80-20 rule

The Pareto principle (also known as the 80–20 rule, the law of the vital few, and the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes (Wikipedia). Likewise in my life, I feel that 80% of my unhappiness comes from people who form 20% of my core support structure. I attribute undue importance sometimes to some things, situations and words.

My birth dad's son is visiting him from Canada and a piece of me already knew that he wouldnt be in touch while his son was home. But I still waited for his emails, his phone calls. I sent him my half marathon pictures, no response. I knew and I still felt bad. I know I do not have a place in his life, I am always someone he will turn to, when he has time or the whim to write and I still expect and still feel bad. What does this man have to do with my life anyways except for biologically being the reason I am here today. He has turned his back and walked away from me and our paths would never have crossed in our lives had I not gotten up and changed the course. I am done with trying to nurture this relationship, always taking the efforts to stay in touch, always calling, always writing. I give up. I accept the harsh reality that I do not matter to him. As I do not have the courage to completely shut him out of my life, I can at least change myself and stop expecting and treat it as an acquaintance relationship..

Nowadays I feel that people never change. It is very hard to get someone to change. Try to change yourself and you will find out. But what you can do is to make sure you do not allow yourself to get hurt over and over. Choose your own strategies to make sure you can stay happy and make the best of the situation.

My strategy with my mother in law is working very well for me. I do not know what she thinks or feels. But I have long given up trying to make people happy. I am actually seeing her in a new light. Once I have decided that none of her comments/words are directed at me personally, its almost like having an out of body experience and watching a movie. I have observed her and the remarks she makes and realised this is who she is. She will not change. You cannot teach a person to be at peace. For some, mental turmoil and dissatisfaction is inherent. I am also trying very hard to shed my ego. I have accepted it to be a given that she will always praise food made by someone else and I will never have a good word for all the hard work I do. I have just accepted it. Even if she might think it, the thoughts will never be transformed into words. I actually feel bad for her. I wish she had close friends and family who would steer her in the right direction, teach her how to be happy and at peace.

I have also decided to be realistic about myself, my strengths and my limitations. Everyone has 24 hours in a day. How you choose to distribute it is up to each person. Who you choose to focus on, what thoughts you allow yourself to consume with, whether you allow enough time for prayer and meditation, if you just sit down and laugh with your children; its all up to you. I am done trying to have everyone in my life like me.

My parents always say that I am an excellent child, an excellent daughter to them. We are perfectly in tune. P's Uncle and Aunt say I am a wonderful daughter in law; the daughter they never had. But would my birth mother or mother in law say the same thing? For different reasons of course. I have never been the daughter that my birth mother wanted - the obedient diligent daughter who would have agreed and listened to all her directions without a question asked. I do not regret it - even if it was the price of our relationship. I have never been the daughter in law that my mother in law wanted. Actually I am not sure anymore what she wants except for me to say "Stay here with us and do not go back to India". I think I know what would make her happy - asking her recipes, standing at the stove and asking her to direct me and cooking under her eyes, listening to all her self focused stories and appreciating them. And I am trying it in baby steps but it is not what interests me and therein lies the problem. I have given up trying to make her happy. All I hope for is to move towards a relationship where we are comfortable in each others presence and I do not get upset by her words.

Life gets hard sometimes with unmet expectations, unreturned love, politics at work, challenges with your children, the struggle to make time for your spouse, trying to focus on your own body and mind and then after all this too, sometimes I feel what have I done for my community or for my spiritual advancement, its a thousand things to do and not enough time. But it is necessary to take a deep breath and count out the handful things that mean the world to you, for which and for whom everything is worth it. And then shift your focus on them and let the others fade into the background. My husband, my children, my parents, my best friends, my siblings, my physical health, my mental health......I count my blessings and realise I am the happiest person on earth!

Saas bahu episode 1

My in laws arrived with a bang last Friday. On Friday morning, I left for work at 6:45 am, turned the corner and when the sun hit my face, tears streamed down and my left eye just refused to stay open. It was very strange and I was freaked out. I finally drove home slowly and felt wiped out! I lay down on the sofa for a long time. I had to drive out to work in the afternoon to attend some meetings. After that it was a whirlwind as usual, pick up the kids, make milkshakes for both, drive to R’s Bharatnatyam class, rush back and cook dinner. Baby S helped pick basil leaves from our garden and I made pesto sauce and sautéed some onions and red peppers and threw together some pasta for us. Made special rice and peanut curry for the in laws who were on a fast. I also cut mangoes and put out the coconut water that I had bought for their fast. As I was setting up the table, they arrived and sat down to dinner soon after.

