Showing posts with label identity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label identity. Show all posts

Saturday 2 September 2023

Be true to yourself - Tulsi Karki

Picture Courtesy: https://www.consciouslifestylemag.com/true-self-finding-your-spiritual/


Being true to yourself means thinking and acting in ways that align with your values and feelings rather than the values of others. 

If you are living true to yourself, you feel confident in your identity and you are pursuing goals that you know will lead to your happiness. 

It is really important to be true to yourself it will be your guide to living a life for yourself. A life that is fulfilling and filled with all of the things that make you joyful and allow you to live a life of purpose, whatever that looks like for you. 

Hence, the only way to live your life happily is to be who you are, not caring what other people might think or say about it. 

People are going to judge you anyway, so you might as well forget society and be like others. But keep one thing in mind you have to be true to yourself at every moment of your life. 

Tulsi Karki
Pestalozzi Children's Village, India.

Monday 3 April 2023

Flawsome and Fun - Our True Identity - Rishona Chopra

Often we find faults in ourselves. In whatever we do, we consider ourselves to be the worst and keep finding spots in our own work; not only that, but we also start judging the work of others and keep finding flaws in it. It is never good to criticize ourselves or anyone, but knowing our mistakes and learning from them is good.

Instead of finding faults and criticizing ourselves, we should look at it with a positive attitude thinking that we shall not make this mistake again. We all make mistakes and learn from them. We must not have a delusion about ourselves. Therefore we are flawsome - have flaws but are yet so awesome!

Sometimes, we try to change ourselves for someone else, we tend to show off and change our look, personality and style just to make friends but that does nothing. It simply pressurizes us. Therefore we should have an open character and know we are flawsome yet fun.

On the other hand, criticizing the work of others is clearly wrong because we need empathy and fairness towards others. We must understand the feelings of others. If we spot any mistake in their work, we mustn't show it to them rudely. But politely point it out with the intention of looking out for them only if they ask for our opinion. We shouldn't misguide them. 

None of us is perfect with no mistakes, but our imperfections make us so perfect!

Rishona Chopra
Grade VII
Gyanshree School

Monday 27 March 2023

What is peer pressure, and how can we deal with it? - Shambhavi Nautiyal


Reading Chapter 43, Sunday the 26th of March 2023

Peer pressure is the direct or indirect influence of our peers which tells us that we need to act in a certain way like the people surrounding us. It is often observed in teenage but continues as an existing matter throughout our lives regardless of age. It is a trap which makes people victims of many addicting and harmful practices. It could be wrong personality traits such as people pleasing and sometimes ruinous activities like smoking and drugs. 

It starts with compellingly curious intentions of just wanting to fit in, make friends and enjoy company, but later on, it becomes a habit. For instance, something often seen in the present youth is the following of the perpetually changing Instagram trends by young school-going teenagers to feel accepted and admired. 

We see kids going out of their way to follow social media trends and become famous because of peer pressure and the fact that this is seen as the definition of likeable and "cool". In school, too, we see popular girls and students liked by most of our peers or teachers, and we try to become like them. We observe that because of some of their habits, many people appreciate and admire them. To gain that popularity, we try to procure their idolized external features, skills or behaviours. In light of this fact, in this process, we lose ourselves. We lose our own identities. 

We never learn to love ourselves since we are compared to others by ourselves or our parents to our peers. We become even lonelier because of masking ourselves and never focusing on nurturing ourselves. We are left with no friends of our own, not even ourselves. Even when we stop trying to be like others, we still take that habit of people pleasing with us, in which we let people cross our boundaries and put them before ourselves, creating a frail sense of self-worth. However, we can fight it, come out of it and fix this whole scenario. 

As for me, I had been in some influencing company, and over time, I noticed that I had become a people pleaser and that I had been neglecting myself for my peers. I was listening more to them rather than my piece of mind. So, to fix those habits, I had to release that person from my life and start instilling healthier relationship patterns in my attitude. I had to change my outlook by changing my behaviour and thoughts. I had to make it clear to myself that it was okay for me to put myself and think about myself first before taking any decision instead of following my friends blindly and speculating about their behaviours, meaning how they treat me. I had to fix my sense of self-worth. 

So it is salient to love ourselves so that we don't compare ourselves to others and don't let others' judgements affect us, which calls out for having a deep sense of self-worth. We should practice self-compassion and not let ourselves get trapped in the vicious trap of peer pressure cause each one of us deserves to be loved, adored and treated like the queens and kings we are. So before judging yourself after seeing someone else, remind yourself of and be grateful for how confounding, worthy and attractive you are.

Always keep that in mind before wandering to search for love outside; look inside, and you will find the person who has always been and shall always be ready to love you.

Sunday 9 October 2022

Reading Swami and Friends - Dress and Costumes

In Father's Presence

Father was standing in the small courtyard, wearing a dhoti and banian...

We thought we would talk about dresses and costumes unique to our home and place; Pestalozzi Children's Village students shared their reflections:

Kanika Dogra is from Himachal Pradesh in India, and she writes, I'm from Himachal Pradesh, where men wear kurta pyjamas and caps; and women wear churidar pyjamas or salwar with kameez and dupatta. Himachali caps represent cultural identity; people in our community consider the cap a symbol of pride. like turbans for siks in Pujab. In Himachal, we have many different types of national costumes.

Tenzin Lhadon shared the Tibetan National Dress.

Tenzin Paldon


Tenzin Yangzom
Tenzin Dhekyong

Prerna Thakur

Reflections from Pestalozzi Childrens' Village, India

Sunday 2 October 2022

Act With Humility, Defeat Ego - Rishona Chopra


You love modesty; you hate artificialness. You do your best to be humble. Yet your ego and pride show their strength from time to time. Does this happen? Sometimes we don't realize what our stubborn ego is up to. The problem could be as fundamental as not knowing what ego is. Any image which is not our true identity is ego. It is when we make something we have acquired as our identity.

Our qualification, position, skill, relation, religion or caste - when we make any of these our identity, we play our roles based on this identity. We expect others to behave accordingly to us. Every time you act with humility, your ego gets defeated. 

At the same time, Appreciation for others shows your modesty and humbleness. Instead of thinking about ourselves, we appreciate other person's efforts. Humility and Appreciation build a good relationship between peers, two base values of a healthy classroom. Values like cooperation and respect come in when we have the base of humility ready.

Humility is that rare value that we hardly find in people today. Simple gestures like holding the door for someone else or picking up someone else's belongings show humility. It demonstrates that you do not consider these actions small or petty. Humility is not thinking less about yourself. Instead, it is about thinking of yourself as less. We don't have to stop thinking about ourselves, but we must stop thinking of ourselves as more significant than all because we are equal in many terms. We should treat others the way we wish to be treated. I believe in life, we all need to be humble, and it is the only way to peace, happiness, and success because humility is, after all, the mother of all virtues and beings. It is the supreme power. Humility is essential in the classroom; it teaches us to be able and kind to all around us, our peers and teachers. Rishona Chopra Grade VI Gyanshree School