Poor jokes? or Poor people?

Just few days ago, I was in a school to take up a session on leadership for the students. I had reached almost 45 minutes earlier and had had a heavy lunch just two hours ago. Naturally, sleep was catching up on me. I was in no state of taking up an energetic session but it was inevitable. I tried to take a brisk walk to awake myself from the day-sleep. It worked to an extent. I wasn't completely up and going. Then I entered the school and took a seat on a nearby bench. Just twenty minutes before my session was about to begin, the first grade students ran out of their classes to the quadrangle. Here comes the twist in the story.

 

I have a bad habit of cracking jokes and making people around me laugh. I started it with these young angels. I asked them, "A for ..." They replied, "Apple!" and I reverted, "A for Anna Sambar (food item in Kannada language). All of them chuckled. I asked once again, "C for ..." They replied, "Cat!" but I retorted, "C for Chitranna (yet another food item in Kannada language). Once again these first grade students laughed their heart out. This continued for few more alphabets where I was replacing their answers with food items and that too in a regional language. With each answer their laughter raised in decibel level and my energy state raised in quantum levels. Hats off to these kids who have the charm of enjoying every little happiness that's hidden around them, and who, in return, charged me up for my session.

 

If I had done the same exercise with other people around me apart from these kids, they would have neglected the humour in it and categorized it as PJ - poor jokes and not even energized me. It would have happened with you too many times when you tried to bring out humour and your friends made fun of you by calling your joke as a PJ- poor joke. As people grow, they tend to lose the fun-loving-kid inside them who can trigger happiness and bliss at every joke possible. It doesn't even matter if people aren't ready to enjoy, unfortunately they break the source person's enthusiasm also while sharing the joke and turn off his/her mood. I feel more than the poorness or richness of the joke, it depends on the poorness or richness of the ability in people to enjoy life. People have gone poor on the scale of enjoying humour. So, don't worry next time when someone condemns your thought as a poor joke. That someone might just be a poor soul on the planet. Go ahead and enjoy the nectar of life called laughter. So what say? Do poor people exist or poor jokes?

The (n+1)th task

We are humans and we are destined to prepare and execute 'n' number of tasks everyday of our life. Some of the tasks have become so embedded in our lives that we don't even consider them as tasks but just daily habits. As we grow everyday in our life, in our education, in our business, in our career new challenges keep coming just to help us grow through them. In this process I am sure that everyone of you have been through some of the tough challenges of life. Probably the number of these might be one to many. Every time you were in a tough one you would have prayed to God that 'let there be no other task that's tougher than this one'. Also I can guarantee you that God would have definitely placed the next task in sometime damn tougher than the existing one. This is the task which I call as the (n+1)th  task.

Most of us are afraid of taking up a new task that we haven't faced before. Even the most optimistic and enthusiastic people who always keep exploring life have some sense of butterflies in their stomach when there is a new challenge which they have to face. Also we know the fact that we have to face it anyway to move forward in life. Hence we face it. No doubt that when its a question of life to move forward we accomplish it as well. Also that is the time we tell others it was the most tough challenge till then in life. We are still unaware of the next thing planned by God for us. It was a new experience for me also today when I was asked to take up the first half of an inspirational talk to six hundred plus people. It was just like a boulder of challenge that was thrown on my empty hands. I was one person who would be the last person on earth to take up the first part of any session because it's the most difficult challenge to break ice with hundreds of people at one shot and make them involve in a discussion or interaction for next two to three hours. I was very comfortable to take off from a session once which is already started and the first speaker has already made the crowd to gel enough with the speaker. This challenge of taking the first half of the talk came as a surprise just this morning when I had advised one of my friends just yesterday not to take the first part of any talk. God has his own plans and this was the (n+1)th challenge for me which I gracefully accepted.

I was all set for this challenge and executed my part to accomplish it in the best way possible. That's when I learned that even though you want to stop facing tough situations God always keeps increasing the toughness levels of the life just to make us grow our wisdom and keep life exciting as it happens in the games that we play. I am sure that no one would want to play the game which has just one level. So my dear readers, whenever you feel you have worked very hard and have completed 'n' number of tasks just know that God will soon be back to you with the (n+1)th task.

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