My father in law started eating and was chatting with me about my preparations for my upcoming half marathon. My mother in law sat down and barely had eaten her first bite, all hell broke loose. She started saying “The rice is just slightly undercooked” (repeated 13,458 times) and yelled at my fil to stop eating and give her his plate so she could put it into the microwave and “correct” my cooking. Followed by “I am not saying just to criticize you but we are home and we should be able to say what we want, and why should we eat slightly undercooked rice blah blah…..on and on followed by her stories of how she had popped her perfectly cooked rice in the microwave against her sister’s wishes to cook it further as her sister is older and needs soft food and then how her sister was so happy with her. Followed by “Everyone makes a mistake, its fine!”. I just sat back in shock, dead tired and slowly the anger rose in me. This lady could not see how tired I was, or appreciate how I had taken the effort to cook their special meal and think of additional things like cutting up fruits and buying coconut water. There was no gratitude expressed or acknowledgment of my care but she just re affirmed why I know our wavelengths wont match.

Instead of creating this big hue and cry, she could have gotten up diplomatically and “cooked” her rice to whatever consistency she wanted. Also if something needed a quick pop into the microwave for under a minute, it was obviously cooked in the first place. Or she could have said “Its nice, but I need a bit more softer so I will pop it into the microwave a bit longer”. Anyways….. I was so upset – more stories followed of how she had smart ideas, how my sister in law and her husband were so happy with her wisdom and I was done.

I went upstairs and cried and cried and P came by and walked away upset and I then lay down on my bed and the room started spinning around. I am mighty embarrassed that I have turned into one of those feeble women that they show in old Hindi movies where the doctor advises the family members to treat her delicately or she will have a heart attack. Its my resolve to strengthen my mind against such incidents now. Later on, she came over and started crying and said how I was like her daughter and she didn’t want a repeat of last visit and that she thought she should just say frankly etc etc.

I thought about it later – there is no one bad here. Its what you think. For my mother in law and I am sure my sister in law; this incident is me being extra sensitive and getting annoyed for being told “frankly” that my rice was not up to par. For me, it was a situation of bad manners and an attitude of entitlement and zero appreciation and wrong use of words. I never tout myself as an expert cook, all my dishes are a hit or miss, sometimes they are incredible, sometimes too salty or just blah. But one thing I do not lack is care and concern. And all the people I know and love, appreciate it. Whenever P’s Uncle and Aunt come over for dinner, Aunty always is appreciative of the fact that I rush home from work and whip together a meal for all of us and serve it with love. Another important thing is that you can give five women three potatoes each and same ingredients and they will end up cooking five differently styled potatoes. And you could have them swear to their own dish being the “only” way to cook it and perfect.

The next day I woke up and spoke nicely to them, even offered her to accompany me on my grocery store visit because I know how much she enjoys going out. But I have realized that our wavelengths do not match at all. Most of our conversation is incredibly one sided with her telling me stories of either her own smartness and expertise in cooking or my sister in law’s. My sister in law is definitely a good cook. I do listen to my mil’s stories and praise her but I cannot go beyond 15 minutes of conversation, beyond 15 minutes of saying non stop “Oh how nice, that’s a great idea, you are good!” etc. Now I have decided to ignore or simply not respond when I receive unsolicited advice that is so obvious that I feel – why is she even feeling the need to tell me this. And because of the way she delivers her words, they sting everytime.

Just a simple silly example is – I oil my daughters’s hair every weekend and I had sent R into the shower and was running around gathering her clothes and other stuff. Its our routine, she loves the shower and she happily sings in it and gets all drenched and then I go put shampoo in her hair. My mil accosted me on the way and accusingly scolded me “What!!! She is taking a shower by herself!??!! Arent you going to go put shampoo on her hair, she is not old enough, how will the oil come out??” Ignore and walk away is what I did. R is 6 ½ years old and has had countless head baths since she was born and I have an IQ slightly above average and have managed to keep my family alive (and oil free) on my own. I need not answer that outburst.

So now we are all in a peaceful harmony as much as we can manage. I do not respond to advice or questions that I think are completely ridiculous or condescending but I do not shut down conversation. I chat about other topics, ask them how their day was and make sure everything they need is bought. I have also told P to step up and assume primary responsibility for his parents.

One baby step at a time to a better relationship….

In other news we ran the half marathon again, more on that in another post…

Love yourself

I have two little girls - two beautiful little girls. My six year old is already in the fragile self esteem phase - checking herself out in the mirror at every opportunity, hating her naturally wavy hair. If her hair will be straight in the morning or not is the biggest stress she has before she goes to bed. And did I say she is six?

All through my childhood I was considered to be pretty. My best friend who is a stunning beauty always said that I had the most beautiful skin she had ever seen. My parents always praised me and it was a given that any color would look good on me given my fair complexion etc. Beauty is indeed in the eyes of the beholder. I used to have my front two teeth overlapping each other. Uptil the point of meeting my in laws and P, everyone I knew raved about how my smile was so natural and sweet. My father always said our quirks made us unique or we would be all the same.

