First I want to mention what led me to write this today. Since two days I have been trying to go out of my home to do something. I couldn't play racquetball continuously for 3 days. I couldn't find anyone to play with me. Still at least I wanted to go to gym, so that I could play this game on my own. I couldn't go to the gym. You know why? Simple reason is I don't have a car. You can ask me what it has to do with having car? Yes thats true. I could easily walk to gym if the weather is nice. First of all here it is getting very cold these days. By the way it snowed well two days back. So you don't feel like walking for 30 minutes to go to the gym. Basically what I am saying is I need car for everything.
Here in USA it looks like we have everything. Yet we end up not feeling satisfied. In my case it is little different. Sometimes I feel like doing something. But again I can't do anything except sitting at home as I don't have car. In India I used to walk for longtime when ever I got bored. Here it pains to walk with all the heavy clothing. Still we feel the cold. I always want to play some game, especially racquetball as it is indoor game. But again we need one more person to play. Right? Here comes the problem. Most of the time I don't find anyone. It's really frustrating.
Anyway the point is in this so called developed country it is kind of compulsory to have a car. Every store is located at the outskirts of the city. I think I could easily walk to all these places if it is not cold outside. At the same time I can't afford car with what I make. If I buy a car, then I can't save anything to send back home. One more thing is we end up having some debt because of this car. More over we may need to spend lot of money on repairs as we buy some kind of crap for just 2 or 3K.
I have seen lot of people having everything, I mean every materialistic luxury. Still I can say that people are not that happy here compared to people in India. Of course I know that in India people are having different problems. The thing is in India people always worry about future. They always try to have savings for the future. I guess here people don't do that. Sometimes I used to wonder how everyone here could afford so many luxurious things? I mean even people with low salaries buy lot of stuff. You know how they do it? Simple. They depend on credit. I mean everyone goes for credit cards. That means here in America everyone has huge debts on their backs. So most of the time they buy stuff with others money. In the end they keep paying all that debt all their life. My feeling is whatever you buy with credit card, it doesn't make you happy. I think it might make you happy initially. But later you start regretting when you are paying minimum payments on your credit card. It goes on for ever. In India you don't see common people using credit cards. Even normal employees don't know anything about these credit cards. So they can buy stuff when they have money, I mean their own money. If you buy stuff with your own earning, then it makes you feel very happy. You don't have to worry about these monthly payments.
Still it is definitely worth to buy certain things on credit. Especially car. Lot of students who come here for studies think that there is no need to have car if they can live near university or where there is good transportation. But most of the times everyone feels that it could have been really good if he had a car. It might be because of so many simple reasons. Sometimes you want to do grocery shopping. You want to do it right away, but you know that you need to catch bus. Ok you go and check for the bus schedule. That's it. You find it there is no bus right away and you need to wait for one hour. It makes you feel damn frustrated. The point is you feel motivated to do so many things. Still we forget that we are dependent on so many other things like transportation, etc. In the end by the time there is bus we lose our motivation. Then all that week you have to face more problems because of this simple thing, like spending more money on food outside.
Right now I am really frustrated as I am not able to move out of the house. I want to go for a movie tonight. But I know for sure that I can't as I don't have a car. I want to play racquetball. Again I can't do that as I don't have transportation to go to gym. Ok. At least I can watch a movie on my TV with DVD player. Great finally I found something to kill time. But again I miss something. TV is just not enough to watch movie. I need DVD. Shit. I need to go outside to get DVD. aaa God. Funny thing is I have TV, very good home theater system. It is really useless with out DVD. So I see only one thing now. I need car. But I can't afford it. It drives me nuts.
Then what is the solution? I need to find some solution to get out of this frustration. Yes, my roommates have cars. I can ask them for a while. May for long time. But it is kind of depending on others. Why should I do that? I guess it is better to walk rather than asking from someone. There is dignity even though there is pain involved. I like to watch movies a lot. There is one movie theater in the downtown area. It shows good movies. But the problem is you don't find all new releases. If I can make myself feel that it doesn't pain to walk in the cold, then I guess I can do any of these things. If I have patience to wait for the bus, then I am sure I won't complain. When I know for sure that I can't afford the car, I need to make sure that I have my solution to feel that I don't need car to do any of these things. I need to make myself feel I don't have to depend on others. Have some good plan and follow that. I am sure I won't be able to do everything. Still I can do at least most of the things.
I think lot of people are scared to walk in the cold weather thinking that it pains a lot. I mean fingers, nose, ears, etc start hurting really bad if we are there outside walking for longtime. Still we can deal with it if we have proper winter clothing. The most important thing is or trick is not minding the pain. If you think that it can't hurt you, then it definitely can't hurt you. I am sure even thought if pains, because of your thinking it makes you feel less. So the trick is not minding. That's it. Let's see how it works.
Two days back I started walking when it was snowing outside. It felt so good. I guess I walked for almost one hour. In the end I could feel slight pain in the fingers. But again I wasn't wearing proper clothing. So no complaints. But one thing made me feel extremely happy. You know what it is. After long time I saw a movie with out going in the car. At least I felt that I could do something without having car. Now I want to continue this.
I think if I start thinking that everything makes my life miserable, then even small things make my life really miserable. But if we think even failures can't hurt us, then nothing could hurt us. I think it is all attitude. If we are not scared of the outcome, then definitely we can do anything. I think I am getting used to that kind of attitude. I am sure I am feeling much much better now. I will definitely make myself more stronger towards lot of things in life. The most important thing I need to realize is no one can hurt me. I definitely make sure that no one can hurt me. Do you know how to do that? I know. Simply not giving any chance to others. Cut it off if you notice that someone is taking control over you, either emotionally or physically or professionally. In the end it really doesn't matter just because of one simple reason. If you get hurt, you are the one feeling pain, but not others. Always remember it.
The other most important thing we need to realize is we can do lot of things without depending on these materialistic things. Once we start depending on these things, they take control over you. Make sure that you can do different things without depending on materialistic things. One can feel happy with small things. So try to find them. I am trying to find them right now. You also try to do that if you don't want to get frustrated later. Good Luck.
cheers,
Sreedhar.
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