The bomb in my chest

It's ticking. It's ticking every moment. Ticking, each time, toward one tick less. And we all, at least most of us, ignore it. We assume that our ticker will beat for ever. Alas...

Matters of the heart are complicated. And we hate complications. And what do we do when complications arise? We simply avoid confronting it, rather than facing it up front with every cubic inch of ourselves. We cower. We let others call us a coward. And despite feeling the music beat in our chest, we voluntarily retire to ignorance, as it is bliss.

I have a question. What do you do if, by chance, you grow the guts to enter a forest, only to run into a huge bear? For the sake of yourself, please do not run away!

Ideally, you must spread yourself, make yourself as big as you can, when faces with something as daunting as a bear. The bear is as scared as we are. And hence, stands on its hind legs, to become as large and visually daunting as possible. Or at least, that's the theory.

Now, TAKE 2

There is a lot of talk about body language floating all around. There is a particularly interesting "boss pose", where anyone in an authoritative position, stands in the Superman pose...

This pose

This pose has become a cliche, as far as bossy behavior goes. But then never the less, it IS the most empowering pose you can get into, specially if it comes in a moment of spontaneity.

I have a theory of my own why this pose works. Look at the pose carefully. Do you notice, that besides being a very domineering stance, the person standing in the pose is also at his/her most vulnerable position?

All vital spots on the body are completely exposed. Even weak opponents can easily attack and hurt someone in this position. But the fact is, that in most cases, no one would dare to attack someone standing like this.

Here's the thing. If a person stands this way, he opens himself to the world. And that includes all the good, and also, all the bad, though seldom do we come across the bad. But then again, not many of us know about this, as we remain in this closed cocoon called our SELF. And this is true not just for the position illustrated above, but also for all positions where the person is occupying a lot of space, not just by virtue of his/her blobby mass.

The deal is this. We are all to scared by the mere thoughts of getting hurt. Take any decision that has required a lot of deliberation at your end, specially if you ended up not taking a decision at the end of all the deliberation. Chances are that you let go of your power to decide because you were afraid of getting a negative response, maybe of getting rejected. 

All the above feelings do one thing in common. They make your heart beat like crazy. You feel hot behind your ears. It makes you do stupid things, like closing a door that closes by itself(the doors with hydraulic hinges). Words become difficult to say out loud, and you only wish for these tense moments to get over. And the tense moments do get over, like all the moments that get over as usual and we do not notice. The tense moments get over like all the moments that you are going to let go of.

And then, when you count the last ticks that remain, you will want your heart to beat, like it did when you felt it like a bomb in your chest, each beat an explosion that filled you with life.

Open yourself to the world. Feel your pulse. Feel the pulse of the one who makes your heart pulse like nuclear explosions. I'm sure their ticker beats just as hard as yours does. If you ask as to how you'll find this person, I know not how. But as Steve Jobs said,

"With matters of the heart, you'll know when you find what's right."