Life

“Life’s a bitch, learn to live with it”. This cliché has been passed through generations and drilled by society into our heads. And most male chauvinistic pigs define a bitch to be someone who has sex with everyone but them. Just like life seems to work out for everyone but us. Problems never seem to end, and just as we get through handling one set of them, life hurls another set at us. And as we see “the other guy” just sail through what seems to be a walk on a flower bed, we keep wondering why it has to be a bed of thorns for us.

Well, I like to believe in another cliché about life. “Life is a bitter sweet symphony”. Not sure if this is a cliché or the lyrics of some song that a rock star decided to share with us. In any case, in my eyes it’s the truth of life. Life can be as bitter or as sweet as you want it to be. It’s not like the other guy has an easier life than you do, look deeper; all of us are buried in our own shit. Shit that we keep dumping to make our life bitterer and more miserable than what it already is. Learn to live above it. Life will never stop. No one decision can do that, and no one event can do that. [Exception may include the decision of consuming poison, cyanide or walking in front of a train/bus hoping that it will move out of the way.] We grow with our experiences. We learn from them. The dictionary [well in today’s age I used answers.com] defines the word experience as “The apprehension of an object, thought, or emotion through the senses or mind”. The word itself signifies a growth in our understanding of a situation, of ourselves and those crazy forces that drive us to do what we do.

Don’t ever fear a choice or its consequent result. It’s just a choice. If I give you two random choices and ask you to choose A or B, and promise you that both are good choices, will you be able to choose either. You don’t even know what they are, or what result they will bring. Almost always we eliminate the bad choices at the start itself and what we’re left with are the choices amongst which no one answer is the correct answer. The act of procrastination of the choice may be the worst choice, but it’s still just one choice. You’ll never know what the result of any choice will be till you make that choice.

As far as results and consequences go, they seem to be the single most driving factor in our lives. “What will happen?” this might be the most frequently asked question to oneself. Why fear the consequence so much. It’s just one event in your life, it’s not the end all of your existence. Depending on its relevance, it may shape the direction your life takes for a few hours, days, weeks, months or even years but it’s not going to shape who you are. Where you go in life and who you are will not be dependent on one decision or one result. Remember to decide to keep yourself happy, it’s the single most important decision you can take in your life.