On my in laws side both my husband and sister in law have perfect straight teeth thanks to orthodontic treatments rendered in their childhood. My father in law asked that I get braces done after we got engaged/married. This point was brought up in every conversation that we had. My mother in law told my mother and a close relative that she had asked her son - do you want to marry this girl? Her teeth are not straight, she has some problem with her eyes (I have a slight Shashi Kapoorish squint) and she is adopted and that her son said Yes, I want to marry her. I don't know if this was supposed to be a compliment or a slap or both or one disguised in the other. Over time I have realized that my mother in law is not the best communicator - maybe she doesn't mean some things but they come out wrong.

Newly married I looked at myself through my husband's eyes and had the first huge hit to my self esteem. My teeth bothered him (many years later I got an expensive orthodontic treatment done and now I have a perfectly aligned teeth smile), my weight bothered him and does to this day - his mother and sister are size zeros and below; they both barely eat a roti and me, eating with gusto was a shock to him, my wavy hair bothered him. My self esteem took hit after hit. I was so confused - I thought I was great - my friends and family say so then why don't I have a husband who is dizzy crazy in love with me. He was/is in love with me, don't get me wrong but it wasn't the blind throw yourself in love kind of love. It was measured and always realistic and critical and full of recommendations for how I can improve myself.

Down the years we also had to face many many tough situations and he unfalteringly stood behind me and held my hand and had my back as required. I also realized that this is who he is and this is how he is brought up. His mother is also prone to seeing the bad in situations and people - they are not simple satisfied happy people. There is always something that nags them stresses them. Roses have no smell, something is not sweet enough, grandchildren are not affectionate enough, there is no curry in the meal - the list goes on and on. My father in law on the other hand is always at peace. He has his own world but he keeps himself mentally and physically occupied.

As we try to coach our older daughter who has inherited most of these qualities to always see the good in people and situations, to appreciate and be grateful and to express affection and contentment; it's a revision of all these thoughts for us too.

As women, I feel that we are prone to self doubt, guilt and emotions; I will make sure my babies first and foremost learn to accept and love themselves and believe in themselves and not ever rely on any other person for it. My dearest children, I will always be in your camp cheering you on, saying that you are the smartest, prettiest , awesomest girl ever but I need you to believe it yourself and not ever let anyone bring you down anyday.

Times are a changing..

I was on the road for four weeks - a week at a time. This is the only travel I have to do, once a year for meetings at all the offsite locations that my company has. My first trip was sheer bliss. Boarding the plane by myself, actually getting to read a book quietly without having to worry about earaches in tiny ears when taking off or landing, checking into a very nice hotel, having a king size bed all to myself, eating breakfast at the breakfast buffet without having to cut food into tiny pieces and coaxing it into reluctant mouths - all bliss, sheer bliss. Who would have thought that these small things that we take so much for granted in our pre kids life would suddenly be so precious in the post!

The girls did remarkably well with P. P held the fort down. S was pretty miserable and leaned into the phone during face times and said "Mommy I need you" which broke my heart into a million pieces but my strong supportive husband assured me that she was fine otherwise and not to worry :)

Of course by the end of the last trip, I was pretty miserable too, the girls missed me, the mess in the house got to epic proportions but before things could get any worse, my trips were done and I am back home; slowly putting myself and my home back to routine.

P also travels infrequently nowadays. Being a single parent is of course difficult. The only difference between me traveling and his traveling is that when its his turn, it's basically Bye, Miss you and out of the door. When I travel, I have to make sure that the laundry is done, folded, put away, clothes set aside for the girls for the week to come; food is made and menus are written for the week; soccer pick up and drop offs are arranged and house is in maintainable clean condition. P keeps it rolling from there. I am extremely grateful for his wonderful support and encouragement. I recently received an "Exceeds expectations" on my review and a big part of the credit goes to his support.

We have many many women in my organization in high level positions. Almost all of them have multiple children. I was amazed with wonder as to how do these women seem to manage everything so effortlessly. A little bit of research unearthed a fast rising trend - they all (with only one exception) had stay at home husbands. The exception - my Director has in laws who stay fifteen minutes away and show up on her door step showered and ready to help out whenever she has a nanny or kids are sick kind of emergency.

At one location, two pregnant women were having matter of fact discussions about how their husbands were going to take 1-2 years off once their babies were due etc. This was very new and fascinating to me; this is the first time that I have met so many women all together with the same kind of situation. I have so many questions for all of them - how do their husbands manage the house and the kids, do they micromanage everything, do they get taunts from society, do they feel undue pressure being the sole breadwinner of the family, does their husband feel a loss of confidence for not being in a typical male provider role.....but I keep my mouth shut and push my questions away. Every single one of us is making choices for his/her life, his/her family and no one has the right to judge the other. You can decide what's comfortable for you and decide accordingly.

