WHEN LIFE INTERVENES







There is a saying I heard once that goes along the lines of ...'Life is what happens when you're busy making plans'. I did not know what it meant, at least not until I started living life. See, what I've come to realise is that there's two things in a person's life - dreams and reality. Dreams, we all have - the little girl who dream of someday becoming a talented singer, or the young boy who dreams of becoming a famous footballer. We make dreams and we plan for them, ever keeping our eyes on the coveted prize and doing whatever we can to try to make it come true. It is that one thing that motivated us as children. It really doesn't matter how improbable they are...having dreams mean having direction and drive. And it keeps one optimistic and earnest, and the mind filled with wishes and hope. And so we push on, trying our best to make these dreams come true, ever busy, ever earnest, never once thinking of what can go wrong. Or that dreams can be so easily put aside.



That is when life intevenes....or should we say 'reality'. Here, there is no space for dreams or wishes. It's the daily grind of making a living, doing whatever it takes to have a roof over one's head and food on the table. Getting up every morning, going through the same routine of wash, breakfast, work, lunch, work, home, dinner and then sleep, day after day, week after week. Monotony and boredom, yet, the constant thought that one has to do what it takes to survive. It doesn't matter if one is not happy with the work. We need security, and to have that, one has to make some sacrifices. The line between these two is not as wide as one thinks. They run so closely parallel to one another that one does not realise when he has crossed over to the other. The eager student who has dreams of becoming a well-paid, respected computer technician, finds that once he graduates, he is faced with a shortage of jobs, and the company he had had his eye on since his childhood, does not accept him. What he is left with, thus, is a second rate job at at a second rate company with horrible timings and an even worse work culture. When this happens, it is so easy to give up and admit defeat, saying good-bye to the dreams that we had spent so much time investing in. And then living a life of regret over what should have been, either downing one's sorrow in alcohol or depression. Life is never easy on anyone. It tries one's patience and makes you want to give up and give in to it's tough demands. Then, when you finally give in, it laughs at you for being a failure. What most people tend to forget is that life is meant to be challenged. It really doesn't matter if one is from a very privileged family or one of the most down-trodden and broken of families. We all have our share of problems. We need to remember that it is God who has given us these challenges, and He will never give us something we can't handle. These problems are there to test us, to see if we are worthy of the blessings that life has to offer us. It is so easy to say 'I give up'. It is so much harder to say 'No, I will never give up. I will keep at it and win...' Anyone who has succeded immensely in life will always recount the struggles they make, and the failures they have had along the way. One needs to fail, realise where they went wrong, and learn from those mistakes. Being ever careful never guaranteed anything.

Life was meant to be lived, dreams meant to be turned into reality, wishes meant to be fulfilled. It's just a matter of digging out those dreams you stored away in the attic and blowing off the dust. You still have a lot of time, and a lot of heart to make them come true.



'...the heart is stronger than you think, like it can go through anything...even when you think it can't, it finds a way to still push on...'