Have you ever hated those people in your school or college or workspace who know something about absolutely everything you talk about?

You are with them all the time, you never see them read, you watch Netflix together, have the same group of friends but this person just knows everything. Or can comment or add on to something about everything.

Whatever they do add, doesn’t need to be true, doesn’t need to add any value to your life or to the content you are talking about, it just needs to exist because attention seeking is a job. And if it were paid for, the person next to you will soon own a Mercedes

Well, for all you know they are just pretending to know something about everything, and while you know nothing about anything, they don’t know anything either. They are just pretending to know something and making up stories about it to pretend they know, just because they know you don’t know.

Try playing them off in their own game, and say exactly the opposite of what they say, when you can. No one will check the internet, I can guarantee you that, because you both know, you are or may be wrong, unless the other one start believing what they say will become the truth.

Well, someday, you might win in such a fight and from there onwards, the smart aleck, the wiseacre will die, it’s all over.

And yeah, about the picture, it has nothing to do with this post, it was just good.

What’s the worst thing you’ve ever heard about your own self?

A few years back I was appearing for an opportunity gate, and I had to give an interview for it. The problem back then was that I had no achievements whatsoever. So, if I wanted to crack through the interview, I was told to sell myself out and lie to the panel.

I was helped to make up stories about my own self, and tell people that I’ve done something when I hardly ever thought of doing it. My friends’ achievements were now my achievements. The idea behind stealing friends’ achievements being, I had seen how they reacted and what they did exactly, the only thing I need to do is get in their shoes.

My little achievements were overhyped. I was told to tell each lie with a compelling story just so that I could get into something I was not even sure of wanting at that time. I dropped out though. At the last moment, I got a different higher priority thing to do, and never appeared for the interviews.

But from that, I learned something, that I need to have achievements to talk about.

Four years later, I have another opportunity gate opened, and I will have interviews again. And yet again, I was told to tell lies, or rather to quote, “Tone down the truth a little bit.”

But the only difference now is my achievements list. It’s way too long and way to dominant over my average resume, with a basic educational degree and decent scores.

I was told to lie about my achievements, as calling a few a joint effort, hide some of them, tone down the excitement and tell it like it is a hobby and nothing that I want to pursue. But there is a problem to it, something that I was advised years ago.

“Never lie in an interview, and if you have something you are very passionate about, then be it. A quality so good, is worth being rejected for.”

And right now, I was adviced,

“When you have too much, there’s no shame in hiding a little.”

Lying on a panel just to get selected or get rejected for being an “over-achiever”, when I know this might be my only shot and I need to make the best out of it, or pretend to be an “Average-Achiever” and stand with the competition.

Whatever be the case, I don’t know what is worse. Lying because you have nothing, or lying because you have too much?

What goes up, must come down.

Newton’s third law of motion. The way the universe works.

Whatever is once very strong would at some time become very weak and be at the verge of breaking and might even break. That’s how most of the relationships work today.

There are two strangers, that come very close and finally get into a relationship breaking the imaginary wall between them. Then begins the pampering and little fights and the late night talks.

Texting each other through the day, spending so much time on your phones that the battery hardly lasts half a day. 3 months, 4 months or maybe 5 months down the line, you fight for the very first time. And a few hours later you start feeling lonely, and incomplete, because by now you are used to checking your phone every minute, and it hasn’t rung in the past few hours.

So, you talk to the other one, and they are sorry too, and then you promise that something like this would never happen again, and a few weeks down, you fight again, and a few months later, it becomes so bad, that to get away from your loneliness, you make fake promises.

You promise them a place for just the two of you, you promise to keep your tomorrow reserved for each other, you promise the other gifts they couldn’t say no to, you promise to never break your promise, you promise the world to them. Only to break each one of them one by one.

And still, the other one loves you, because you said the promises, it doesn’t matter if you meant them, and no one loves the one who kept their promises without saying it out loud. The one who kept the promise came tumbling down, started living a life they hated. Was only used, played with, and never looked at again.

What goes up, must come down. 

But no one ever talks about the one who went down. Would it ever come up?

The one who has spent endless hours on the bed trying to get back to the one they loved with all their heart. Only to see them going away with someone else. You keep fighting with yourself, live in denial only to find out what you feared the most. Everything they ever said to you, was a lie.

So, you set the sail…

Start building yourself up from the scratch. Rise from the ashed of your own, only to get somewhere you ever wanted to be but never did. Only because you were scared to lose them in your run. Afraid of what would they think, afraid to take the risk.

You build yourself, make yourself strong, you are rock hard, never melting, never forgiving. But then you get this text after years, and then they apologize. You first think it is because now you are what they always wanted you to be.

You changed yourself for them? Someone who was worth every single drop of blood in your once? Someone you don’t think is worth it anymore? Someone who doesn’t understand what you really felt? How much you really cared? And you still talk to them, or maybe, just maybe, be lucky enough to meet them once after years. And then get blocked on all social media all over again.

You fall back into the pit, you took years to get out of.

Everything you built up over the years, going down again.

What goes down must stay down?

P.S. If anyone of you has gone through something like this, or a version of it, don’t stay alone, get someone to talk to. If you can’t I’m here. Inbox me, and I’ll never reveal who you are.

Up at night and sleep through the day? Well, then you too are a night owl. Exactly what the society doesn’t want you to be and the opposite of what is seen a ‘good guy image’ in the society.

