Month: June 2014

IF… If only…

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IF. 

If… If only…. 

If is a very powerful word. We use it a lot without even realising it. 
If only I were prettier. If only I were a little taller. If only I were richer. If only I were a little bit more careful. If only I could have thought straight. If only I had expressed myself to her better. If only I had told my mom how much I loved her. If only I pushed myself just a little harder. If only I were more careful. If only I focused on my studies when I was younger. If only I had a baby. If only I had a better spouse. If only I took time off to be with my family. If only I had not made that stupid mistake. If only I were younger.

If… If only. 

We all had that wish. We wished for something. We wish to turn back time. We want to do right what we messed up. We were younger. Maybe I could make a better decision if I were given a second choice. Our wishes could have been fulfilled IF that ‘missing’ element was present to make that happen. Many a time, we could have ‘fixed’ the problems if we had just taken the alternate path, or to have simply walked away. We did not…. and so we are here… with a bagful of ifs and possibly with it regrets. 

We tell ourselves that we have control over our lives and we are pretty lucky to be living the life we are living. We probably even wisen up to be thankful for what we have and tell ourselves to be grateful for those…. but as much as we talk to ourselves and comfort ourselves on how good we have had it and keep reminding ourselves to be contented and be happy with what we have, when we see someone else living the life we want to live… don’t we feel the mood dampen? Don’t we secretly desire to have our places swapped? To have done things differently? The IFs start creeping in again.

We all go through the IF-stage at varying degrees. I felt ashamed that I even harbour that thought… but I so really want to turn back time, to change things, to clean up my act, to be better. I so badly want it… but we all know it is not possible. 

Life is a interesting teacher. She teaches us to appreciate life by creating death around us. She teaches us to be hopeful by giving us hopeless situations. She teaches us to be good by making us do wrong. She gives us less so we learn to appreciate what we have. She makes us grow old, so we will appreciate the little time we have left. 

We are all children with different gifts and we are being moulded by life everyday. Love who we are, learn from our mistakes, accept our flaws, embrace our quirks, and live a full life. Everything happens for a reason.

 

Life Choices – Cause and Reaction

/ inSolitude / 4 Comments

How often we have walked a path being sure that is what we want only to discover that it is not the right one. We change course, and this time we are ‘sure’ this is the correct path… and then again, it doesn’t seem right. So we take a completely different ‘obvious’ route and still stumble upon the same dilemma of being completely opposite of ‘being sure’.

What is wrong? Why can’t we get it correct? Are we really unsure or we don’t know?

We have all done puzzles – How do we find the right route through the maze? Do we get it right the first time? We try. We were sure but we were wrong… so we tried again. Unlike puzzles like this, life is not so simple with limited, pre-determined paths to follow. There are many unlimited, undefined, unconditional paths – each, once selected, brings us to the next step of the same routine of ‘choices’. Why are we caught in this maze with no beginning or end? If making the choice does not solve the problem, why then do we make the choice in the first place?

Let’s rewind.

Who are you? What contributed to the current state you are in? What choices you have made gives you the current choice you have in hand to choose? Who and what will you be if a different set of options were offered… and choices made?

Life presents us all with situations, and with it options, and tied to that choices. It is either we get ourselves into that situations or the situations presents themselves. We need to make a call. Not making a choice is like clicking the ‘failure to make a choice’ button by default. Choices are made – either you choose or let it be chosen for you. THAT will define the next series of steps… and that cascades down to what and who we have become now.

We ask ourselves. Could I have become a different person? YES, we would have been… but we may not be asking ourselves that question if we were already a different person who chooses ignorance over the truth of self-doubt.

We make choices. Glad we made those choices to let us move, to learn, to become a better person…. and most importantly, to address the birth of new choices. There is nothing limiting us… if anything it is us who are putting layers and layers of shackles around us. Let’s be free. Let’s make those choices and live life!

Repeat mistakes – Painful reminder and New lessons

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We go through some painful lessons in life. We tell ouselves not to ever come back to that dreaded situation again. We remind ourselves time and again not to … and not to… and then… we find ourselves in the exactly same situation.Sad as it may, sometimes it take another rap on the knuckles or even two to wake us up. Complacency creeps in all the time.

As much as we will need to learn from our history, and not to let history repeat itself again, our learnings from the repeated ‘offence’ are different. It acts as both a reminder and to built our strong conviction. It makes us stronger… remind us about matters that really matters – which we conveniently forget or choose to forget.

But we need to learn. As stupid as it may sound making those same mistakes repeatedly, maybe we need to check for a pattern… maybe there is more to the actual mistake that we probably could have missed out in the first place… maybe there is a different lesson we could learn from it now. Whatever the situation, we need to learn from it… remember it… and re-live the pain to re-learn the lessons.

Let the misery live on… for that is the punishment for failing to learn the lessons. Let the time drowned in misery be a deep cast message to not to forget this again. Let there be permanent measures never to revisit this path again.

Let there be peace once this is all over.