The Underdog Telling Of Christmas To Know What It Means For Just Simply Showing Up At Every Occasion - Third Part For The Distance Series

It's those everyday glories of what Christmas eve and its weekends bring to spark up dull moments with crystals, why it matters to just show up in the end.

With every dark tunnel that paves our way, a light comes from a direction where we are just seeking a sign of hope to move forward, whether it's as big as the mountain or as little as a piece of cake!

What I have noticed through this journey of being by myself during the holiday break is that everything has a purpose being set by the foot of its hour. Whether you get up for taking a 5-minute break to experience a breakdown, there are things that we as individuals want to take action on but don't have the perfect moment for taking out actually to experience it. It's not that human beings don't want to share it. We just need to show up and block the time for it when our main priorities are done for the day ahead of us.

Now for continuing my story of what happened after the 24th of December morning.

From breathing in my peaceful afternoon of 12/24, I was getting ready for our family Christmas gathering that would be happening around the evening of that day. From suiting up top to bottom, not knowing what was the formal dress code. By practicing my talking with how I was going to approach them the first time, at least for me, the first impression leaves the mark about that particular person in your mindset. After sleeping it out for a couple of hours on a tiring 24th, the evening had arrived for me to take off with my cousins for reaching the destination of my first Christmas gathering with other family members than my own.?

Once we reached there, I picked the bag of food that we would be sharing on this glorious occasion. After entering the house, I was a bit unsure of what to be doing with individuals I hadn't met before within my family's connection. But one thing I was extremely thankful for having one thing in handy with me, which was the power of observing and listening to what was happening around me. To get a sense of what topics they enjoy talking about, and luckily I was also able to come across a family member that could talk and walk the language of cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. After picking up the key topics of their interest, I just couldn't stop talking about my experiences with those side interests and tech-related news. The family was lovely, with three aspiring young adults, that had passions of singing, dancing, and gaming. Even though none of those matches, it was still interesting to get experience switching topics from one to another. I also shared a bit of my dancing experience from when I was in my early school days, the only tall tree dancing to the rhythms of old-school hip-hop beats. After having a fabulous dinner, a serving of apple pie, exploring their house inside, and gathering of everyone in the house for final discussions. Till we departed at midnight to go to our homes with a good night's sleep full of memories to remember, after reaching my cousin's home, I had an essential busy next day to get situated with myself regarding packing up.

After waking up from a chatty 12/24, my next morning on the 25th was packed with getting ready and getting my suitcase packed for going back to my sweet home, which I had left on the 19th of December. From running water to waking myself up to get my computers and other materials, I had brought to do over there packed and ready to go. With 10 minutes only left, my cousin told me that if I start to feel lonely in the house at any point of time, I am always more than welcome for coming back and to not hesitate so much about whether you should go or not. But he told me to just phone call him, so he knew I was coming back for that specific week. After giving my thanks to him, my diagonal neighbors came to pick me up to drop me off at my sweet home and go to having a wonderful lunch at an Indian cuisine that afternoon.

From the buffet-style serving their authentic food, I was ready to dig in with the safety precautions I took to crave a delicious meal. From the hilarious talks we had with each other about how my parents are doing in India and how I have been keeping myself preoccupied, this made for an even better morning that day. Even though everyone was given a glass of wine to drink, I did not start or finish my glass. Not because I didn't enjoy it, but from the family, I come from, both of my parents were never drinkers, so my roots stayed firm to follow that legacy of being authentic myself just like how my family members did. After finishing up our many rounds of food, I made sure not to waste a grain of food as it's said in our culture that to have food on the table is a blessing itself because I have seen people go to sleep on an empty stomach all the time in India and it for sure breaks my heart to see those individuals. I made sure to eat up all the food I put on my plate, even if its tastes varied from being bitter to sweet. When leaving the Indian cuisine, we followed our journey to the sweet home while listening to wonderful jazz music in sync with my ears on the way back. Once we arrived, I had got my suitcase and opened the door, saying thank you to the neighbors that dropped me off to my house.

With a small teardrop going across my face, this wasn't the time for me to get sucked with my emotions and start unpacking my luggage to put my things back in place. But will I was getting situated, I decided to change up my workplace from what it was this entire pandemic for embracing the change just like how Accenture has thought me within these four months of working with this wonderful company. As I got done with all of my unpacking, the sun started to settle down for its evening, and I was still unsure of what to do from that point within my day. I started reading a few articles from the TIME's magazine to educate myself about the business and read the Bhagavad Gita to gracing the eve of a fantastic 25th. I wanted to remember this day of being alone for the first time in my own house with no one there. For doing that the Bhagavad Gita's strength, my spiritual chantings, taking out time to remember all the grateful moments that had happened with me for the past two days, and finally putting the cherry on top of this night with chanting OM for a good seven minutes. You might be thinking out of all the minutes in a day, why seven? As this was the mark of my seventh day being by myself ever since my family left for their trip to India on the 19th. I was savoring this night with a good night's sleep for remembering this moment of coming home for the reaming half of the day on the 25th of December.?

