Let&rsquo;s start with the obvious! I&rsquo;m human. I only have a certain amount of energy per day. I cannot, as hard as I try, fit in every single thing that I want to do. And there&rsquo;s so so so much to do. I&rsquo;m one of those people who wants to do everything and anything under the moon. Travel the entire world? Hell yeah. Get a Master&rsquo;s in several faculties? Oh yes. Have a social life? Make enough money to retire while I&rsquo;m 40? Finish reading all the greatest books ever written? Master the piano and be so effing awesome? Write thousands of masterpieces that will long outlive me? Do all of that while having a consistent sleep schedule and an hour to exercise, cook home-cooked meals, and eat healthily? Yes. Yes and Yes.&nbsp;
So, yeah, you get the gist. I want to do it all, and I know how fleeting time is. There is absolutely no way I get to do it all. There was this one movie where the character can keep reliving his days, and his dad tells him to utilize the time by reading as many books as possible. What movie was that? Guess it was an okay-ish movie, or I would&rsquo;ve remembered. But getting to relive some days. How awesome!&nbsp;
Okay, back to the main topic. There is no central issue at hand except that sometimes (most times), I have to say NO to the things that don&rsquo;t serve me. And this is because I value my time and would not particularly like to spend it doing something that doesn&rsquo;t make me happy. But the guilt creeps in: Why am I so selfish? And then I ask myself: Why am I feeling guilty about choosing myself over others? You guys ever felt the same? Like you do something for yourself, and immediately the guilt takes over. Why did I do it? Why can I not be more sacrificing? Why could I not choose Everybody else&rsquo;s happiness over my own? See how ridiculous these questions sound in the first place?&nbsp;
Think it was Sushmita Sen who said, &ldquo;Everybody is selfish, and it&rsquo;s okay. But denying that you aren&rsquo;t selfish is not okay.&rdquo; I love that woman. What a daring, rebellious role model to look up to. Ya know when we were younger, and there was a &lsquo;Sushmita Sen&rsquo; squad and an &lsquo;Aishwarya Rai&rsquo; squad? I was always the Sushmita squad. Not that Aishwarya is not a queen in her own rights. And not that they&rsquo;re looking for my validity anyway. And not that my validation lifts their already stellar image in any way. Geezz&hellip;. Get back to the point, Mrs. Haze!&nbsp;
So yeah. I am a little selfish. I think for my own good. I value myself and my time. And no, I will not apologize! The guilt can guilt trip itself into oblivion. You&rsquo;re the sum of the five people you most hang out with. One of those people in my life once said to me, &ldquo;Instead of thinking of your own good, think about the people you would make happy by doing what they think is best for you. It&rsquo;s one against so many. Would you rather not make so many others happy instead?&rdquo; Ermmm&hellip; At the expense of what? What if, at the end of the day, I don&rsquo;t like myself for doing what I&rsquo;m doing? Who am I doing it for?&nbsp;
Sure there are people who are extreme philanthropists and social workers, and they give their all for the betterment of society. But isn&rsquo;t there a catch, too? Aren&rsquo;t they doing what they&rsquo;re doing because it makes them happy? There was an episode on F.R.I.E.N.D.S. (which I&rsquo;m sure all of you have watched, and if you haven&rsquo;t, really?? Why not!?) wherein Phoebe wishes to make an utterly unselfish gesture, and Joey tells her that it is impossible. Even when you give your all away to someone else, seeing them happy inherently makes you happy, and that&rsquo;s your selfish purpose right there!&nbsp;
So point is.. there is no point. I&rsquo;m not asking you to be selfish or think only for yourself. That&rsquo;s not the reason I have this blog. I&rsquo;m only telling you my side of the story. I put myself first. I think for myself. I value myself, my time, my headspace, me. This is me: as selfish as I can get. Always thinking of ways to better myself than yesterday. Always looking to better use my time. Always looking for an out from boring gossip and bland T.V. Saying NO to things that don&rsquo;t serve me. Making excuses for not &lsquo;being able to&rsquo; attend certain events because, hell, I just don&rsquo;t want to!&nbsp;
Next time someone blatantly points out how selfish I&rsquo;m being, I&rsquo;m just going to smile. Hopefully, my smile makes their day! Or not. Either way.&nbsp;

