Author: Swati

Does the post title bring back memories of Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey starrer “How to lose a guy in 10 days”? The first I heard of the movie might have been a couple of decades ago, And I remember thinking to myself, why would someone want to do that? 

I was naive at the time. Also, the movie didn’t do much justice to the title, seeing that both the characters eventually achieved the opposite of what they set out to.

Back to losing a song. That is way easier. All I have ever done to make that happen is to hear it on replay 100 times. 

Depending on how desperate you are to get it off being your earworm and how lengthy the song is, you could accomplish it in less than a day. If you don’t want to go cold turkey and have some mercy/respect for your ears, you might want to space it out over 3-4 days. 

I have learned over years of experimenting with this technique that the former works better. If you give your brain some rest, it will make hating the song a slower process. Your ears will thank you for choosing that option, though. 

Now, someone might very well ask the logical question(s):

“Why do I even have to do that? What does it matter that I am addicted to a song? Why can’t I listen to it as many ever times as I want… the last I knew, this was a free country.“

And they’d be right. This article is probably not for people in the last category. The article post is for people desperate to escape the grip of their earworms- whatever the cost. 

You will find a variety of explanations out there as to why that happens – in literature, neuroscience, economics, and philosophy. These are everywhere. Here are a few: 

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder” ergo… constant presence does just the opposite?

I know I am probably reaching now, but even the Maxwell distribution curve, which describes the behavior of gas particles, could be leveraged to understand this human tendency. 

With time, we develop an immense admiration for something and then comes a peak, a maxima of the feeling, and then it gradually decays with time. Happens with almost every feeling that we have.

“Law of diminishing marginal utility from economics.”

Simply put, as consumption increases, the marginal utility derived from each additional unit declines.

But the best of all comes from the great science of living the good life. And from the stoic of all stoics – Epictetus.

If one oversteps the bounds of moderation, the greatest pleasures cease to please.

Ironically, I stumbled upon this famous quote while listening to a song I wanted to get rid of.

You ask an average adult what they would do if they came upon a windfall gain, call it the lottery, for example, the answers you would get, unsurprisingly, will be very limited – buy a big house, pay off all mortgages, travel the world, get a Porsche 911, buy a helicopter, buy a private jet, etc. 

Travel the world, in my experience, appears on almost 

everyone’s list. Mine too.

The minute I hear a travel plan is in the works, I immediately register the emotions of excitement, anticipation, and happiness. 

Dread doesn’t take long to knock at the door, though. 

No thanks to motion sickness!

For those of you lucky enough not to know what that is, here’s a little google love for you:

“Motion sickness occurs when your brain can’t make sense of information sent from your eyes, ears and body. Lots of motion — in a car, airplane, boat, or even an amusement park ride — can make you feel queasy, clammy or sick to your stomach. Some people vomit. Being carsick, seasick or airsick is motion sickness.”

You can see why it can convert the exciting world of travel to something quite the opposite for people suffering from motion sickness. 

A seemingly harmless road trip in an air-conditioned car can quickly become the ‘Remember-the-night-you-puked-your-lungs-out?’ 

Even an idyllic evening of swinging in the park can make for an awful experience. 

I know some folks who have gotten it much worse than me. But of course, I wouldn’t compare my situation with theirs. Where’s the fun in that? I will compare my case with those of the people who have got it all going for them, i.e., those who don’t have this freaking ailment.

Now, I didn’t know that I had this problem until high school- where one day, on a school trekking trip 2 hours away, revealed to me and to my dear friend sitting next to me the joys of motion sickness. Her shining new shoes and uniform got the worst of it. 

I will spare you the graphic details, but it took me a few months to get back to being able to talk to her again. Puke doesn’t look good on shiny shoes, you know.

After researching a lot and going through many remedies, I have found some that help me combat some of the effects, but my journey still needs constraints. I can not read on my trips, whether by road, sea, train, or plane. All the classics that I thought I would read on my trips somewhere. 

Thankfully, I can listen to music without feeling pukish, which helps with short trips. 

Guess the people who said ‘every cloud has a silver lining’ weren’t wrong. I have realized that the same motion that makes me puke, also easily lulls me into sleep if I let it. 

Lo and behold! My average sleep hours of 8 hours a day immediately increase to 8.067387 hours a day. I tell you, every extra minute of sleep helps. 

You know well what I mean if you are one of those people that specialize in waking up at the last minute every morning.

My love for travel has not diminished, despite the constraints, the journey might bring. My only gripe is with the people that said – enjoy the journey, not the destination.

They surely didn’t suffer from motion sickness.

Some questions are ubiquitous, aren’t they? You will find them everywhere – on survey forms/emails and feedback sheets in restaurants, hotels, and government buildings… you name it. 

One of those questions is: are you happy?

This is one of those questions whose answers are probably more varied than any other question ever! Everyone has something to say about this. We all have a take on what happiness means. 

Happiness, to me, is an ethereal concept. I don’t think I will ever be able to define it; I doubt I will even try.

I recently finished one of the modern treatises on happiness; I will not name names. The writer was eloquent. 

But I felt like I didn’t get anything tangible out of it. 

Happiness remained as elusive and abstract as it was when I started reading the book. I was not too fond of the feeling of still wanting. 

So, naturally, I turned to my eternally patient friends that bear with my impromptu weekly surveys. I ran a survey to understand what happiness meant to the sorted kind. 

