Can u wear my shoes to think like me?

At the outset, I would like to express my gratitude to all the Toastmasters and honoured guests for giving me an opportunity to present before this August forum.

I feel privileged today to introduce myself as Dr Archana vedantam, PhD in Management from the Sri Satya Sai University of Technology and Medical Sciences, I worked as the faculty of Entrepreneurship & hospitality teaching B.Com students, and Hotel management students at HIITMS college, Ameerpet, and I recently completed my Law degree LLB from sultan ul Uloom College of Law, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad & Post Graduate Diploma in Cyber Laws &Intellectual Property Rights from the University of Hyderabad Well, this is about my qualifications. To speak about my traits, I can say I am a brave woman who loves problems & challenges😜😜😜lol. However, If someone Like my speech evaluator focuses on me with a magnifying lens, they could find out that, I escape people & all types of Risky situations, ALL THE TIME. I am a career woman with a practical orientation toward the goals, whose priority in Life is only achieving success. and to share the truth with you, I can say, I have been wearing this career mask; to escape people & society around me and to spend maximum part of my time with the person I LOVE, i.e. My own self.

You must have heard Charlotte's quote

she once said, "I care for myself. The more isolated and alone I am, the more unstained I am; this helps me respect myself much more " – this kind of quotes u know, I feel them with my heart deeply 💝

Can you fill a coffee cup🥤 that is already full with Lassi💧 in it? What happens if I try to fill the lassi cup with coffee?

Can someone unmute and answer me?

yes, both coffee and Lassi get spoiled

Can I fill an empty cup with whatever I wish to fill it with?

Yes or No? Yes, it means emptiness is an opportunity to fill it with anything you love. Let me repeat it – emptiness or solitude is an opportunity to fill it with anything you love. We always reinvent ourselves by embracing our Loneliness And I filled my empty cup with my degrees.

Life is to Live. To live is to fill good meaning in all the empty cups .L-I-V-E ....- IF you Reverse Live-it is –EV-I-L. IF we do not understand this, and if we do not LIVE filling it with meaning we love in the emptiness, then Life becomes Evil (reverse of LIVE) & so hell

Generally, My friends, 2 powerful forces decide our lives, one is external, and the other is internal. We have little control over external forces such as earthquakes, disasters, friends, Relatives, neighbours, Welwishers, animals, children and so on.

"Were I a King,’ he said,

‘my prime command would be – Leave me alone.’ said many greatest philosophers

What matters is the Level of Control we have over the internal force. How do we look at something? What perception & perspective we are using to look at the issues?

perception is You taking the “big picture” view of things; Like whatever happens in life, it is for good in the end, and if it is not good, then it is still not the end

You must have heard this joke about the titanic ship.

Two gangs of shellfish, i.e. lobsters inside the kitchen of the titanic ship, were talking with each other. My dear, We were fighting like enemies till today; let us be good friends for some time now as anyway, we are all going to die and become food for these humans and then suddenly, a miracle happened. The ship got hit with an Iceblock, and those Lobsters who were depressed, thinking they were going to die, Fell into the waters & got their Life back again.

This is one example of perspective.it is the way or angle or the side you look from.. When you see the titanic disaster from the side of those lobsters in the kitchen, you feel happy about that titanic disaster. If you see it from the side of the titanic movie heroine, you feel sorry. This is perspective, how you look at something, and this perspective is one of the internal forces that dictates our Life.

When something unexpected and tragic event happens in our life. What should we do? Should we cry and behave with uncontrollable emotions? Will it undo the bad that has already happened? No

Two things control our life what is inside and what is outside and what is outside is not always in our hands, we cannot control it but what is in our hands and what can we do with it is all that matters to survive any disaster. This is a lesson I have learnt from my own experiences in life.

Let me share some of my experiences which made me what I am today:

One day, on August 7th a Beautiful, Sweet and Gorgeous girl 👼was born on earth to teach me about life. She is beautiful, but not normal. Doctors said she need to undergo three operations to be alive, and also she is a child with a rare genetic disorder called Down syndrome for which there is no cure, and that girl is my sister Bhavana. I had to start my story with my sister's birth because Life was quite so normal, just like anybody's around me until that great day when my sister was born. Thanks to God, it is because of her, that I am what I am today. It is because of her. I know what parenthood is all about.

Down syndrome is a genetic disorder that causes mild to severe physical and mental developmental problems. I hope all of you know the difference between a disease and a disaster. I mean lifetime Disorder. Diseases can be cured, but there is no cure for a genetic disorder like Down syndrome. it is a lifelong condition

One recent survey of Down's syndrome in Hyderabad stated that 1 out of every 1000 live births is a down syndrome child. This means a 0.001% possibility of any healthy parent having such a child and our parents are on that lucky list of 1 out of 1000.

Even today, at 24 years of her age, she poops in her dress, and my mom has to clean that every day. She cannot even mix rice & dal properly with her own hands to eat her food. She doesn't know even to say " I am thirsty or I am hungry or I want this or I don't want this " she cannot [Opposite to me- I don't listen to anybody on earth and she cannot say NO to anybody ]

Imagine you have a person in your home, you love sooooo much but you cannot help him or her, there is nothing you can do to that person except to see them suffer. you can only watch things helplessly. Can you imagine that? CAN U FEEL MY PARENTS SUFFERING????[ Bhavana's suffering is physical- my entire family's suffering is Physical + Mental+ Emotional + Financial ] This is an example of external conditions of life which we cannot control, the things which make us helpless. Doesn’t matter how rich, beautiful and smart you are, this is a kind of problem you can never solve.

And my mother, I look at her like an oyster somewhere deep down below in the sea away from all realities of the world. Not because she knows nothing about the world outside the 4 walls of kitchen, but because her daughter, my sister, is a pure pearl under her protective shell suffering uncertainties of fate from many decades of past and also for many uncertain decades further in future.

