A few weeks ago, I was sitting with some friends who were discussing a recent football match. The other day they were discussing a tennis match. The conversations didn’t excite me since I don’t follow sports. Not that I don’t like sports, Of course I do. I love the game that happens. It’s just that I don’t follow any sport religiously. But this wasn’t the case earlier. I loved cricket, I used to play for around 2 hours daily and watch every single match. But as I joined college, my interest started fading. I do watch some matches now but not with the same passion like I did earlier. With time, I developed this thinking that watching sports and being updated with every story was a tough task for me. I felt this was time-consuming and I would not gain anything by talking about sports or sports persons.

The famous personalities whom I follow keep tweeting and posting updates on their social media accounts and I always wondered how they found time to do this even after being so busy and involved in their business.

Few days back, I was having this conversation with a friend and I told her how I always found myself amongst people who often discussed matches, stories, updates and how I was never excited about it and that discussing sports was a waste of time. Since she’s a huge cricket fan,

I asked her, “Why do people discuss sports? What is it that they get by talking about it?

To which she replied, “Why not? Sports is a good thing, since you get to know so many amazing stories and it serves as a good topic to talk on which is better than what most people talk about..”

“Like what?”, I interrupted

“People”

This struck me.

I have this habit of observing people and their habits. This happens unintentionally. I cannot ignore what people keep doing around me. I do that quite often. I notice and talk about people and this talking is different than what Seth Godin mentions when he says that he talks more about people than he does about marketing and other stuff.

The one I am focusing on is DISCUSSING people with other people and this is what struck me. How often do we find ourselves discussing people with others?

Their bad habits, their negative behaviour, how they do something, how they dress, how they carry themselves, who they are dating are some conversations that often pop up intentionally or unintentionally.

And how often do we find ourselves discussing ideas? Solutions? Innovation?

I realised that being with people who are not interested in a particular field that you like can hugely impact your interest in it. If you are not assertive, you may be forced into conversations which don’t interest you.

And, discussing trivia is very easy. It doesn’t require much effort, intellect and time. But discussing something relevant like Sports takes all of these.

Vital Few, Trivial many

Sports tell us about struggles, about injuries, about defeat, about teamwork, about hard work, about achievements, about faith, about records, about failure and about success which is similar to what we face in our normal lives; while discussing people does no such thing; it only encourages jealousy, envy and negativity.

It was hard to digest but I realised I was wrong when I considered discussing sports as a waste of time, and the funny part is, this happened when I discussed sports and not people.

We all come across situations everyday when we encounter a feeling of having something, eating something or doing something; like purchasing a new pair of sport shoes to start running, wanting to try that famous dish in a nearby restaurant from a long time, going for trekking/hiking/camping/road trip just because everyone has a wanderlust these days, buying a motorbike to travel to remote areas just because everyone is doing that.

Now for me, I wanted to buy a beanie since a long time. I kept thinking of ordering one online but somehow didn’t. It wasn’t until I visited a local market where I got to try a few beanies and boy O boy, I looked terrible. A few days ago, as I was climbing down my apartment stairs, I caught a strong whiff of Chole Bhature, and it was hard to believe that I actually wanted to eat the dish since I am not a big fan and always avoid it.

We grew up watching movies, TV series where hackers are shown as the smartest people who could get into any computer and pull any information they wanted; and so I wanted to code, learn hacking until one fine day I sat to code. I wrote a few lines and that was it. Then I imagined myself coding for hours like I had seen in the movies. I realised I did not want to code. I did not want to become a hacker. Similarly, that day I was merely attracted to the smell of Chole Bhature, however when I imagined myself eating it, it did not please me.

A few more incidents like these made me sit and think; not of food but how we are merely attracted towards the idea of something and not by that actual thing. It has happened a lot of times when I have wanted to learn a particular skill and actually started it and soon realised that it was not what I wanted to do.This feeling of not wanting to do or have came through either from actually doing it or imagining myself doing it. This happens in every area of our lives. We desire fancy watches, clothes, gadgets and what not. But in my opinion, as far as I have experienced, the moment we get our hands on those things, that feeling of possessing them goes away.

We see so many celebrities, famous personalities on social media giving rants, motivational talks, having all kinds of luxuries and are naturally drawn towards them. We want to become like them, have a lifestyle like theirs and have the fame they have. Not only the fancy lifestyles of celebrities, but also of successful Businessmen, Entrepreneurs, Influencers etc. But do we actually want to live it or we just like the idea of that lifestyle?

As a person who gets bored very quickly and has a lot of interests, this has been a difficult thing in the past since I wanted to try and do so many things and ended up half doing them or not liking them after starting. It mainly comes down to the fact that most of the things in our life are just abstract concepts which are created because we like the way they are portrayed; either through media or directly by people. This does not mean that we will always not like what we want to have. We may end up pursuing a particular skill as a career. But that is not what I am emphasising. I want to stress on a certain aspect of life — Self Awareness.

We have created an image of what a certain situation looks like, for example, success; We have an image of what a successful personality looks like and we start chasing that image to become like him/her.

We see someone enjoying every weekend going on road trips or camping and we try making similar plans even though we hate travelling. Someone makes videos and puts them online, and now you also want to make them even though videos are not your cup of tea. You see a famous and successful person putting out motivational stuff online and the next thing you want to become is a life coach/ motivational speaker. Half of your classmates go abroad to study and now you want to pursue your master’s there, not because you want to but because this is supposedly the next step in your life since so many of your friends are doing that. You may want to become an actor but if you are meant to become a lawyer, you will fail as an actor. First of all, address the feeling of becoming an actor. What made you think of becoming one? Is it your passion or is it because of the idea of living as an actor?

Seeing, admiring, wanting is very different from becoming, possessing, doing.

We may not like the person we desire of becoming based on what we see and admire. So before deciding if we really want something or have a certain trait, we can always imagine ourselves having that already. It will not always work for everyone but we can surely try and be more self aware and original.

Being passionate about a thing is what we should be doing instead of being passionate about the idea of that thing.