Shut the door on “OR” and Use your “And”

Posted on by Parul Thakur

A lot of people have heard this story from me and this is my story. Very close to my heart and yet one that has been narrated a lot of times. I am no Sheryl Sandberg or Saina Nehwal, neither I am Bachi Karkaria or Chanda Kochhar. I am just an ordinary woman – married and working full time. Not born with a silver spoon or gifted with an extra ordinary Mensa score. I am like you – living life and trying to make a meaning out of it. Each day is important for me as I have come to realize that today will not come tomorrow and choosing how I want to feel at this moment will make my today that will never be back again in my life.

When I was growing up, I wanted to be an Engineer. Then I wanted to get a job. Then I wanted to study further and again get a job. I chose one thing over the other knowing that picking the best available option will make me happy. But did it really make me happy? Can’t say Yes and Can’t even say No. But over the last two years, I feel I have added more meaning to the rest of my life. I am the same Engineer turned into HR person but very different from what I was earlier. Like a breath of fresh air in the mountains, one lovely morning something set me free from the threads that I had tied to my own self. I realized I can work full time and edit Wikipedia. I realized I can blog and bake. I realized I can coach and cycle. I can do so many things that I need not be bound by doing just one thing.

When I look around, I see mothers who work and cook and sing. The ones who knit and fly a plane. The ones who have green fingers and a wonderful eye for detail to find errors in a spreadsheet. I see an actor who is also an entrepreneur and owns a foster care. The one who codes and zentangles and also paints and is adept at quilling. I see a mother and a famous author. I see women are discovering themselves every single day and something is setting them free like the way it happened with me.

At the same time, I also see women who are bound within the four walls of their household. They haven’t yet explored their full potential. Most of them are bound by their personal inhibitions. They hesitate to take that one leap of faith in their own abilities. They are breathing but they fail to live for themselves. Sometimes, I feel that letting life pass by without adding color in the form of “and” to it is a form of self abuse. The one person that should be most important to you is “you”. Don’t stop where you are. Pick up and just begin. Shut the door on “Or” and give a warm welcome to “And”. You can do what ever you want to do. Just take that one breath of fresh air and untie the knots that tie you. Set yourself free and let it go.

Today, I want to drive a car and run a marathon. I want to climb a mountain and be a columnist. I want to dive from sky and fly on a hot air balloon. Those things that I want to do are not getting checked off from some list.The list of things that I want to do is getting bigger every passing day. In the end, I don’t want to say I have been there done that. I want to say that I wish I had done this thing one too. I want to be the woman just like you who would never ever stop.

I want to be like her - finding me way
She is strong and finding her way

“This post is a part of #UseYourAnd activity at BlogAdda in association with Gillette Venus“. Thank you Ranjini for the tag to write on this. I tag Gitanjali, Bienu, Shruti, Remya and Vinitha to write about #UseYourAnd.

Above all, BlogAdda – thank you for the call this evening! This post is just cos you called! 🙂

New Year, New Possibilities! Thank you Readers for making 2014 such a great year and encouraging me to blog. Your comments, likes, shares and tweets keep me going. I promise to write better!

22 thoughts on “Shut the door on “OR” and Use your “And””

  1. Wonderful post! Be who you are and break free…as I always say… you’ve got only one life, live it to the hilt! 🙂

    Sent from Samsung Mobile

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  3. Parul, there are so many ands and as you said, it is not about checking them off the list. It is about dreaming of more Ands. I mean life is not worth living if not for dreams, desires AND ambitions. 🙂 May all your Ands come true followed by many more Ands.

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  4. Parul, first of all — beautiful writing.
    Taking time to think of the many things we can be grateful for will definitely keep us happy.
    Here’s wishing you many many more ‘ands.’ (and loads of happiness.)

    It was SO nice seeing you yesterday.
    Hugs!!

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  5. Nicely written Parul :). Sometimes its important to rise up and above the ordinary and live life to the fullest. So many of us forget our dreams and passions and just live life because circumstances don’t allow. But I think it’s upto to us to make the current moment count because it won’t make come back again.

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  7. Congratulations on coming out of your shell and accepting all your “and”s.

    I don’t think any women are bound in the four walls by personal inhibitions. Unless not forced, most of them have accepted those four walls of household as a choice. It’s their way of flaunting their and. Unlike us, they love the safety of those four walls.

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      3. I deduced your feelings here and that’s why mentioned this. It takes a huge amount of courage to both accept and reject knowingly a part of you. I don’t think they are giving up. They are just choosing the path which is different from ours.

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      5. 🙂

        I think we should agree to disagree here. That one step is their choice. As per me, they can be living in those four walls AND be happy. Happiness is more about contentment in your position than the urge to gain more.

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