Can’t and Can

GOOD MORNING!!!

As you lazily reach out for your alarm (most often your phone) with half closed eyes, you wonder, what kind of day will it turn out to be:

• Will there be a beautiful sun rise – (ok, this is more of sun rise/sun set buffs like me)
• Would it be a good weather day (people in North India, please excuse, but many parts of the world will have a good weather today!)
• Who will you bump into today.
• Who are you likely to get a call, out of the blue from ?
• Which of your ‘given up’ debts might be returned, with interest today?
• Who might give u an unexpected compliment on your looks?
• Will you be reach office on time for sure?
• Will all your meetings happen as per planned?
• Will the stock market go up or down.
• Will the Shiv Sena ask for another Bharat bandh?
• Will Rahul Gandhi again have some funny quotes to make?
• Will Russia finally announce that they are backing out of Ukraine?
• Will Elon Musk FINALLY take control of Twitter?

The interesting part here, though people might debate on the last couple of them, they are ALL THAT YOU CANNOT CONTROL. These are things which have all kinds of ifs and buts associated with them and wish as you may, there will be disappointments and dejection built in if we speculate and wonder about such questions. We will be bundling up ‘expectations’ from the day, that is likely to lead to sadness.

However, there are ways (in your control)  through which you can make the day a great one for yourself:

• Inform your boss/colleague that you will be 30 mins late to work and volunteer to drop your kid to school and your spouse gets a break.
• Volunteer to make the breakfast instead of your spouse doing it.
• Send flowers to your parents without a reason.
• Call the buddy from school/college you have not been in touch for a very long time.
• Go randomly and give a beggar a 100 rupee note or bag-full of fruits and veggies.
• Ask the liftman or security guard – how are you doing? maybe get to know his name if you do not know (such a sad thing that unlike in traditional housing societies, which had same guard for 20-30 years, now security agencies tend to rotate people around and we do not get to see same guard for a very long time)
• Propose to take meeting minutes even if you are NOT the junior-most person (and supposed to do it by default)
• Take a random time out from office and surprise your spouse with a movie in the afternoon ( I have actually done this once) 

…. and the list can be endless one. Yes, some of these might seem to gravitate towards RAK (Random acts of kindness) but the key element here is CONTROL, these are things which you CAN do, yet we do not realise the potential of these acts. potential to give happiness and joy to others, which in turn leads to happiness for us as well.

So take control of your day and DO stuff which you HAVE control over and not fret about stuff that YOU CANNOT do anything about. Look at your own circle of influence and make a deep down impact WITHIN that circle. It might look small to start with, but can be really expanded well once you modify the definition for that circle. Go ahead, make someone’s day.