Each minute of our life is a lesson but most of us fail to read it. I thought I would just add my daily lessons & the lessons that I learned by seeing the people around here. So it may be useful for you and as memories for me.

Yesterday, during one of discussions with my Stakeholders, I was asked how did I have a unique Surname  Munna. I simply smiled at him and continued my discussion. He interrupted me and asked the same question again.

Unknowingly, an angel called Nikki flashed in my mind. Nikki, she is the amazing girl who entered and left my life  unknowingly. In the last 20 years, thousands of people asked me the same question during my colleges days, Trainings, guest lectures, office place etc. Answer is simple and straightforward. My First love used to call me by name Munna.I love you”- a sacred phrase that was already made before each of us was born. It may sometimes be hard to explain, hard to say and hard to express, but it will always be easy to feel. I didn’t believe in such feeling as love ever, not so long until I met somebody, who changed my life and made me utter these words with no doubt, no hesitation, just love. First love is an experience that you get only once because it’s filled with emotions that you feel for the very first time. Enter into your life, from out of nowhere, this new person. BOOM! You can’t explain quite why, but you just know there’s something super-special about them. Thrilling, perhaps. Your beloved is an angel.

When Nikki was two days shy of her 15th birthday the night I kissed her for the first time. Her name was Nikki. It was July 18, 1999, and as we are walking back from school in the evening, I stopped her by holding the hand and kissed her — full-mouthed and everything I dreamed of and more. She was so shocked and inexperienced that she kept her eyes open at first, not sure what to do or where to put her hands. All I can feel is good, like eating ice cream on a summer night.

I had never been kissed before. Not a peck on the cheek. The kiss led to more dates, made us more close that and my girl used to hold my hands as we walked out of high school and the next thing I knew, I had a girlfriend. You will never kiss anyone again like how you kiss someone when you’re in high school. Remember this. There is something innocent and passionate about the high-school sweetheart relationship.

Reality of Life

Everyone who falls in love for the first time thinks that his or her respective romance is far superior than everyone else’s, by the way. Sure, other people have first loves—but they cannot hold a candle to yours. You and your beloved are unique. No one else can feel these particular emotions. Oh, no. You alone own these one-of-a-kind feelings that no other human will ever know. And you feel them potently.

That’s first love for you. It’s awesome. It’s wonderful. It’s a mirage. It’s innocent, because for a brief time, you truly do believe that you are special and unique. (This is actually your brain chemicals playing a nifty little trick on you to get you to reproduce and perpetuate the species—but you don’t know of such banalities yet.)

Think of first love as your very first time riding an airplane. It’s magical. A little scary, maybe? You don’t know what to expect, what comes next. Part of the thrill is feeling the plane take off from the tarmac for the first time and edging into the sky. I like to think of first love as a lot like that plane ride—young lovers are focused on the thrill of their journey. They’re not really too concerned about where they end up.

They could end up in a tropical paradise, although that’s a long shot. More likely, they end up in a depressing third-world country without enough money to get back home. Many first love experiences are tumultuous, peppered with arguments and discord. Young lovers don’t realise  that this is not normal and remain slaves to their feelings. Sometimes for years.

Once you get older, you realise  that the journey is important only insofar that it serves a function to get you to a specific place. But it’s where you end up together that’s far more important. Most young people are unqualified to make that assessment, which makes marrying their first love one big crapshoot.

I don’t regret having a first love—it was a positive, wonderful experience. But I’m relieved that we didn’t end up together. Our lives diverged wildly, and we’re nothing like the young adults we were back in the day.

I have since had loves that were mature and based on things of substance—agreed-on values, morals, and lifestyles. Those relationships made my first love affair seem rather silly by comparison.

Silly, but relevant, because it was my first. Lastly, she is no more in my life and on this earth, but she stays in my memories forever. Years later, now I am father of my two, I look back on my first love as the relationship that catapulted me into all the others — the one that prepared me for all the ups and downs of love and life that would lie ahead.

Please feel free to share your story and any lessons you learned, you experienced, you came across in your life in the comments below. If you enjoyed this, or any other other posts, I’d be honoured  if you’d share it with your family, friends and followers!

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