Where do certain habits come from?

I have often wondered if I have a character flaw. Or possibly even a nature flaw. Or perhaps a complete Me flaw?! Then I decide not to be hard on myself because if there is a flaw no one has specified it thus. Mind you, it’s not because they haven’t noticed it or experienced it but because of certain societal placements of the position that I am in.

For starters, I speak my mind and that scares people, so they keep quiet. Then I also happen to be accomplished and have brains and a system which sees more and hears more and understands even more, so that’s a hand’s-off too. Lastly, no one forgets who my husband is which is amazingly funny because I thought I should be the only one not forgetting that, but it turns out everyone else can’t either, so most don’t cross my path. I guess he should be flattered, though I doubt!

Which brings me to where my certain annoying habits come from. First, I was jobless, then I had my book, then some random yet interesting stuff in between, then yet another book on the drawing board (which is finally off it too and into my mails to people around my city & country too this time!). But with all this interesting stuff of variety happening in my life, I have had the good fortune of finding time for my thoughts which had till last year become something of a luxury for me.

Yes, coming to my thoughts, they have been pretty colourful – don’t get the wrong ideas for they aren’t naughty or clandestine at all. In fact, they are very demure and respectable and extremely courteous. They’ve learned to put up with me too, for you never know I might just toss them right out of my mind if they happen to be too frivolous. And then they won’t have a fertile imagination to grow upon nor a place where they can turn to reality. So, they have learnt their lessons well – my thoughts, that is!

So, the well-mannered thoughts popping up were: why is it that when I cared enough or a bit more than what people are used too, they term it as me being ‘too sensitive’ in the wrong kind of insinuation? Or when I take care of small details for someone, they tell me not to try to be perfect all the time? Or when a small gesture of showing care & appreciation for me leads me to return their gesture with something like a small note of gratitude or baked goodies, they find it unusual that I am going overboard? Or when someone – either family, friends or even more than casual acquaintances mention a desire or wish or dislike or like, for me it becomes imperative to remember it and care to ask of it out of concern, something which isn’t frowned upon but found to be atypical? Or when I feel it imperative to return a call or explain my actions, I am considered abnormal and am asked to take a chill pill for it doesn’t matter?

It doesn’t?

Weird! For I always thought and was taught that it did. I was taught that all my actions need to come from some requirement and all my reactions should have a solid alibi. Like no one can say that they do not like me for no reason – I just listed a whole lot of them above. So, it does matter right? It shouldn’t be atypical or weird or too perfect or too sensitive or too caring? For things do not exist in superlatives anyways in this fast-paced world.

By the time we get to being ‘Good’, it’s not that the place for ‘Best’ hasn’t been taken, there’s already been a paradigm shift and the ‘Best’ of the last situation becomes the ‘Good’ of the next one. And we are in another circumstance. In such fluid conditions, I wonder how my normal habits are termed ‘too’ of this or that?

Since no answers were forth coming despite analysis and time being available for research, I thought probably my upbringing & education was responsible. May be to some extent.

But like the shrinking polar ice caps and the fading coral reefs and the melting glaciers and the dwindling forests and the shrinking farmland and the flooding rivers and the frequent cyclones & tsunamis and the forest fires and the unreal pattern of seasons and the overflowing cities and the rising unemployment and the diminishing returns on human emotions, I guessed my habits came from an era circa the past millennium.

Something which like the ambassador car and the black dialling phone with a receiver & coiled wire and the ‘chitrahaar’ of Doordarshan, every Friday and the games we played free-of-cost in our backyard, was fast getting relegated to some fond memory & would soon acquire folklore status.

I guess then I can perhaps write yet another book one day on it:

The stories of Habits from Hyderabadi days – a folklore retold!

Yet another habit of a fertile imagination from still another habit of reading everything I could lay my hands on. Oh! dear what do i do of habits? They die hard!!