You know, the people have their own agenda of waking up early and doing absolutely nothing productive and yet blaming you, someone who was up the entire night doing something they really love to do, for being late and careless.

I do agree that we night owls are very late to everything and that we could never turn up on time one events that are set early in the morning, but we are awake for the parties and late night overtimes. Most of us don’t attend the parties, just stay at home and do what we love to do, but still, we are up for the parties. And if the early birds schedule an hour-long something at sunrise, we might turn up on time, or might be before them.

But that is the problem, they don’t and they blame us. So, someday when you are in charge my dear owl, keep a meeting at 3 in the night, and you will definitely turn up there on time, and let’s see if the early birds are there or not.

It’s high time to change what the society thinks about us.

Well, that was a little too strong to write out, but I guess you get what I mean, right? Just be who you are, just do what you do and someday, far ahead, the world might still not change around you, but you might change the world for good.

I was about to end up sleeping again without typing in another article but guess what? You guys just managed to pull me back! Can’t go to sleep without talking to you guys!

So, don’t you hate it when you know you have slept just enough and you have a very important task at hand and you need to take care of it right away, but your brain tells you, hey you! Yes, you! You are sleepy and I’ll stop working right now in the middle of this task you are doing.

And then you just go blank.

You don’t know what was happening around you a few minutes ago or what is happening around you right now, all you could see that coffee would help. It has to. So you go to the vending machine or to your kitchen or a nearby cafe and get yourself a hot cup of coffee.

And you, dear fighter against sleep, feel a little bit of boost and your coffee is consuming your soul and it has kick-started your entire system again. A few minutes later, when you return back to your desk and flip your laptop open, you are blank again! Like what!

Has it happened to you? You don’t want to sleep, you cannot afford to sleep right now but you cannot stay up either.

Well, if you have never experienced anything like this earlier, you should, because once you are done with your file and you got to bed to end your day and you lie down on the bed, and stretch your back, it feels so good.

The feeling of knowing you are going to bed after marking everything on your to-do list, you are going to bed victorious, it is the best feeling there is in this world.

Try it and let me know!

I’ve been on a streak of 30+ days now on the blog and WordPress seems to be glad too, as it has been sending me notifications every day.

Congratulations! You’re on a 32-day-streak on A Writer’s Blog!

But guess what WordPress, today is a no article day!

Well, this is not an article I’ve thought through. That’s not what I usually do, I think through the day, scribble my thoughts on a paper and then write it out at the end of the day. But not today, I never had a such a busy day in a very long time.

When I say busy, I mean, I didn’t even sit down and had a breath of relief. I was just busy bustling around and well, I was about to go to bed, when the streak called me in. I was not able to mark another day on my to-do list, because I didn’t blog today.

Well, I was okay with, and my blanket was okay with it too, but then my mind wasn’t and it won’t let me sleep. So, here I am, celebrating my no article day.

So happy no article day to you too, dear reader, because for all I know, you might be someone who has thought of blogging daily and had it as their new year resolution, but you are still to imply it. So, happy another no blog day to you too.

I hope you write soon and believe me, when you do write after a year of avoiding it, pen it down and then finally take the time out to type it, I will be there in your comments, celebrating your little success!

By the way, my second novel is coming out on the 21st of this month. Cover launch is on 6th! So, hit that follow button and stay with me!

Also, happy February to you!

Let’s give staples a little credit where it is due, they have been the easiest way to attach anything in seconds.

Like literally something you cannot replace. Glue is not worth the time, paperclips are not permanent and anything else hardy works.

Most of the times it is just plain documents that you might not need after today, but sometimes, they hold your life together. School marksheets, high school marksheets, graduation certificates, resumes, SOPs, LORs, Certificates of Honour, like tiny little pieces of metal holding your life together.

It sometimes sounds strange that tiny little things have enough strength to hold so much together and at the same time it sounds weird that giant things, seem to fail all the time. Ships sink, bridges break, buildings fall, mountains slide, but the staples still hold your papers together.

Only if you could staple the broken bridges back together and maybe stapling the environment fixed it? Like think about it, every problem you have, you just staple it back to place. Problem at work, staple it, problem at home, staple it, financial problems? Just Staple it! Running out of time? Staple the hands of the clock and there you go, you have endless hours on the clock!

But it is unfortunate that it is, after all, a tiny piece of metal that could do nothing more than holding your documents together. But, at least they deserve credit for what they have done for us, and this post if for them – our little fellas, holding everything in place! Holding and binding our documents together.

Only if they worked on relationships like they work on documents, life would have been a lot easier.

Have you ever thought how could we humans develop folk tales and stories that sound too good or too bad to be real? We lied.

On an average, a man begins to lie from the time they are four. No one teaches us, no one tells us to, we are not smart enough to understand if someone is lying and develop it, we just develop it. We just develop lying on our own at the age of four. Well, you don’t know the sounds of language properly when you are four and you still could lie, interesting.

We lie to hide the real us, we lie to make our stories interesting, we lie because the lie seems important to us. We lie because in the conversations to ourselves, we have convinced ourselves that it is not a lie. We lie because we have been lying from ages and this is something we inherited from our ancestors.

But do you know something? Lies are always caught. In any interview, the one and only thing you are going to hear as a tip from anyone who converted is going to be don’t lie.

However smart you may be, however good you are at making stories, we always leave loopholes and there is always someone who will find that loophole and get you.

“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything”

-Mark Twain