( SO a lot of things happened at once on - I went through my
old journals, I heard Lord Krishna belting out His philosophy on change and my
mind was turning over a friends persistent question" where do you see
yourself 10 years from now", read on the value of time... and the result was this jumble that YOU
have to bear the brunt of:D...bwahhhaaaaaa)
Is what we are today as body, mind, thoughts a final
destination of our becoming?!
We've heard it
umpteen times - the power of change and am sure
the words" The only thing constant in life is change" can be
spoken when sleepy or even inebriated.
We strive everyday for some utopian image of our selves and
life 10, 15, 20, 40 years in the future. A friend recently asked me "Where
do you see yourself 10 years from now". Honestly, I drew a blank. (which
was funny coz I haven't thought of that question in the past 10 years ...I’ve
never had a convincing answer to myself then either except the generic answers
which are inevitable anyway and there were so many references to answers to
this uestion in my journals since i was in college then and I have come much
more further than I imagined myself 10 years ago Did I underestimate myself-
no. Also that I found amusing how just the simple 'being happy' was not a 10
year goal...its unwritten , sure....but if that's the key to all we do ,it’s the
first thing that must be mentioned,no? Thats the simple answer really....so
this I wrote as an honest look at me:))
The only time I have ever thought about it was when I was
graduating and had a choice of career options at my feet and interviews in each
of these different fields meant me
imagining different scenarios to sound as convincing as possible to my
interviewers...Yes I was and am a very confused person:).
Again, today I came across my non- meticulously kept
journals over the past 10 years. When I read back, I realised that so many
things and happenings that were so important to me then, don't even grace my
memory anymore. Have I changed as a person? Have my dreams changed? I also saw
how limited some of my "grand " dreams" of yore were. I have
grown much more and achieved much more. Did I benchmark myself lower? What if I had benchmarked higher, would I have "fallen atleast on the roof , if not
the moon"??!THIS is source of our unhappiness.
I know and have heard umpteen times - ships without a rudder
keep on floating and getting nowhere. But what if my only destination is to
live life and not to achieve a pre determined goal of X money, Y companion and
Z children? Would it mean I leave too many chance or that I am a rudderless
ship?! When we give up things in the present in the hope of a secure and happy
future, are we absolutely guaranteeing the outcome as we foresee for our future
self?! Have we bedeviled ourselves to listen more carefully to the tick of time
than life? What is the difference? What if we didn't have a watch or anyway of
knowing or noting time. Would we be accurately be able to chronicle and
calculate the passage of time? I feel we may be off - by a few days at the
least.
I feel that we as people are ever transient , our notions,
our bodies, our thoughts- are ever fleeting, moving changing. Would we do
things differently if we were told that we have only a short and finite time
for our existence? Everyday we invest so much time in the charitable cause of
the person we are yet to become. We attach so many conditions for our
happiness. Then we refuse to be happy outside of that box of conditions and
then blame circumstances, the world, people, even ourselves for our
"misery". Misery is nothing but lack of happiness. WHO took that happiness
away? DO we realise that our current principles and conditions may mean zilch
to our future selves in the pursuit of happiness?
I realised that my goals and dreams were for the person I
was at that time and not for who I have become once I have reached that goal. We
are always Work- In-Progress and not finished artworks as we mistakenly assume
ourselves to be .What, what, what if I woke up today with only the things I
thanked the Universe for yesterday!!!! I also see a very simple pattern...all
the "good things" happened when something changed - whether in my perception
or in my life path as I had imagined it. For one, I never factored in all the
disillusionment, the worry, the heartbreaks, the ruthless feedbacks, the
flowering of new urges, unknown feelings, terrors, bliss - all the unmet crap I
have forgotten to capture....Somethings, Insurance just cannot cover:)
I have learnt, (most people say its a lazy man's thinking)
that simplicity lies in not complicating things - including the future;).That's
keeping it simple. I recently read that have a goal and assert it time to time,
and the universe will make sure that you will not stray from your path and that
even adversities turn in your favour, serendipitiously. However, however,
however....after a point, even the goal becomes an impediment to the very thing
we seek by setting goals – happiness .Simple:)
"Some lose all mind and become soul:insane.
some lose all soul and become mind: intellectual.
some lose both and become :accepted"
- Charles Bukowski