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A Selfish Human 

I eat a piece of chocolate every day. It&rsquo;s just what I do. One piece, daily. You know how you do certain things for the body? Like brush your teeth or eat breakfast? Well, this is how I feed my soul. And I won&rsquo;t eat just any candy. No sir! I got chocolate standards. But this isn&rsquo;t what this column is about.
As I relish in the delicious taste of my one candy per day, my fur baby, Muffin, won&rsquo;t stop staring at me. She gives me the most adorable puppy face she can muster, and in all honesty, she does a pretty good job. She keeps looking at me&hellip; waiting for me to hand her a piece of chocolate. But I don&rsquo;t because I know chocolate is bad for her. Chocolates can be fatal to dogs. And trust me, I know. Muffin found my candy stash when she was younger and ate it all. There were 32 pieces of chocolate! And she ate it ALL! I had to rush her to the emergency and&hellip;. It was a nightmare! Of course, she has the memory of a goldfish and has forgotten how hard it&rsquo;d been for her. If she remembered, she wouldn&rsquo;t be begging me for the candy right now.
But on and on, she begs. Keeps giving me the puppy eyes. Waits for the candy to drop out of my fingers so that she can gobble it up. Some days, I give in and give her a teeny tiny piece of candy. You know, what doesn&rsquo;t kill you makes you stronger. Like ingesting a little bit of venom per day until you&rsquo;re immune to all other snakes. Or did you watch that episode in &lsquo;True Crime&rsquo; where the husband kept giving her tiny doses of arsenic, and she didn&rsquo;t die? So he gave her a whole lot, and she was merely hospitalized. The high amount should&rsquo;ve killed her, but it didn&rsquo;t because her body had been getting used to arsenic! Ugghh. I digress. See? This is why I write. My thoughts have no focus.
So yea, once in a blue moon, I give her a teeny tiny bit of candy, and she gobbles it up. I guess she loves the taste coz she won&rsquo;t stop asking&mdash;every single day. And I won&rsquo;t give it to her, even though I know she begs because I know it&rsquo;s toxic for her. This makes me wonder if that&rsquo;s exactly what the Universe does. Sometimes I ask Him for things. Give him the most adorable puppy eyes I can muster. Beg, even. And out of pity, sometimes He gives me a little taste of what I&rsquo;ve been asking for. But try as I may, I will never get it. Because it&rsquo;s not good for me, and the Universe knows. He knows everything. He makes things hard sometimes, so I may come out of it stronger. He puts obstacles in my path so I can work harder to get to my goal. He knows that the most massive characters are seared with scars, so He doesn&rsquo;t hold back. He breaks my heart so I can piece it back together and watches as I rise again, like a phoenix.
We&rsquo;re all suckers, aren&rsquo;t we? If we want something really really bad, we&rsquo;ll lap up any breadcrumbs thrown our way. It&rsquo;s not even the real meal. Not even close. You can&rsquo;t taste the flavors that way, just bits and pieces of what constitutes the whole thing. It&rsquo;s like the tiny pieces of a flaky cookie that falls off the mouth. But we lap it up anyway. What was that? Flour? Sugar? Can&rsquo;t tell! We&rsquo;ll settle for however little we have, thankful that the Universe listened. Thank you for handing me these crumbs! That wasn&rsquo;t part of the deal? How many of us have the guts to say &lsquo;NO,&rsquo; then? &ldquo;No. I refuse to settle for this. Give me the real thing. I&rsquo;ll wait.&rdquo;
Sometimes in the middle of our walk, Muffin gets stuck or unsure of what path to take. So she just sits right there, waiting for me to take the leash and lead her on. Zero doubt in her mind that I&rsquo;m a few steps behind, waiting to guide her. And that&rsquo;s exactly what I do. I wait. The things that are meant for me by divine right are mine forever. Nothing can take them away from me. I sit right here and wait for the Universe to guide me on.

Do you know how you do certain things for the body? Like brush your teeth or eat breakfast? Well, this is how I feed my soul. I eat a piece of chocolate every day.

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Chocolate

I am Mrs. Haze, aka Subani Moktan, one and the same but not really. Welcome to a part of me: One that stays hidden mostly coz&rsquo; it lives rent-free in my head. Isn&rsquo;t that where the most intimate versions of us are found? You could be lying to the whole world, but you know who you are. And you know who you&rsquo;re not.
So yeah... overthinking! My specialty! If I had a penny for every thought I had, I&rsquo;d be a krazillionaire by now: krazy rich ya&rsquo;ll! &ldquo;Oh wow, nice writing, Mrs. Haze! Making up your own words.&rdquo; Uhhh... why not? If George R.R. martin can conjure up a whole damn language, so can I, okay? &ldquo;Zaldrizes buzdari iksos daor&rdquo; (If you know, you know!)
My point is, I write! Someone once told me to just write. Take away any other equation and just write. That&rsquo;s some good advice! One of the many I got. And that&rsquo;s what I intend to do. Coz&rsquo; words live on, don&rsquo;t they? This is a space for me to be me. To put in paper these fleeting emotions and watch them fly by, like clouds on a sunset. To see me for who I am, where I am, and where I intend to go. To be. &nbsp;

I am Mrs. Haze, aka Subani Moktan, one and the same but not really. Welcome to a part of me.