Make the most of your imperfect Life. Accept it,
celebrate it and you will find that it is perfect, after all!
We often look for our lives to be perfect. We
keep searching for what we don’t have and, often, in the bargain, miss out on
living the Life we already have. Sometimes, people, through their own stories,
teach us how to live with the imperfect, and still make the experience
memorable!
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| Maria: Gritty Picture Courtesy: New Indian Express/Internet |
Maria, a 19-year-old pavement dweller in
Chennai, is one of them. Today’s ‘New
Indian Express’ recounts her gritty story. She was forced to give up school
after class 8, was married off, became a widow soon after, and lost her doting father
too – all in a period of a little over a year. She had to sell all kinds of
knick-knacks at traffic signals on the streets of Chennai to provide for her
mother and two siblings. But thanks to the Suyam Charitable Trust, she enrolled
for her 10th Boards as a private candidate and cleared it two years
ago. Then the Trust helped her join the Perambur Higher Secondary School for
her +2. She finished her 12th Boards this week with a flourish – scoring
890 on 1200! All this, while she lived her other Life on the pavements and
earned a living at traffic signals. Maria is now the first girl from the pavement
dweller community from Chennai to have ever completed Higher Secondary grade.
She says she wants to either become a nutritionist or get a nursing degree. She
told ‘NIE’s’ Jonathan Ananda: “…come
what may, I will get my family out of here.”
Maria’s story resonates with the Japanese
philosophy of ‘kintsugi’. ‘kintsugi’ or ‘kintsukuroi’ is the Japanese art of fixing broken pottery with lacquer
resin, dusted or mixed with silver, gold or platinum and understanding that the
piece is more beautiful for having been broken. As a philosophy ‘kintsugi’ is known to have similarities
with the Japanese concept of ‘wabi-sabi’
– which means embracing the flawed or the imperfect. ‘kintsugi’ also relates to the Japanese philosophy of ‘no mind’ or ‘mushin’ which means non-attachment,
acceptance of change and fate as inevitable aspects of human Life. ‘kintsugi’ celebrates this spirit of
acceptance, of making do and working and living with what is – understanding
that the scars of Life cannot be undone. But you go on and rebuild with what is
left, with what you have. Maria personifies this spirit – turning out, as she
has, more beautiful and stronger from the experience she is going through!
That’s the key learning here. No matter what’s
broken about your Life, no matter how dark the night is, no matter how
incredible your situation may be, pick up the threads each day, and go on
weaving. Your Life may never play out the way you planned it. But what is
evolving, the way your Life is unfolding, despite your circumstances, despite
the scars, is still beautiful and is really the Life that is ordained for you! Amidst all the perceived imperfection lies your perfect Life.
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