It doesn’t
really matter to, and in, Life whether you deserve something or not. Life will
simply keep happening to you. If what you get from Life meets or exceeds your
expectation, you exult, celebrate, rejoice, and, often times, even vainly pride
yourself for “your” achievements. And when what you get is not what you wanted
or expected you lament – “Do I deserve this?” While the ideal state
would be to remain unmoved by whatever happens to you, at least, over the years
of growing up, it may be a good idea to learn not to grieve over what you get.
To be
sure, Life has no principles of “deserving” and “undeserving”. Life operates on
a “happening” principle. It just goes on happening. Judging a happening and labelling
it as good or bad, or analyzing whether you deserved it or not, is a purely
human activity. It is your mind at work. Life is mindless and so simply goes
on, happening, from moment to moment to moment.
When you
begin to analyze why you ended up with something you didn’t want, and didn’t
deserve, you are sure to be consumed by depression and grief. These emotions
will ruin your inner peace and drown you in sorrow. They will hold you back
from living Life fully.
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| Laxmi - Commendable Spirit (Picture - Shanker Chakravarty, The Hindu) |
Ask
24-year-old Laxmi from New Delhi. She should know. Today’s Metro Plus in The Hindu tells Laxmi’s poignant story. Being
a good singer, she was hoping to participate in the Indian Idol contest in 2005.
But in February that year, a man who was twice her age, and whose proposition
and overtures she rebuffed, poured acid on her face. The tragedy left her
benumbed. Grieving. And lost. It took months of facing Life__feeling angry,
helpless, while having to deal with the trauma everytime she looked into the
mirror__to “understand” that what had happened to her was permanent and
irreversible. That when she decided to battle it out. She moved the courts. The
man, who in the meantime had managed to get married and father two children,
got 10 years in jail. But Laxmi was not satisfied. She decided to move a Public
Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court – which she won recently, that has led
to a ban on indiscriminate over-the-counter sale of acid across India. Laxmi
tells The Hindu’s Sangeeta Barooah Pisaroty that she’s happy she has “found her voice
finally”. And next on her agenda, apart from leading the “Stop
Acid Attackers” campaign, is to hopefully get back to her “Life’s ambition” of
contesting for the Indian Idol title!
Laxmi’s
spirit is commendable. She too, as she admits, went through her “Do I deserve this?”
moments. And as long as she was asking that question, she remained stuck. She
became a recluse. She was always unhappy. But the moment she stopped asking
that question, she found a new meaning to live and a purpose to her Life!
That’s our
learning too. Whatever happens in Life, there’s no point asking “Why?” or “Why
me?”. Because there are no answers in Life. You get what you get. And you have
to accept what you get! Period.
You may have heard
this or read this before. But it is pertinent to recall what ace tennis legend Arthur
Ashe (1943~1993) is believed to have once said. Ashe was
dying of AIDS, which he contracted due to an infected blood transfusion he
received during a heart surgery in 1983. While in hospital, he would get letters from
his fans, from all over the world. One of them asked him: “Why does GOD have to
select you for such a horrible disease?” To this, Ashe is believed to have replied:
“The world over — 50
million children start playing tennis, 5 million learn to play tennis, 500,000
learn professional tennis, 50,000 come to the circuit, 5000 reach the Grand Slam,
50 reach Wimbledon, 4 make it to the semi-finals, 2 get to the finals, and only
1 wins. When
I was holding a cup I never asked ‘Why me?’. And today in pain, and dying, I
should not be asking ‘Why me?’ either!“
Bravo Ashe! Bravo
Laxmi!
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