Precious gem

Thou are my love
like a blooming flower
in my garden of life
years apart we lived not knowing
the beautiful moments in store for us
blessings have showered upon me
like the rippling waters down the mountains
the morning dew is smiling
as the shining sun is next to them
the glee of the moonlight
like a sheath of silk over your lovely face
thou arms so strong like towers of Babylon
protecting me from the evil eyes of the world
Nights are long days are short
in my life there is no more tears
As thou is holding my hand

Always yours !!!

Being yourself !!

Whats new about this?? being yourself? we all hear about it since we are born...as we grow up...enter the kindergarten..then elementary ..high school..university..work....marriage ...ah!!! long process of being yourself. Does it work? At what proportion does it work??

Lets start from being a toddler....the messiest time of anyone's life..how could you expect him to be " himself" while he is putting his toy in the washing machine, trying to insert his tiny fingers into the holes of the pin plugs !!

As soon as he enters the kindergarten his whole life topples up from a care free lifestyle ( which obviously he will never enjoy in his life) to a more formal setting. Battling with phonics, drawing, coloring, friends..he builds up his resistance .. if he has the choice to be himself..do you think he would ever continue being in school.

More subjects, languages and expectations builds up as he moves up in his grade from elementary to high school...unit assessment, projects, exams, on top of it being disciplined and following rules....

Getting enrolled into a university changes our lives forever....greater decisions to make... could you be yourself over there??? it is when you start working you see the real dynamics and colors of life....and if you ask him to be himself at his workplace...ain't you asking for more than he could take in ???? Does he have a choice afterall??

When I see the small ones in my school everyday....are we being fair telling them "be yourself?"

Memorable citations from Pride and Prejudice -Jane Austen

• It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighborhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters. (Ch. 1)
• 
  Affectation of candour is common enough— one meets with it everywhere. But to be candid without ostentation or design— to take the good of everybody's character and make it still better, and say nothing of the bad— belongs to you alone. And so you like this man's sisters, too, do you? Their manners are not equal to his." (Elizabeth to Jane; Ch. 4)
• 
  "I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine." (Elizabeth about Darcy; Ch. 5)
• 
  "Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us." (Mary; Ch. 5)
• 
  If a woman is partial to a man, and does not endeavour to conceal it, he must find it out. (Ch. 6)
• 
  "Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. If the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other or ever so similar beforehand, it does not advance their felicity in the least. They always continue to grow sufficiently unlike afterwards to have their share of vexation; and it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life." (Charlotte Lucas ,Ch. 6)
• 
  A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony, in a moment. (Ch. 6)
• 
  "It is particularly incumbent on those who never change their opinion, to be secure of judging properly at first." (Ch. 18)
• 
  "There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me."( Elizabeth,Ch.31)
• 
  "I certainly have not the talent which some people possess," said Darcy, "of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done.""My fingers," said Elizabeth, "do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I see so many women's do. They have not the same force or rapidity, and do not preoduce the same expression. But then I have always supposed it to be my own fault- because I would not take the trouble of practising..."(Ch. 31)
• After a silence of several minutes, he came towards her in an agitated manner, and thus began:"In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you."
• "I might as well inquire," replied she, "why with so evident a desire of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character? Was not this some excuse for incivility, if I was uncivil? But I have other provocations. You know I have. Had not my feelings decided against you— had they been indifferent, or had they even been favourable, do you think that any consideration would tempt me to accept the man who has been the means of ruining, perhaps for ever, the happiness of a most beloved sister?"
• 
  Elizabeth felt herself growing more angry every moment; yet she tried to the utmost to speak with composure when she said: "You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner."She saw him start at this, but he said nothing, and she continued: "You could not have made the offer of your hand in any possible way that would have tempted me to accept it."
• Again his astonishment was obvious; and he looked at her with an expression of mingled incredulity and mortification. She went on: "From the very beginning— from the first moment, I may almost say— of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry."
• "You have said quite enough, madam. I perfectly comprehend your feelings, and have now only to be ashamed of what my own have been. Forgive me for having taken up so much of your time, and accept my best wishes for your health and happiness."
• 
  "You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever." (Darcy to Elizabeth,Ch. 58)
  