I got various answers – depressing, philosophical, too philosophical, fun, and positively insane! 

Happiness is money.

Happiness is relationships.

Happiness is a handsome husband that knows how to cook.

Happiness is being excited for every single day of your existence.

Happiness is performance.

There were some great responses there. 

However, when asked what happiness means to him, one of my friends told me this with a straight face:

“Happiness is being able to pee when there is an urgent need.”

This answer is one of the closest I have ever come to understanding happiness. Very clear, concise, tangible – no room for ambiguity. 

My friend unknowingly taught me a crucial lesson that day. Answers to tough questions can be straightforward.

If we let them.

Every now and then, I get fed up with eating what I cook. In these instances, I sleepwalk to the closest restaurant, which usually happens to be where I have the entire menu memorized.

As the senses start springing to action one by one – I start preparing myself for an immersive culinary experience. My imagination takes me everywhere – the chef’s table, the sous chef in a frenzy, a scene from the movie Burnt, and even the feast from Harry Potter movies, where with a flick of Dumbledore’s wrist, the dining tables are embellished with all incredible delicacies. 

I am ready to enjoy every morsel of the meal that will soon be put in front of me. I promise myself that this experience will become the best I have ever had regarding mindfulness meditation while eating.

One quick bio break and I will be ready. My waitress is very polite; she quickly gives me instructions on accessing the washroom facilities. 

It could have been the wee drink I had at the beginning, but those instructions sound cryptic to me – take the stairs down, walk 500 meters on the first door that you see to your right, then take the third door that you see to your left. Walk another 200 meters, and then voila, the door you see in front of you is the door to the washroom. It opens with a code – XXXX. 

At least, that’s how it sounded to me. I don’t know whether she said that verbatim, but I felt too embarrassed to ask and confirm. She thanks me and leaves.

“Well, how difficult can it be?” I think to myself.

I confidently brush my ignorance aside and jump at this opportunity to undertake this hero’s journey. I take the stairs down and am faced with a bunch of doors with no markings whatsoever. For the thousandth time, I overestimated my sense of direction, more importantly, my IQ. I use my little understanding of mathematical permutations and combinations, and luckily in 3-4 tries, locate the said washroom.

This, as promised, came with a combination lock. I am trying to remember the combination, of course, so I try the most secure combination known to humankind.

1.2.3.4

Red light flashes, and a very off-putting beep mark my imbecility.

Wait, I should have known better.

0.0.0.0

Yes, and green!

Flashes of Harry Potter flood my imagination AGAIN. The door to the chamber of secrets did lie in the washroom; this one obviously doesn’t have snakes on the faucets, the sink, or the plumbing. I do not know parseltongue, so my hopes aren’t up. I couldn’t locate the chamber of secrets, unfortunately.

I do take the failure in my stride, though.

Next time, I will listen when the waitress tells me the structure of the maze to get to the washroom and take voracious notes.

Next time, I will take my phone with me. There is no way for me to know the True North otherwise.

Next time, I will carry my map and my wand.

OR

And the time after next, I probably will sleepwalk into a restaurant that has their washroom on the same floor, preferably not more than 50 meters away.

I was re-watching the famous sitcom Friends the other day, the episode wherein Phoebe attempts to teach Joey French to beef up his resume. 

Not only did he not speak French at all, he did not have any sense of what the French language sounded like. 

Je m’appelle to him was the same as blu-dee-blaa. 

Given how pathetic he was at it, it was not surprising that the casting agent saw right through the deficiency leading to Joey failing the audition.

Funny as the episode was, I had an eerie, unsettling feeling after watching it, which was immediately replaced by curiosity.

How many resumes out there would be padded like Joey’s? What proportion?

Some fascinating survey results came up as part of my internet search. Reference check companies found that almost 78% of the candidates applying for jobs had either lied in their application process or wouldn’t mind lying on their resume to land a job.

There was quite a spectrum to the lies, too – misrepresenting education, GPA, test scores, level of expertise in a language or a technology, and omitting a particular employer, to name a few.

It’s not easy for my little brain to process abstract concepts, so I made it personal. I assumed the role of such a candidate. I state I know french, but in reality, I am a level zero. 

For convenience, let’s assume the same proficiency level as Joey. Let’s assume, seeing my French experience; I get shortlisted for an interview/audition – which is in two days. 

It doesn’t take Einstein to figure out that it’s near impossible for me at this stage even to pretend that the situation can be salvaged – unless salvation means coming clean at the interview that I don’t actually have that skill.

Interviewer: Hi, I am a bla bla bla bla bla….

Me (wholly distracted, thinking): Oh my god! She is gonna ask me about my French language proficiency.

Interviewer: Tell me about yourself.

Me (thinking, I should come clean! Come clean you idiot, now now now): Hi, I am me. I am sorry, I don’t know any French. Sorry, I missed the question; what was your question again?

That is worse than a dream of being naked in front of a fully packed Wembley stadium. 

R.E.S.P.E.C.T for Joey! He had the balls to spit lies and then follow through with them. Although, his ignorance might have beefed up his courage there. Who knows!? 

In all that random searching and reading, I came across this quote by Stanley J Randall – a Canadian businessman turned politician:

“The closest to perfection a person ever comes is when he fills out a job application form.​”

Even the employer ought to know that noone is perfect.