Sunday, April 29, 2012

Really it is Unpredictable...

I was at the Landmark store, viewing some novel when my eyes got stuck to a book. The cover page was really fascinating and it attracted me towards it as if it had some magical powers. I took the book, flipped it around and started reading the summary of the book. It’s been quite some while and I was almost done reading the summary of the book when I saw someone standing beside me and staring at me blankly.

“Are you going to buy this book or what?” said the man

I turned towards him, he was a man in his late forties I guess and he looked older to his age.

“Well I am planning to.” I said

“Buy it. You will never regret.” He said and left

I opened the book and I couldn’t believe my eyes. The author was the same old man who was standing by my side a while before. I took the book, went to the counter and paid its price. I went to the cafeteria, only to find him sipping coffee.

“May i?” I asked him

“Yes sure.” He said

I took the seat opposite to his, kept the book on the table and said,

“Sorry, I didn’t recognize you then.”

“Not an issue, nobody does.” He said

“So what is this book about?” I asked him

“I want you to find it by yourself.” He said

“Still, anything worth telling?” I probed him

“It’s about those things that people don’t care about these days, but when land up themselves in a deep shit then they regret about it later. It’s my experience.” He said rudely

There was an eerie silence for a while, which he broke after sometime

“What do you aspire to become?”

“A writer”

“And what are you doing for it?”

“Nothing. I am pursuing my engineering, writing articles for a website and newspaper, and I dream all day that someday I will become a writer.” I said

“See that’s what happens in life. You hardly become what you aspire to. Even I wanted to become a writer in all my life. But all my life I did everything, except this writing part. But when my life was in a deep shit then I realized what a blunder I have done. Take my advice, do what you really want to do in life not what others want you to become. Or else later on you will regret as how I am regretting.” He said

“If you don’t mind, will you tell me how it started for you? What happened with you?” I asked him

He didn’t say anything, just got up from his seat and looked outside from the window. I realized he didn’t want to share with me so I took the book and was about to leave when my ears heard something.

“When you want something, the entire universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” He asked me to sit and then continued with his story.

“I believe this with all my heart. However the act of living one’s own destiny includes a series act of stages that are far beyond our understanding, whose objective is always to take us back to the path of our personal legend or to make us learn the lessons necessary to fulfill our own destiny. I think I can better illustrate what I am saying by relating an episode in my life. On august 12, 2007, I went to sleep with a single certainty: at the age of forty I was successfully making my way to the top of my career as a recording executive. I was working as artistic director and I had just been invited to the United States to talk to the owners of the company, who would surely provide me with every opportunity to achieve all that I desired to do in my area. Of course my great dream to be a writer- had been set aside but what did that matter? Afterall, real life was very different from what I had imagined; there was no way to earn a living from literature. That night I made a decision : to abandon my dream. One had to adapt to circumstances and take advantage of opportunities. If my heart protested, I could deceive it by composing song lyrics whenever I wanted and by doing some writing now and then for some newspaper. Besides, I was convinced that my life had taken a different path, but one no less exciting: a brilliant future awaited me in the world of music internationals. When I woke up I received a phone call from the president of the company: I had just been fired, without further explanation. Although I knocked on various doors in the next two years, I never found a position again in that field. When I finished writing my first book, I recalled that episode- and other manifestations of the unavoidable in my life. Whenever I thought myself the absolute master of a situation, something would happen to cast me down. I asked myself: why? Can it be that I am condemned to always come close but never reach the finish line? Can god be so cruel that they would let me see the palm trees on the horizon only to have me die of thirst in the desert? It took a long time to understand that it wasn’t quite like that. There are things that are brought into our lives to lead us back to the true path of our personal legend. Other things arise so we can apply all that we have learned. And finally some things come along to teach us. In my book, I tried to show that these teachings need not be linked to pain and suffering; discipline and attentiveness alone are enough. Although this understanding has become an important blessing in my life, it still did not equip me to transit certain difficult moments that I experienced, even with total discipline & attentiveness. One example in the case I have cited; I was a serious professional made every effort to give the best there in me, and had ideas that even today I consider worthwhile. But the unavoidable happened, at the very moment when I felt most secure & confident. I believe I am not alone in this experience; the unavoidable has touched the life of every human being on the face of the earth. Some have rebounded, others have given up- but all of us have felt the wings of tragedy brushing against us.”

When I returned home, I couldn’t sleep that night. Well whatever he said, that was the bitter truth of life that we hardly care about. Life is unpredictable, and truly we can’t stop the unavoidable to happen in our life. And when it happens we start cursing our fate for it. We don’t realize that it’s the consequence of our deeds in our life.