My "Lightbulb" moment

Everyone has a “Lightbulb Moment” moment and this is the story of how I got mine. I am a wannabe writer but with no background in writing. No degree or diploma. No experience. Only a passion for writing. So how did I start?

First, a little background about myself.  I was born in India.  Had all my schooling done at a small city and learnt 4 languages at school: English, Hindi, Tamil, and Marathi.  I always had a dream of becoming a writer some day.  So, I began by starting to write my diary.  My first gig at writing started with putting my thoughts on paper.  I would like to share with you some of what I wrote:

A DATE WITH MYSELF.

December 6, 2019. 6:41 pm. 

I have a date with myself.  Sounds odd, right?  But everyone goes through this dilemma of:  “WHO AM I?”

So, I came upon this idea of having a date with myself.

This is the best way I can relate to and address things as I talk to myself all the time.  I think we all do. 

So, the date is between me and a new me. It can be an older me by seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, etc.

So, the table is set for the conversation.

First, the ground rules:

YOU will be:

Truthful.

Calm.

Open.

Who is YOU?

My YOU is 6:52 pm ME.

That is 11 minutes older ME.

So, the first question to YOU is:

ME:  How are YOU different from ME?

YOU:

I am older by 11 minutes and so I have way more wisdom than you. Don’t worry, I'm just playing.  I am writing down my thoughts more clearly than I was doing 11 minutes ago.

ME:

Where do YOU exist?

YOU:

I exist in your imagination. Eleven minutes ago you would not have even dreamt in your wildest dreams that I exist.  I am the fragment of your imagination.

ME:

Have I gone mad by talking to myself?

YOU:

No, because you are just letting out your feelings through this medium “writing” which is very dear to you.

ME:

What is it that you would like me to talk about?  I want to know more about you.  I want to know how you grew up: not physically or mentally, but spiritually?

YOU:

As you already know, I was born with a mind as clean as a slate. Whatever values I have cultivated are through my experiences in this world.  They may be good or bad.  I don’t judge myself.

ME:

What are all the good values that you cultivated through the years?

YOU:

I have steadily grown more stronger in my spiritual life thanks to all the right attitudes inculcated in me by my parents.

ME:

Let us speak briefly about how your parents have influenced you in your spiritual path?

YOU:

My parents are the first persons who introduced me to the concept of “God.”  They made my belief strong that if there is a creation there is a creator.

Me:

What were your very first encounters with God?

YOU:

Of what I recall I came to know that God resides in temples, likes to listen to hymns, gives boons, blesses us, and, most of all, forgives us if we commit mistakes.

ME:

Did your parents say that God punishes too?

YOU:

They would say, “God will hurt your eyes if you do mischief.”

ME:

Did you believe it then?

YOU:

Yes, because it was said with such conviction.

ME:

What is your thought on it now?

YOU:

I know now that God never punishes. 

ME:

What else did your parents teach about values that has grown steadfast with the passage of time?

YOU:

To be honest, hardworking, sincere, etc.  So, to this day, I am living those values and I have been more and more successful and so have thought of not forsaking them.

ME:

What is the value of a mother’s word?

YOU:

According to me it is God’s word because she is the best role model I can have. 

December 7, 2019.  3:45 pm.

ME:

What are some of the assets that you possess?

YOU:

I love to tell stories and experiences I have had.  Ok, let’s begin.

The first story that I firmly believe in is the story about Gandhiji and his conviction to say the truth.  When he was little, his mother had taught him the story of Harischandra and always telling the truth.  So, one day when he didn’t know the spelling of the word “kettle,” he did not cheat and copy the correct spelling from a classmate but wrote the spelling as he thought it would be according to him.

This story made a profound impact on my life and still I am not able to lie.

ME:

Quite interesting.

YOU:

Another anecdote that I love is this message given to us by Buddha. It goes as follows:

Before you speak THINK:

T: is it true?

H: is it helpful?