An early rise to the 26th of December leads me to do my personal life activities, such as performing my yoga routine and meditation exercises. After finishing my general house chores and getting ready for the day, I stepped outside to take many fresh breaths during my afternoon walk and took the challenge of doing something I hadn't done before, which was meditating for the rest of my day. The reason behind this was to reflect on what changes I want to make for 2022 and some of the stepping stones I would like to take for this last week of 2021 for actually doing the work. My mind was in a nirvana state where it felt like I was floating in space, grabbing the energy of vacuum and making it oxygen to breathe out of for yourself to live those space days. Those three and half hours were something like I had never experienced before, until my phone ringer goes off and disrupts the entire practice. But as I went reaching over to my phone, a notification came up regarding the hare Krishna temple meeting today in the evening for a chanting ceremony where there will also be prasadam (which means dinner). I decided this would be a great way for topping of the day with channeling my positive energy to all Hindu gods for being grateful for this experience that I was going through and also keeping me alive to continue breathing my?journey out. After that incredible chanting ceremony and homemade dinner, I left with a thought of mind to donate money in the temple for distributing Bhagavad Gita's all over the US to hospitals and homeless shelters. It left me with a smile on my face that I would be helping someone else whose situation was a life or death by giving them hope with a Bhagavad Gita on the side table for them to read, which would provide them with the strength for rising to an occasion of healing for their loved ones. Doing this service gave me a night full of happy tears but a soothing sleep to remember for ages.

With 12/27 and 12/28 passing off like a rocket performing on my work and training at Accenture. While also posting my other articles on wishing a merry Christmas with a TikTok video of me in it as well and the experience filled with moments I had at my in-person graduation commencement at VCU on the 11th of December, as my content on several platforms. They were definitely fuel to accomplishing many of my responsibilities and tasks. But having a sleepless night filled with anxiety and fear on the 28th of December had to do mostly with my family getting stuck in India, due to the current omicron virus. It became hard for me to figure out this one tricky spot, which I had to find a way to get myself out of this box that had me taped about the what-if possibilities.?

During the early morning of 29th, one of my friends from college sent me a text saying: "Being alone has its benefits of establishing a routine but the disadvantages of making you feel trapped that you're a loner. But ones who move on from the problems that aren't under our control will never have any issues when it comes to experiencing life and death scenarios. Because he knows everything is a take of success towards giving failure, but also the opposite which allows him to look at the world from a different set of eyes that just go towards being able to smile each day." This inspiring message opened me and gave me the courage to start this day with triumph like never before, and that's exactly what happened.

Started the 29th with a normal routine of getting ready and performing my yoga workout, from there doing the work and trainings associated with Accenture. Between those 5 to 10 minute breaks for meditation and eating my lunch with pure silence. During the evening, I had plans to go out with a family to see a Hindi movie based on one of the most glorious moments with India's cricket team in 1983 to win their first world cup that specific year. For a moment, I was thinking to myself, why was I going to go see this film because of the message, storytelling piece, or was it the experience they were re-creating from the '90s to make its audience feel like they are a part of this triumphing win. As I had still not figured the why, it had already been to late to turn around because we had already reached the theater, so there was no option left.

We sat in the hall with the movie 83 playing on screen, and through each scene I could see an underdog story spell out but didn't know what to expect. By the end of this film, it had given me about fifty percent of my life answer's that I didn't know about before. From betrayal, friendship, and trust that was shown throughout the entirety of the film, the most important lesson was letting your work show what you are most passionate about because everyone knows how much time and effort each person is putting into finishing their work. After a game-changing moment with me just from watching 83, it makes me want to meet the entire 1983 Indian cricket team and do a one-on-one interview with the brilliant Kapil Dev to learn about how he achieved this particular mindset. After coming out of the theater, I went to have dinner at the family's house and chatted there for some time to get to know how things were going with them. Then I came back by reflecting on the film's pitch of how I would take those lessons and implement them starting from tomorrow. It was a great time, especially with the new year approaching in less than a day left. I forgot to mention that I also took the safety precautions at the theater to keep the people around me and myself safe during these pandemic times. But as I was reflecting, I remembered that it was the 29th of December and that I had a very close relationship with the number 9 for some reason. The reason behind that is because I have always noticed that some small or even big real-life example comes right in front of my eyes to experience and then makes me learn a lesson for taking action on the next day or coming days ahead of me.

It left me with no other option but to start my morning with an even thunderous start on the 30th of December. After listening to the inspiring 83 film soundtrack for giving the required energy to rise against each occasion by doing my work, training, yoga workout, getting ready, receiving lunch from the family, I watched the movie with yesterday and all other grateful moments for being thankful about its occurrence. It also made me want to tell you a great update on my story about what has happened with me being here and my family seas away enjoying their time with family in India.

I hope everyone could take away something special out of reading what it means to show up and the importance of being on your toes even if there are torns making your foot's soul bleed. Because the blood way seem terrifying in the beginning, but it's all for a better cause and future for you. This will only help build the necessary foundation of your story so that one day you can also have a skyscraper full of stories to talk about with your close ones and recreate those moments just from speaking with another soul in front of you.??

To everyone and myself as well, for having the determination to set out on making your wishes but accomplishing them as your goals in 2022. May there be success and failures that come in your lives for evening the dream of a see-saw giving you the practical and real-life experience you deserve to carry for the rest of your lives. To the universe and infinite stars ahead!

Regards,

Himanish Goel

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