who moved my glass of milk ?

At the outset let me make it clear that I am not particularly fond of milk.

 It’s not that I am lactose intolerant or anything, infact I quite enjoy icecreams and milk maid mithais. Milk is what is nutritious, and life sustaining, and also boring; milk is a synonym for things in life which need to be done, but not necessarily enjoyed. 

Back in my childhood, drinking milk was a chore; I often drained it down the sink, or watered the rose plants with ‘milk water,’ after all if it’s good for me it must be wonderful for the plants, right?

So anyways , back to who moved my milk. Now we’ve all heard of who moved my cheese, the shining best seller amongst many self help books. The simplistic story of two mice and two little people who realize that their ‘cheese’ in life has moved. Cheese signified all the things in life that we enjoy and like, or as Haw’s writings on the wall say- having cheese makes you happy.  It was a book on how to deal with change. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Moved_My_Cheese%3F

Its only recently that I realized that it is not only the loss of things which we like that leave us disoriented , but even the loss of things which we took for granted and didn’t much care for can leave us upset. Now as I said, I don’t like milk, infact I might even chuck it out the window, yet if one morning I got up to find my glass of milk missing I am going to scream “ who moved my glass of milk!!??”

If cheese is a metaphor for what one wants in life, then glass of milk is a metaphor for the things we don’t much care for in life. Milk is what I call it because it kind of goes with the whole cheese thing. The mice in the story may want to say “who moved my yesterdays leftovers I picked from the garbage can?”

Its only when we lose somethings do we truly understand its value.

Our ‘boring mundane job’, the ‘Monday morning blues’, it’s only when we are out of a job do we realize their importance.

 I used to wish every day was a Sunday, until my wish got granted. After a few days of sleeping till noon and watching TV all day, the forced holiday started getting to me. ‘What do I do today?’’ I need some direction to my day, a structure’, I started thinking. I started craving the bitching about the job during the coffee break, the taste of thums-up on the rocks after a hard days of work, I craved the monotony of my job over the monotony of never ending Sundays.

Now that I have a job again, I have returned to my whining ways once more, until yesterday when I realized that in about 10 months I will be job-less once more! That is when I started truly appreciating my current situation. At least I have a purpose to get up in the morning. There is someone who will start making inquiries if I am late from lunch break. I matter, my work matters.

All this great gyaan descended on me in the midst of reading Rhonda Byrne’s book the Magic, a sequel to another shining example of self help books – The Secret.

Magic tells us to be grateful for all that we have, because it is the surest way of attracting more good things in our life.It tells us to be grateful for the cheese in our life and also be grateful for the glass of milk. In fact, if you are very grateful for the glass of milk and every day keep saying ‘thank you thank you ‘ for the glass of milk , then guess what, the universe will grant you lots of cheese in return!

Say the universe is like a mom who serves up yesterdays left overs . First you just had the left-overs because you thought it was what you deserved, nothing changed ; you kept getting left-overs. Later you got tired of the left-overs and started getting angry and disturbed, you complained and pouted ‘ no ways!! Leftovers again!’; the universe/mom decided you were an ungrateful wretch and doled out the leftover mush even more. Then you read Magic, or this blog of mine and got smart, so you started realizing that hey the leftovers are still a labour of love, and even if they are not tasty they atleast nourish you and you owe your sustainance to them so you start being grateful for the left-overs; then mom/universe feels appreciated and serves you chicken curry the next day!

I know you are rolling your eyes at this, but guess what, our hostel mess actually served chicken yesterday. What can I say, I am grateful.

I know what you must be thinking- this girl reads way too much self help books for her own good. God knows we all must be, trying some form of self help. There isn’t enough we can do for ourselves. The fact that all these books are best sellers means there are people out there buying them.

I raise my glass of milk in gratitude today.

For now, I have realized that I love my watch and if someone moved it, I would be upset. I never much bothered about my tooth brush or my comb, yet if they went missing, I would be upset too.

So today I am grateful for all the pretty and expensive and wonderful things in my life(car, home, friends,family), and I am also grateful for the mundane everyday utility items(work,responsibilities,studies) because  I will miss them if I lost them