Each moment in Life has a reason for
it being there__to make you complete and to help you reach and realize your
ordained potential.
Of course, some of those moments are
challenging, and at times, the aggregation of such moments can become a phase
lasting several years. If you see it as Life's conspiracy to torture and beat
you to pulp, that's how you will feel__trampled upon, betrayed, despondent and
bitter. But if you treat it as a part of a larger Cosmic Design to make you
stronger, skilled and resourceful, you will feel better, liberated and
energized each day.
Two days ago I was at an event where my
teacher from Junior and High School (Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan), Chandra
Srinivasan, was being given a Lifetime Achievement Award for completing 51
years as a teacher. It was a special moment for me. Way back in 1978~80, when I
was her student, my parents had to move from Chennai to Gulbarga, Karnataka, on
account of my dad taking up a job there. They decided to leave me with my
grandparents so that my academic career doesn’t get disrupted. But I didn’t
cope with this separation well. Always an outstanding or above average
performer until then, I started doing badly in most subjects. It was Chandra
who noticed that I was perhaps homesick and she summoned my parents to take me
out of school – and with them. My mother did not take kindly to my teacher’s
perspective. She felt that my teacher had dumped me because of my poor grades
and that I had failed the family by being a bad student. This led me to rebel
as a teenager – I just did not focus on my academics from then on. This,
naturally, caused a lot of anxiety for my parents and I often felt humiliated
at school and at home. To escape all of this, I began immersing myself in
reading and writing. Over the next seven years, I evolved to be a writer – a self-taught
trait that helped me start a career in journalism. At the event to recognize
Chandra, I was called upon to felicitate her. I was honored. And I thanked her
profusely for her wisdom and insight. Without her (rightly) advising that my
parents take me out of school, I may have perhaps never become a writer – it is
not relevant anymore the journey I had to take to become one! I feel if I am
author today, of “Fall Like A Rose Petal – A father’s lessons on
how to be happy and content while living without money”
(Westland, August 2014), it is because of what happened in my Life around 1980,
34 years ago!
I remember reading an amazing story in Forbes magazine on the 81-year-old,
unputdownable, pop Diva, Asha Bhosle. Asha 'tai'
opens up in that story on the tumultuous years of her first marriage with
Bhosle, when he used to often beat her and made her feel worthless and
unwanted. She eventually left him and her home. However, looking back on that
phase in her Life she says, with no rancor or ill-feeling,"If I hadn't
gotten married, I wouldn't have left home. I wouldn't have become a singer. If
I had not met Bhosle (and married him), I wouldn't have become Asha
Bhosle!!!"
Think about your Life. You__and I__are the
sum of the experiences we have been through. To be bitter from them or better
from them is a personal choice we must exercise. We will do well seeing each
moment__with its opportunity or challenge__as one that is designed exclusively
for our learning and evolution. That's when we will
discover joy in the now and our lives will overflow with happiness.
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