“The wine of Life keeps oozing drop
by drop, the leaves of Life keep falling one by one!” – wrote Omar Khayyam,
(1048~1131), the Persian poet, in his classic ‘The Rubaiyat’.
Today our son Aashirwad turns 25. Suddenly
a quarter of a century seems to have flown past. A quarter of a century!!?!!
That’s a third of a lifetime, if you can hope to be at least 75! These are the
25 years that I have grown up from being a boy to a young adult to being a
lover, a husband and a father, to being an entrepreneur to going bankrupt – and
resultantly penniless – to being a student of Life. It is when I was ready and
willing, as any good student should be, to learn, that Life, the teacher, appeared before me and
taught me this invaluable lesson – that we are all perishable. Each moment is perishing
even as we are going through it. Everything around us is perishing and everything
– and everyone – we knew has perished. You, me, all of us will perish too. The
learning I have from Life is that the opportunity of this lifetime must be utilized
within the lifetime of the opportunity. Life is a limited period offer. Period.
Enjoy it as long as it lasts! Indeed, sometimes, you may only be in a position
to endure Life. But if you understand Life and its impermanence, you will learn
to accept, and therefore even enjoy, what you are enduring! So, as the famous
song from the Hindi film, Golmaal
(1979, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, R.D.Burman, Gulzar, Kishore Kumar) goes: “Aane Wala Pal,
Jaane Wala Hai, Ho Sake To Isme Zindagi Bita Do, Pal Yeh Jo Jaane Wala Hai…”
It means exactly what Omar Khayyam wants us to realize: “Each moment – and Life
– is passing us by. If possible, seize the lifetime in the moment, because it
too will be gone soon.”
Realize the value of each moment. At least from
now on, go do what you love doing. Don’t think. Don’t analyze. Just do it!
Also, please make time for your family and children today. Because even before
you realize it, time would have flown, the birds too would have flown, leaving
your nest empty. What you will be left with are just memories. Those are funny
things, these memories. The stuff you laughed about will make you cry and what
you cried over, you will laugh about when you look back! Work hard without
doubt. Earn money, that’s important. But with advancing age, decreasing
efficiency, and limited time left on this planet, what you will be left holding
are only memories. Make sure they are happy ones, of happy times, of memorable
moments that you want to relive. Not of times of which you have no memories
because you merely existed back then! Someone wisely said, we don’t remember
days, we remember moments. Ensure each of yours from now on are worth living
for and remembering happily later!
We all have come with an expiry date.
Except we don’t know what that date is. So, when you don’t
know how much time you have left here, won’t you want to make each day, each
moment, count?
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