If you learn well, you will live well – happy and peaceful

Life is teaching you something every moment that you are alive.

It’s up to you to learn or to discard or ignore the learning in that moment! And almost always Life’s lessons arrive at a time when you have no intention or interest in learning them! Yet we can’t escape the experience even if we don’t see the point just then to learn from it.

The experiences we have in this lifetime are our real education. So, clearly, our education does not cease with an academic qualification! And the more the experience, the greater your expertise. There’s no point in having all the academic qualifications that the world can offer, be brilliant with your GPA (Grade Point Average) but be a poor human being, who has no time for others, who does not see value in the moment, who merely exists, and who does not live! The tragedy with our world is that all assessments are materialistic. To most people, how much (wealth and material assets) you have is more important than how well you have lived. So, you are evaluated basis your income, your car, your clothes, your neighborhood, your club and such. And when some of these do get taken away, as they will possibly be, on one side you grieve their loss, but on another side you are discarded as worthless. The person who has seen Life’s upheavals, who has been battered and bruised by Life’s hard knocks, and who stays grounded, compassionate and humble when success comes calling, which it surely will, is far more evolved than someone who has made his millions and has seen only comfort and no pain.

One of the most important lessons that Life is teaching all of us is that each phase of Life is a guest, albeit an unexpected one, in our lifetime. If there is a lot of wealth in the beginning, know that it is a guest. It will have to leave you some day. If there is a lot of pain and suffering, it too is a guest. It too will have to depart. If there is a lot of debt, that too will stay for as long as it must and wants to. Then it too shall be gone. We must treat each phase with the same dignity and compassion that we accord to guests in our homes. Just the little extra we may like to do with Life’s guests is that we may want to learn from them. If we refuse to meet the guest and learn from the guest, there is no chance that this guest will leave. He or she will still be at the door – knocking. Don’t you think it is more prudent to just greet the guest, learn what you must and then see him or her off? This continuous inviting, greeting and learning (and unlearning) from each guest, from each phase in your Life, is what intelligent living is all about.

If you learn well, you will live well – happy and peaceful. If you resist, or refuse to learn, you will be miserable and agonize over the way things are! So, who’s your guest visiting you in Life presently? And what are you learning from your guest?