Life lessons are never too late to be learnt
Not all classrooms have four walls. I’d heard of this over the years but began understanding it recently. Life never stops teaching. We become stubbornly resistant to its lessons. One of its most precious lessons is to live life. Most of us just tide over it.
After having completed more than half the journey, I learnt the value of time well spent. There’s no need to dwell on nonexistent issues, lost battles, taxing relationships or trying to appease brick walls. Most of the situations could have been beautifully managed with a filter change. The saved time could have been put to better use.
In this regard, one of my teachers is a well provided for, privileged lady. She has been given far more than most of us put together could possibly receive from life. Yet her conversation never steers beyond an indifferent husband, his closeness with his own family; children on their own trip; imaginary aches and pains and what not! I often wonder, why can’t she go get a life? Why would anybody want to listen to a disgruntled outpouring the whole day.
Indifference could be a defence mechanism. Why delude yourself into believing that you deserve the centre stage, when you have reduced yourself to being an eyesore even in an obscure corner. The bottom line of each relationship is defined by its degree of comfort. As it is with a good pair of shoes, so it is with an easy camaraderie in a relationship. You can travel afar, in any set of circumstances or the roughest of roads, if the basic degree of comfort exists. We need to learn early that creators are more sought after than destructors. There is plenty of room for everybody. Where is the need to edge out somebody to ease your way in?
Secondly, benevolence is a favour you are doing to yourself. Why create a torture chamber in the mind? One gets isolated and looked down upon in no time.
Another teacher is a lady in her sunset years. She has had it rough, practically most of her life. Not strong enough to rise above the situation, she allowed circumstances to cower her down.
Her perspective filter darkened permanently. Even though the trying times have long passed by, she refuses to budge out of her self-imposed misery. You greet her pleasantly and she groans in response. Ask her about the well-being of her kith and kin and out rolls a barrage of complaints. To cut the story short, the whole world is her darned enemy. If only she could see that the season has changed.
The lows had long gone yet the attitude stood as a stubborn detriment to the present peaceful phase being doled out to her. The best of us are prisoners of our own mindset. We don’t learn, well in time, that this journey requires us to travel light. The more you burden yourself with resentment, fear, guilt, anger, the less remains the space for happiness to enter.
The game of life comes with a manual. The winning strategy, say the wise, is to separate the unnecessary from the absolutely necessary. Brighten up your vision and make the best use of the limited time available for the game. It is a precious gift, far too precious to be withered away on trivialities.
THE MORE YOU BURDEN YOURSELF WITH FEAR, GUILT, ANGER, THE LESS REMAINS THE SPACE FOR HAPPINESS TO ENTER. ALSO, THERE’S NO NEED TO DWELL ON NONEXISTENT ISSUES.