own pain (compassion); if that fails, simply create distance.

I was able to see that my irritation arose because of my own unwillingness to be flexible.

Over time, I realized that resisting the situation is what actually drains my battery. If I stop fighting the moment, I have much more energy to actually handle it.