Gandhali Bhide - Thane, Maharashtra

 

I sat sipping my morning coffee and solving Sudoku. I realized I hadn’t checked my cell phone for about an hour and to my surprise I did not want to either. It was 9th June 2018 a day after I returned from the Let's Make A Difference Youth Conference. No whatsapp, no instagram, no calls no nothing! Those were one of the most amazing eight days of my life. ‘Quiet Time’ seemed stupid to me on the day one but slowly it began to make sense. I mean “when was the last time I had voluntarily kept quiet” I asked myself. It’s crazy what comes to your mind in your quiet time.

With no cell phones all we did was to talk.  We shared our random thoughts and marveled at the power of silence. We laughed and cried during the group discussion. We listened and felt accepted. 

I made some of the most amazing friends with whom I had no picture with in my cell phone. But nothing could replace those eight days we had together. The lock screen of my cell phone has been the same for the last two years. It’s a quote by Robin Sharma-
Change is hard at first,
Messy in the middle &
Gorgeous in the end’.

It was hard to be quiet. It was hard to be away from the cell phone.  I remember asking one of the volunteers at the conference.” Why do you come back here every year?”
“Honestly I come here every year to see the smiles of all the participants at the end of the conference.

There is something about it” he had said.
I believe it’s the gorgeous end! 
Let's Make A Difference was a new learning; learning that asked us to look inward. Accept ourselves with all our flaws and make a conscious effort to be quiet in the fast changing always talking 21st century. It gave us time to introspect. With a big beautiful campus, and fresh pleasant air you sit with your diary and you somehow start talking to yourself.

I had under estimated silence and being with my own self. I wrote things in my diary, that I never knee were inside me.

I became honest to myself!

Let's Make A Difference gave me a chance to truly know myself!