The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began,
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow if I can…
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many path and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say…
We wake up every morning and sleep every night with the thought of success in the mind, to run as fast as we can, to be as active as we can, to be known as far and wide as possible. Making friends as we evaluate their credentials, being on the side that’s in power and the buttering of the Profs. for those marks ‘which matter’. But, some of us still dwell in our pasts, in what could have been, the run away from that stalker named ‘Fear’, the reluctance to accept and the acceptance of the way they are or things that are.
Dreams are an undulating form of our thoughts, our wishes and our subconscious. We feel inspired with their heights, we feel threatened by their obscurity, and we crave their exhilarating existence-however virtual, and sometimes fear the dark it penetrates. Personally, dreaming makes me vulnerable, I wake up wanting something more, but that I feel is the essence, I feel a purpose in pushing myself more for the next 24 hours. Sometimes, we are wayfarers in the Neverland where we experience remorse and contempt and seclusion. Why is that?
In life we have faced a lot of problems, some petty and others huge, and fortunately, we will continue to do so. Fortunately, because it makes us want to improve. What has happened, is either great or unwanted. But it has happened! I need not be a mind power trainer to tell this, Life is always now and ahead, being an optimist is enough. But those who face problems must remember that they are someday, sometime destined to do greater things, to affect lives of people and places like yours right now. And perhaps it is an opportunity for you to make yourselves ready for it. Perhaps, you can’t strike on the go. But never give yourselves that chance to look back and repent on what you could have.
I give an example of an Eagle here. An eagle can live a life up to 70 years. At the age of around 35, its beaks and claws get folded, get old, its feathers get bulky and it then experiences what can perhaps be the last flight of precipice in life. It then has to take the toughest decision of its life, to die like this or to have a rebirth through struggle and pain. For, in order to live more it has to undergo 150 days of hell. It has to first knock off its beak in the rocks by pecking continuously till a new beak grows. Then it has to pluck its old feathers one by one in what is really painful cleansing to let the new ones grow. At the end of 150 days, if it can survive those, it can then live a life of 35 years more. A New life! A rebirth!
We face situations every time; in college, career and in our relationships. But above all, it is necessary for us to get over things which have masked a sense of failure in our hearts. For, there is no greater failure than accepting one and not improving. Sometimes it isn’t wrong for us to let go of things which we are obsessed about and play a waiting game. To sit back and look at things from a critic’s way and evaluate. Things happen, good and bad, but it is upon us to get over them and move ahead.
Take that extra step, or wait for that perfect moment. Try not to percolate into, what is self denial, into self contempt, into a stage of void. No one likes you there! So even if it seems objective to think it like this, a good thought, a need, a want in the morning isn’t bad for starters.
And as one of my friends told me, “Life is all about Moments… It’s all about moments.”
… Or still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate,
And though we pass them by today,
Tomorrow we may come this way
And take the hidden paths that run
Towards the Moon or to the Sun.
NOTE: The poem quoted above is from The Lord of The Rings by J.R.R Tolkien.
The writer is a Features correspondent of Youth Ki Awaaz.