When Life Gives You Lemons

When Life Give You Lemons, Make Lemonade

We live in times where only success is glorified. It scares us to even think about failure. We shy away from it and treat it only as something ‘personal’ feeling almost ashamed of our inadequacies and problems. With so much societal pressure to be successful in everything we do, it’s bound to create a negative and stressful energy in many of us. Resultant, we are now faced with a mental health pandemic. The reasons are any and many - from financial problems, chronic pain and illness, violence, abuse, marital conflict, loneliness, discrimination, a relationship break-up, poverty, unemployment to just lack of perspective on life or self-doubts, fears, apprehensions.

Globally, close to 800,000 people die by suicide every year: that’s one person every 40 seconds. In India esp. post Covid 19 pandemic, the suicide statistics have been startling. In one of the capital city’s premier engineering colleges, there have been three suicides in three months. For each suicide, there are multiple suicide attempts. and many suicides happen impulsively in moments of crisis. The question is – are we having enough conversations on crisis and how to combat crisis.

Surely something is wrong in the way we are celebrating and glorifying only one side of life- we are only talking about Elon Musk’s next entrepreneurial venture or Mark Zukerberg’s accomplishments. Perhaps not having enough conversations about letdowns and lows, whereas the lows are as integral part of life as the highs. After all, why was Chandrayan 3 such a huge success? Simply because Chandrayan 2 was failure. But every failure of Chandrayaan-2 was addressed to and rectified.

As they say, failure never fails until you give up. The idea must be to confront your issues head on rather than shrug them below the carpet, seek help from friends, family, experts and come out of it.

We are now running a Survival Series titled ‘When Life Gives You Lemons.’ This is your space to express, read, absorb stories of real people dealing with real problems.

Comments

Telemedicine to the aid of home-bound patients in the time of Covid-19

Telemedicine in covid-19 times: You can get to the doctor almost anytime, anywhere, be it on your screen, via voice or plain text for a lower price than in-person consult Namrata Kohli | New Delhi Telehealth is bridging the gap between patient and physicians. The physician can now virtually visit the stay-at-home patient and heal from a distance Telemedicine in covid-19 times: When 37-year-old Priyanka was down with fever and dry cough, she decided to consult a doctor over a WhatsApp call before giving her blood sample for an RT-PCR test. Based on her symptoms, the physician alerted her that it wasn't a mild Covid infection but a moderate one. His diagnosis was confirmed when the test report showed a viral load count of 20. “The massive benefits of telemedicine became evident during the pandemic,” says Priyanka’s doctor, New Delhi-based consultant physician Dr Arvind Kumar. “Everything is about time and if my patients have complications late at ni...

Musings of a Menopausal Woman

By Namrata Kohli I was chatting with a gynecologist, and she told me that the most neglected aspect of a woman is her health and how extra careful women ought to be esp during menopause, but they never consult unless a calamity happens. I told her that as a woman in my forties, I plead guilty of the same crime until there is a storm (read health-tsunami of sorts). But I looked at this opportunity to explore more on this intriguing subject plus educate others and myself. But first what's not menopause. "Don’t confuse heavy bleeding with menopause or 15–20-day cycle ever with menopause," Delhi based gynecologist Dr Sunita Nagpal tells me- "In fact, quite on the contrary, the number of days of the cycle tends to decrease and the gap between the two cycles tends to increase during menopause. But when there is excessive bleeding, there could be certain underlying pathology that needs to be investigated. " So what is menopause exactly? Like our skin ages and has ...

When Canvas Meets Climate

By Namrata Kohli Can art stir the eco warrior in us? Yes, art has an extraordinary capacity to stir our souls by tapping into deep, often unspoken, emotions and experiences. While beautiful paintings of nature or evocative art forms of mother earth may serve as therapy, sometimes art can reveal uncomfortable truths and shake us, shock us. Take the case of the recently launched Climate-Responsive Art installation at Karma Lakelands, an attempt to create a visual and emotional call to action against climate change. Below2° is an initiative by Karma Lakelands, India’s leading eco-resort dedicated to combating climate change with a commitment to sustainability and has been conceptualized and executed by the Greener Earth Foundation. Speaking about the installation, Ashwani Khurana, Founder & Chief Eternal Optimist (CEO), Karma Lakelands, said- “Sustainability and creativity have the power to drive real change when they come together. Below2° is not just an art installation; it is a...

The Writer’s Flight

Search This Blog