I do think about how this slow change in roles is going to affect my/our kids. The first thing I can think of is almost complete eradication of gender discrimination. How would you say to a boy child - you don't need to learn now to cook/sew/bake; maybe this might lead to expanded freedom in letting each of us choose whatever we are good at without worrying about whether its a typical male or female stamped role.

But what's next - will we have a world where the equation is completely switched - where an overwhelming majority of guys stay home while their wives go to work. What impact will this have on men versus women thought patterns and inherent nature traits? Many questions and no answers. It is getting to be very late now so will go sleep.

Day two and everything is well

P has also stepped up this time and is constantly engaged. He is making sure his mom and me are both happy. I am beginning to feel more confident that this visit is going to be finally a peaceful and happy one. Big sigh of relief :)

New beginnings

My in laws have arrived - they are visiting us after four years. Their last visit was traumatic on both sides. So we are all cautiously approaching this visit. The sister in law has stepped in and is hosting them for exactly half their stay which helps immensely.

I have decided for every one thing that annoys me about them, I will think of one thing that they did is nice so that the anger is eliminated.

I returned from an out of town trip exhausted and hungry. I had made food for a whole week ahead of time so that they would have home cooked food when they arrived.

Annoying thing: My mother in law praised the only thing which I had not made and bought from outside - the rotis and commented on how nice that Aunty makes them etc. Is it too much to say everything I had made was nice??

Nice things they did: they waited for me to arrive even though they were very sleepy.
They love my husband and children.

Let go let go let God!

Miracles on the path of God

This book that I am currently reading also talks about visualising putting down your worries one by one at the feet of whichever diety/God figure you choose and then saying a prayer of gratitude and closing your eyes to sleep for the night.

I religiously followed some of the principles noted in the book, literally chanting to myself "Let go let go Let God" whenever my mind strayed to thoughts of my Dad, my birth mother, what should I do etc etc; things that have no resolution and out of my hands. I prayed and focused on the task at hand - be it at work or with my kids and gave my full and complete attention to whatever I was doing at the moment. No multi tasking of thoughts.

And then Monday night, at around 12:30 am my cell phone rang. I was so deep in sleep that it rang for a long time and went to voicemail. It started ringing a second time and by the time I realised it, it had once again gone to voicemail. I looked at the number, it was eerily similar to my Dad's. I called him right away, half asleep half scared; a phone call in the middle of the night only evokes fear to me, and he confirmed the number and said it must be his wife calling! And that it was a good thing if she is calling and that she wanted to speak with me.

I called her back. She seems to be a very nice lady. We chatted for a bit. She had been confused with the time difference and hadnt realised it was the middle of the night here. She had many things to say, but mainly she wanted to reiterate that she had no ill wishes for me or any anger. She needed time to adjust; all these years had gone by so smooth and now I was on the scene. She felt her husband had changed since he met me. And it had disturbed the peace and happiness in their family. And so in a way she had blamed me. She said she was ready to accept me into their family. We are going to chat again tomorrow, to continue our discussion. I was numb with shock.

I was half asleep and numb now. I didnt know what to say to her. I apologised for having caused any trouble to her and her kids, she immediately said "Dont say Sorry, you dont have to be". I really have no plans/wishes to be a part of their family - Do I need another mother?? My Grandmother, birth mother, mother and now mother in law are all called Mother by me! Do I really need another one? I dont. I dont need another family. I dont wish to disrupt their life in any way. All I want is to be able to call my Dad whenever I want to, call him up and chat with him as per our convenience, once in a while. That was all I want.

I admire her and am grateful to her for taking this step. It is not easy for an older person to take the first step. I have seen so many stubborn adults who will not budge or take a step out of their comfort zone. But what has amazed me over and above everything is the new path I had started walking down on. The book said try to let go and you will experience miracles. I let go and did experience a miracle.

When I went back to bed, I couldnt sleep. I forced my mind to let go of all the future day dreaming and what ifs and different scenarios and calmed it down - said the Gayatri mantra a few times and went to sleep. And I did sleep. In the past I would have stayed awake and tossed and turned all night or woken up my husband to share the news with him immediately. Instead I looked at my sleeping (snoring) husband and my beautiful children and was overcome with peace and happiness. And brought back to the reality of getting a good night's sleep to be able to face the day ahead. And sleep I did...

I dont know whats coming next...what this will mean for my relationship with Dad, will my birth mother ever find out, but for now, I am going to keep myself in the present, celebrate the happy things, tackle the uncomfortable and enjoy with my family.