Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Disappointments are the Ways of Life

The other day I was talking to my neighbor when her beautiful little daughter came running to her. She was very upset, she wanted to play with some kids in the neighborhood who were a little older than her but they refused to let her in. She fought a little but soon gave up and came crying to her mom for comfort and kind words. Instead, her mom told her - its ok honey “Disappointments are the ways of life you will soon outgrow this phase and move on!"
That touched me a lot. It’s not something new that she said but the way she said it. There was an ease to it. It seemed like she never forgets how life can be so unpredictable and can sometimes push us around in all different directions. She didn’t get angry at the other kids or taught her daughter anything negative against them. She simply gave her daughter a compassionate smile and asked her to take it easy…

When I got back home, I started thinking how we often forget that every occurrence or every incident that ever happened to us right from our childhood are just the different faces of life. And life does not have one single pattern to it. It goes through several upheavals at times. Because of our inability to focus at the larger picture we lash out our anger at the people who we think might be responsible for it. It could be our neighbor, our boss, our colleague, our friend, our relative or anyone. Whereas people are merely a source or medium in helping us realize that it’s the life that’s pushing us around…

Disappointments are definitely the ways of life but seen with a different perspective, I don’t think that there’s anything wrong in feeling it this way. In the absence of disappointments there would be complacency, which according to me, is not a healthy exercise for a meaningful existence. At least when we are disappointed at the outcome, it’s a reminder for us that we do see big dreams, that we expect a lot better from us, that our desires or expectations are still alive or burning within us. Failure in a venture is a way of telling us that we are at least capable of making an attempt at it. Being disappointed at failing in love is a way to tell that we are capable of falling in love! Getting disappointed at not finding the desired position or job is a reminder that this is what we wanted and could possibly get it with some alterations in strategy…

Its all about the light and perspective we see it in..

In fact those who ever said that they have never faced disappointments or failures in life probably never desired enough…

3 comments:

Unknown said...

am touched.... i dont have to tell you which line touched me the most :)

Sourabh Pandey said...

there is a depth in ur thought process.....very good...:)

Unknown said...

Your neighbor's approach towards handling the distaste of her daughter towards the elderly kids is as good as it gets. More often than not, we all make the same mistake of curbing the medium rather than the cause of our misadventure. The medium??? Yes, the society is nothing but a medium, life takes to show it ways. But as a natural instinct no one like to break his/her head against a wall. We like to see some reciprocating feelings for each and every action - inclusive of our anger. Life is nothing but a wall that does not show any emotion towards our actions. However, the medium always retorts to our actions in different ways.

Infusing positivity and compassion at an early, tender age is the key to evolve a near Utopian society.