• "Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.""I cannot give you credit for any philosophy of the kind. Your retrospections must be so totally void of reproach, that the contentment arising from them is not of philosophy, but, what is much better, of innocence. But with me, it is not so. Painful recollections will intrude which cannot, which ought not, to be repelled. I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle. Such I was, from eight to eight and twenty; and such I might still have been but for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you! You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased." (Darcy to Elizabeth,Ch. 60)
  

A beautiful sonnet to the love of your life

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds
Or blends with the remover to remove:
O no! It is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken
It is the star to every wandering bark
Whose worth’s unknown although his height be taken,
Love’s not Times fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov’d
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.
-William Shakespeare
Sonnet 116

A Captivating novel and the characters!

The book which is very much closer to my heart!

The Fountainhead- Ayn rand

This book by the Russian –American novelist Ayn Rand has influenced thousands of people around the globe to search for the hero-antihero in themselves. This is a personal favourite of mine as the characters are very close to my heart. I have seen and experienced all these characters in my life and am sure once you get through the initial pages of this fantastic novel it will absorb you into it. Let me introduce the characters to you: Howard Roark, Peter Keating, Dominique Francon, Gail Wynand and Toohey.

Roark goes through a journey to reach his goals, he is different from the traditional hero because he fights mentally instead of physically. He learns to keep his ego strong, explain to society his values, and influence others to follow his antiheroic model.

One more aspect in this novel is the pleasure Roark gets from being himself and his commitment to live. Each person has a different identity, reason to live, and idea of what being human is, but only the individual is able to desire to be set apart. Here, Roark shows us the reason to live in this world and being oneself.

What attracted me more to this novel is the relationship shared by Roark and Dominique, and especially how Dominique is transformed towards the end of the novel. Love is a virtue that only selfish people with strong egos can have because they are able to hold on to values. Dominique and Roark are naturally drawn to each other because they share the same value of integrity. The passion that Roark and Dominique share is not lust but a shared value. Roark holds on to his own values, and when he finds a similar person who shares those values he falls in love.

Dominique is not as strong as Roark and cannot admit that she wants the life Roark lives when she first meets him. However, from their first encounter they are attracted to each other in a way that they have never felt. She goes on a journey to acquire the courage to accept her talents. Dominique is born with a fighting spirit that sets her apart from the rest of society, but she is afraid of her spirit and reason and tries to deny it. Dominique fears that by loving and having passionate ideals she will be vulnerable to the world, which will ruin her. Dominique will not allow herself to be a slave to mediocrity, so she withdraws from the world to uphold her loyalty to an ideal she doubts is real. Dominique’s family and co-workers think that “it’s abnormal to feel so strongly about anything” because they do not have passion in their own lives . However, Dominique says, “That’s the only way I can feel or not at all”. Dominique is attracted to Roark because they both share the same values, but
Dominique is afraid verbally to admit her attraction to him. Instead of using her
reason to produce truth with Roark she plays games to force him to make the first
move towards a romantic relationship with her. They share a love- hate relationship which is so captivating. She says, “ I hate you for what you are, for wanting you, for having to want you”. I admire the way she waited for the right person to walk into her life when it was least expected, a man with integrity, the only one who can ever match her integrity.

Dominique’s fear is transforming into strength as she begins to see that it is better to be persecuted and be productive than not to live at all. Dominique is able to find her identity but does not know how to make her way back into the world as her true self. Dominique’s strength is greater than others because she has come to terms with her ego and it fuels her.

Once Dominique rejects her fear and accepts her reason and ability to produce creatively, even though the masses do not accept her, she is able to have pleasure being an antihero. The real hero of this novel is Dominique who establishes her strength to be stronger with the help of love of her life, Howard Roark.

A Welcome Note

Welcome to my personal page:) Hope this will enlighten your thoughts and make you hold on to the wonderful moments we are entitled to. Live every moment and always remember God loves you!