My parents had to spend all the time making her a strong girl, sooo much that they forgot, they even had another daughter Archana—from the time my sister was born. I was moved to my Aunt's home to continue my study without getting disturbed by all the peaks and valleys, frustrations & stressors of my family.

As we create our destiny, with every moment of our choice, I, with my choices at approximately 12 years of my age went to my aunt’s home to have my schooling there. That was a very orthodox home with too many rules and regulations, and I was the pawn in the hands of my cousin sister Mansi akka to accompany her in breaking some rules there, creating some issues, and having fun together with her.

Somehow, I completed my 10th class with flying colors, good marks, and also with extracurricular achievements like state-level gymnastics, district-level karate, dance, skating, and even with the capability to pray all the tongue-twisting Sanskrit prayers like vishnusahasra nama parayanam without knowing the meaning of a yet single word in it. -- See to improve me, this is always in my own hands. To change my own mind - it is always in my hands. These are internal things which I can always control.

After the 10th, The second phase of my life, i.e., my crazy hostel life, started, which continued for the next seven years of my existence—two years intermediate in the Narayana Jail, where we undergo the 3rd-degree torture to clear the medical entrance which I didn't clear anyway! And then Three years of biotechnology at Sree vidyanikethan college now going to be Vidyanikethan university, and two years MBA at NITHM University. you might think " why MBA after biotechnology? " Yeah...again, it is because of my Loving cousin sister Manaswi akka’s influence who was then working as an HR recruiter with an MBA degree heheee, so I studied hard to give my CAT, MAT, etc. exams and finally got into MBA under the merit quota for my rank...BUT she was no more by the time I completed my degree, happily dancing in heaven- LIBERATED. I lost the only best best friend I had till that day 31st December 2010-just few days before my Exams. Sometimes we have to accept the fact that certain things will never go back to how they used to be- She was My sister-cousin, guide, friend, guru, well-wisher & much more. I had also visualized an extraordinary career in her office with her.

As said, Life happens & many unpredictable events happen in every walk of life. Still, I am a firm believer in the statement that the universe always has something special planned for each of us...I'm Done even with this phase with all the Flying colours & distinction as always, Got placed at kuoni , banjara hills branch as a management trainee. Now the third phase of my life started when I went back to my parents after being away for nearly 14 years like Lord Rama had his 14 years of Vanavas, finally I'm with my parents like all other children around. After working for a few months, my father started torturing me with words like " my daughter is useless, I have invested so much money on her but my friend's Son is a gem, cleared IAS exam, I wish I had a son like him & not daughter bla bla bla " which made me resign my job and join the Great Chaitanya Narayana IAS academy, Struggled with it for two years day and night while continuously imagining myself as the heroine of that Tamil movie Archana IAS. Still, Luckily, I Failed to clear the UPSC exam, and then the great realization happened for my entire family and me that I'm not as smart as I show off outside .so with my silly brain again I thought that " Don't Sail In Two Boats At A Time " is a stupid quote and wise choice at this stage is not have all eggs in one basket as said by warren buffet so

I joined a doctor of philosophy program in the field of Management while pausing my UPSC dream for some time. The joke today is that I completed even my Ph. D in Management but still couldn't manage to make my UPSC dream come true. Dr Archana Vedantam, Lawyer as I also completed 2 Degrees in Law after my phD but still a failure because I could not meet the expectations of my father till today.

Tell me, my friends…

“ How can you forgive yourself for all the things you never became? “

" How can Human beings forgive you when you do not meet their expectations? " But Life goes on..it goes on & on

All these things made me realize with my own mind that – 2 things Impact our lives – one is external which we cannot control like my sister’s disorder or my failure to clear the public service commission exam and 2nd is internal Which I can always control like my attitude, my positive thinking with a hope for future, my goals, my plans, My emotions, My motivation to keep on fighting to get what I want, To get up with a smile & confidence even after falling down for 100 times. These are internal drives which are 100% in my control and These are the things I need to focus on at any stage of my life

When I know what I can control & where am I capable enough to make changes, to make myself matter and my existence can make a difference, I can do that. When I know, I can - RIGHT?

And when I know what I cannot control- I should accept it like my family accepted my sister’s condition and today it is a routine thing at home, nobody sees it as a problem anymore

why? Because we have accepted what we cannot change and always trying to change what we can like making her go to school, getting her trained by a speech therapist to be able to speak like us or to make her able enough to communicate her message to us.

So I have learnt that when we face something unexpectedly tragic, first we need to accept it. Yes, it happened. I should now think about future-Not the past. What is that I can change about it & what is beyond my ability to change? And all this should first start with acceptance of what happened.

To say

“Why did this disaster or bad happen to me? “

“ I am useless "

" I am unlucky "

" it is the end of the world, I am a failure “

This kind of thinking is not accepting the bad that happened. A healthy mind first starts with ACCEPTANCE “

" Yes it happened "

Yes “I t is difficult to endure this pain.”

But yes “ I can handle it.”

“ It’s worth handling it courageously and moving on "

And that way, with that control over our emotions and everything WITHIN us and accepting what we cannot change, we can fill our Empty life (cup) with great meaning. How we stand strong at times of unavoidable suffering in life makes us a person who created her/his own meaning in an empty life, a person who transformed tragedies as the motivation for personal triumph.

I strongly believe that the greatest challenge in life is to be alive- to LIVE [ L-I-V-E – it fights with its reverse order E-V-I-L -- Every person, EVERY CONDITION that wants to destroy me or my family or my life- directly or indirectly is my evil ENEMY ], the challenge here is to go through the darkest phases of life yet not allowing anything of it to Consume our Light

Let me end it with a quote from Jung