The High’s of Life…………..

There are moments that are frozen in time for each one of us and are very personal. Yesterday, while I was traveling back from the office, I started thinking about such moments in my life. Frankly, I was not even looking at moments; I was looking for those memories in which I had the feeling of exhilaration. It was a surprise for me to note that in most of these memories, I was not in as a ‘doer’, which for me would mean the center of the universe, but as observer, listener or just a participant.

…..when the sweat pours

Scientifically, it’s the adrenaline that gives you a feeling of high when you are involved in a physical activity. That’s too cut and dried for me and for anyone who is into sports. I have played all my life, and have tried my hands in all sorts of games. I am no expert in any of them, probably because there was never an intention of playing anything professionally. The fun is in matching your skills and strength against a better player, fun is in fighting to reach each stroke, fun is in fighting for one more point and fun is in knowing how much your own body is capable of achieving. The exhilaration is in knowing that you have beaten a better person fair and square or in the knowledge that a worthy opponent beat you. At times, and even in my dark moods, this feeling goes to the extent of saying “Even if death comes to take me away, it will have to pay a heavy price before it can take me”

…….when things cant go any worse

I am probably at my best when the situations are at their worst. There was a time in my third job when I was handling 12 projects as against 4, which was the industrial norm. Being immodest, I can easily say that I was proud of myself. I have never ever seen myself giving orders or taking decisions so fast. And not one project got delayed or went wrong.

Feeling of being alive comes to you when you are still standing even after receiving severe beating during ragging, when you get a full square meal after 3 days, when you don’t have light in your house and you are creating engineering drawing sheets by holding torch in your mouth, when you have worked for 24 hours straight in 45degreeC and can count each muscle of your body.

For those of you who have gone through similar experience would probably now what I am talking about and can add to this list in their own sphere. Bottom line being, its your attitude that gives to a high, even in such crappy situations

………..when the air is still.

Me and my wife have become an expert in off-season vacations. We would visit beaches in monsoon, hill station in winters or dry areas in summers. Any how we enjoy!! It is great to lie in the sea when you have clouds and rain and not a soul in sight, to travel through the fog when there is stillness around and you don’t know where the earth ends.

You don’t need a nice place to enjoy this stillness, its only the select company of few that matter. Sitting on the terrace with a glass of rum and a couple of friends and looking at the lights of the city as they go out one by one is also fun. Or taking a walk at 3 AM in a small town when even dogs refuse to bark at you is great.

We live with too much noise. Make a rendezvous with silence and get a high from the dreams that it gives you.

………..when there is laughter around

Some of my friends, MD/NS/MJ/SJ are great storytellers. They have a knack of narrating incidences of their life in such a manner that we usually end up rolling with laughter. I think my four years of engineering in a city like Gwalior became bearable only because of these guys. We could laugh in all the situations, the best or the worst, and no one was spared at any point of time. Laughter could be directed towards a person or a situation a person is in, without any malice.

You should see how my wife and her friend R laugh when they are together. I wait for a sentence that ends without laughing. Its best not to disturb them at that time, for then the attack will be on you and there is no defense possible.



Frankly the list for me could go on. This is probably the only thing that I don’t understand about people in general. How can you be low in life? There is no situation in which you cannot but be glad that you are alive, that you feel the sun on your face and winds in your hair. How can you not exist is a state of continuous high all your life. Happiness is constant, unhappiness is temporary.