I: is it inspiring?

N: is it necessary?

K: is it kind?

If what we speak goes through this checklist and emerges out successful that is what we should speak.

ME:

How do you utilize this message in real life?

YOU:

I hate politics and so avoid it like the plague. So if I speak without being involved in politics that itself is half the battle won.  This habit of mine has been a boon to me in the sense that people don’t get rumors or gossip from me and so I am saved from saying negative things.

ME:

What other stories have influenced you a lot?

YOU:

There are many. I love stories with morals.

I will start with one of my life experiences and how I was saved from an illness outbreak.

I cannot eat without sharing.  It is not only my family members. Once I ate with a pregnant woman and I just offered her my food as a courtesy but she ate the whole thing.

I am not saying this to be proud or anything because it is very important that you forget the harm done to you by others and remember very well the good done by others to you.

So this habit of mine is so indwelled in me that I cannot eat without offering it to someone.

It was when I was little.  It was Republic Day in India and everyone received sweets for the occasion.  Everyone ate their share and as is my habit I distributed most of it and ate a little.  It was later observed that everyone who had partaken it were food poisoned and so had diarrhea and vomiting, but I was saved because of my favorite habit of sharing.  That incident resulted in my sticking to that habit forever.

I felt myself become happier whenever I wrote and did these little interviews with myself, so I did more of them.

December 10, 2019. 8:28 am. 

ME:

Hi, there.

YOU:

Hi.

ME:

Shall we begin?

YOU:

Sure.

ME:

Any messages today?

YOU:

Yes. For youngsters addicted to the net. One must always be wise enough not to be fooled by tricky talk and false appearances.

This is extremely important at this time because children and adults are bombarded by a lot of information through the internet and other devices and a lot of people’s opinions and perceptions. 

A lot of the stories appearing on Facebook and WhatsApp are false and are made to create fear among the readers.

This thought holds good in real-life situations too.

When a small child doesn’t go to sleep the mother says that sleep or else a demon will come.  The child sleeps then but the child develops a fear in him all through his life.

Fear does more bad to the body than good.

So fear should not enter our system for any reason whatsoever.

ME:

True.

YOU:

The next thing I believe in is don’t give up too easily – keep on trying until you reach the goal.

This thought has a most profound effect on my life.

I have been learning and am and will continue to learn something new all the while even if it gives me no results in the short time.  I know fully well that it will come handy in life and so God is making me learn it in my leisure time.  Even if I don’t use it in life I will be happy that I I learnt something new and, as my mother says, if you learn something new it is not a burden you carry on your back instead it is a boon in disguise.

I learnt 4 languages at schools and it is coming in handy at my job because if we speak in people’s mother tongue they feel close and that is what I want them to feel.

ME:

Interesting.

YOU:

The next stories I have learnt in childhood about honesty and greed are as follows:

There was a woodcutter cutting wood near a pond.  The woodcutter’s axe fell into the water while working there and he started weeping.  Seeing his plight an angel appeared before him and offered him a gold axe.  He said that axe was not his.  So the angel brought to him a silver axe.  He rejected that too saying that was not his.  Next, the angel brought him his own axe made of iron and asked him if that was his.  He immediately accepted it and the angel being pleased by his honesty gave all the 3 axes to him to keep.  Thus “Honesty is the Best Policy.”

Another story, from when I was young, was the one about a golden egg-laying goose.  The story goes that there was once a goose which used to lay a golden egg everyday.  The man who owned was very happy and bought all things he needed with the money he received from selling the egg.  One day he became greedy and thought that since it lays 1 golden egg per day it should have more eggs in her stomach.  So he took a knife and slit open the goose but to his surprise he did not find any eggs and he had lost his goose too in the process.  So greed is one of the quality which we are better off without.

December 11, 2019. 11:05 am.

ME:

Glad to see you again.

YOU:

Same here.

ME:

Any thoughts today.

