Books, green tea, some more thoughts and stress

When I was seven or eight, I had a huge interest in reading about history particularly about the sub continent, I read a little but then out of the blue I just stopped. A couple of years later, I was sixteen again I re-kindled my interest in history, this time it was simply about Pakistan, my country. I read and then I again stopped. I never thought to ask myself why I had stopped, the books did not end so why did I leave my interest twice.

I never asked myself and all these years I never focused as to why that happened. 

I usually bought course books and there were rare instances when I chose to buy something purely out of my literary interests. Once I had bought a translation of Rumi by Coleman Barks but it simply did not click with me, I tried reading it but then after a couple of tries I just gave up. 

This year I borrowed "The Alchemist" from a friend and later on thought about buying some books just for pleasure reading. It was a thought.

Eventually, I got a few books.

I would read the books, with a cup of lemon green tea infused with cardamom and cinnamon, let the flavors flow out for a few minutes and then lazily take the first sip. The flavors along with that aroma of cardamom, quite revitalizing. Coffee would be too much on a sunny afternoon with temperature crossing the 103F mark, so green tea would work. Black tea is for the breakfast and evenings, just to give myself some time to relax and unwind. 

Now coming to the main chunk of this post, why did I stop reading about history. Did I lose interest, nope. Did the subject of history have any less appeal now, Nope. So why? Continue reading the answer is there later on. 

Flash forward a few days, instead of binge reading I decided to slow down the reading and enjoy whatever I read. Fair enough, makes sense, life and it's offerings should be enjoyed rather than to be rushed through. The subtle art of not giving a f*ck, this book is actually liberating. We'll keep to the original issue at hand and not wander off, Page number 136 and it reads "Manson's law of Avoidance, The more something threatens your identity, the more you will try to avoid it" 

He goes on to explain in the following pages how this makes sense. On page 138, the last few lines of the second last paragraph, "Until we change how we view ourselves, what we believe we are and are not, we cannot overcome our avoidance and anxiety. We cannot change."

Now two things, history is never taught in an unbiased way, it depends on what side we choose to look at. I chose to stop reading because the truth was ugly and I had only heard about the "glorious past" "the golden days" and whatever non-sense you could put into a mixture to appeal to the majority. Truth is, history is full of brutality, every given moment something happened which might be of some significance in the future, to someone if not to the majority. I stopped because I could not fathom the idea of what I was learning to be actual history with the foundations of my previously acquired knowledge. It took time to put things into perspective, to break down the foundations of my thoughts about the past based on grandiose and glorification of things we would be ashamed of. 

Secondly, I stopped reading history because it was the total opposite of what I was taught by the usual books, I never lost interest.  I had to change my views about it, about what I believed and then finally get over the avoiding the discussions. 

The interesting thing about reading that book, I have started to question my thoughts, views, my whole idea of who I am. To be honest, at times I have to simply close the book cause I come to realize how much I need to improve myself, how I thought I was right but in reality I was wrong. There's the urge to avoid reading that book; a change would result in something I may not be comfortable at this stage but a change is much needed. Changes are hard, changes have their own challenges and their stress, but if you get to a point where you find out that I need to change, continue making progress and get there. It will take you time, you'll be working at turtle pace but there will be satisfaction and that's the best part. Keep working and keep going! You will feel the desire to quit but don't quit!!!!

Everyday life brings its own cup of stress, some you have to sip down and some you have throw down, we worry about the inane stuff, things which hardly matter later on but we stress like the whole world depends on them. Just look at things and ask yourself, would I give them a second thought tomorrow, and you will decide to pour down three quarters of that cup in the drain; we simply worry too much!