YOU:

Yes. I believe in never giving up. Keep on trying till you reach you goal. We all start with setting up achievable goals and persevere hard to achieve them but almost always get frustrated when faced with failure or delay in attaining them and start believing that we cannot ever achieve them or it is too huge a goal for us.  That disheartens us and so a lot of times we discard that goal altogether.  This is quite wrong as none of the achievable goals are out of our reach.  We just have to take one little step at a time by breaking down our goals into stepping stones and achieving that small goal and praising yourself for it and that will give you confidence to go ahead with executing the next goal.  People say “The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.” The right step in the right direction is what we all should aspire for.  Reaching our goal should be our only respite and the confidence to realize it follows since God paves the way for us.

January 6, 2020. 11:11 pm.

ME: Well, what is in store for me today?

YOU: I will tell you my strategies to cope with failures.

Everyone fails from time to time.  First, you have to understand that no one judges you if you fail.  Nobody has the time to do that.  So, it is you alone who blames yourself for failing, but since I have taken the motto of shrugging away things which others say that hurts you it is soothing to me. It is not worth thinking and wasting your time over such trivial things.  It is not so easy to develop this attitude.  You always get angry and put yourself down but if you stick to this motto of accepting only the good and throwing away the rest you will become more and more happier.  And as I say: “One has to be like the lotus which does not allow any water to stick to its leaves and always grows in the dirty lakes but shows off it’s beautiful colors without any hint of where it grew.”

February 9, 2020. 4:35 pm.

ME:

What lesson have you learnt today?

YOU:  I learnt a valuable lesson today.  I need not dream about myself, my family, my relatives, etc., but if I dream for the betterment of the whole world I would have done my duty.

People say that our dreams come true if we dream and believe that it will come true.  So, from today on I should dream for the positive change that I want to see in the world and then God will help every one of us to reach that goal.

March 31, 2020. 8:34 pm.

ME:

Any take on today’s situation?

YOU:

Yes. It is the season of the Coronavirus.  It is a pandemic and so we all are staying home to avoid the spread of the virus.  They say “Don’t go out.” It is not because you don’t want to get the disease but, more importantly, to avoid spreading it to others.  The virus has a gestation period of 14 days.  So you might be infected but not know be aware of it and you might be spreading it without your knowledge.

So now the motto should be:  “Think about others before you think about yourself.”

So it is the time where “Selflessness” has to be propagated.

This is also the time of Prayer and Thanksgiving.

Our scriptures have told that if Mother Earth is exploited too much then she will create calamities so that we get the idea that Mother Earth has to be respected.

Now since the means of transportation have come to a standstill, pollution has almost come to nil and animals have started coming out . This shows that we are starting to respect Nature.

April 11, 2020. 2:36 pm.

ME:

Great to catch up with you today.

YOU: Glad to so speak to you too.

ME: Got anything new.

YOU: Sure.

ME: Please continue.

YOU: This life should be a life of collecting as many good deeds and prove to that I will be happy and peaceful.

From now on, I want to see only positive things and put positive thoughts within me. For that, I should wantonly avoid seeing negativity since there are great people doing great things around you and God will lead us to using our body as an instrument in his mission.  For that I have to be eager and willing to do things.  I call upon God to help me to make me realize my godly qualities and better them every second of my life.

ME:

That was truly enriching and entertaining. Any parting remarks.

YOU:

Yes, “BE HOME. BE SAFE.”

ME:

It was a pleasure talking to you.

YOU:

Hope to see you again soon.

ME:

Thanks.

YOU:

Thanks to you too.

YOU:

Have a blessed day.

ME:

You too.

Thus, my “Lightbulb” moment came to me the instant I got the idea of writing my life lessons as a dialogue.

Just like when the clock strikes twelve a new day begins. The same has happened to me at that instant.

I hope someone also gets influenced by this and reaches their “Lightbulb” moment too. That will be my greatest achievement.