I am beginning my journey. The journey, this beautiful gift called LIFE. My bags packed with love, faith, hope, courage, prayers, and a new life and a new adventure, I set out for yet another journey of learning. I wonder, will this journey ever end?
LIFE, such a beautiful word, but indeed rather mysterious. LIFE, you can never know where it takes you.
While in high school, a friend of mine once asked me till when I was planning to do my education. I remember flipping through the pages of my handbook, counting the days when my holidays would begin and I would be going home. “Maybe finish my bachelor’s degree atleast”, I had answered, without having given much thought to it. Most of us tend to think that education is just about going to schools and colleges, doing assignments, writing exams, learning to read and write. Or, is education just about acquiring more and more degrees and PhDs? Through the years, I’ve realised that education is much more than these, and that, the answer I had given to that friend of mine almost three years back, was too vague. Too vague, to even call it so.
The years have portrayed the celebrations and defeats, victories and failures, joys and sorrows, laughters and tears, of men and society, of cultures and milieus, of individuals, of you and me. I’ve learnt now, that LIFE itself is an education. LIFE is all about learning, of adventures, of winning, of losing, of making mistakes. LIFE is a journey of education.
It surprises me sometimes to hear some people remark, “I know everthing”. A friend of my friend, once, over the dinner table spoke about his acquisition of the numerous degrees from the this and that universities and finally exclaimed that he knew everything under the sky. And I wonder how this could be possible. Where knowledge remains unlimited and the time to acquire it….oh! so short! This small, yet beautiful word, indeed continue to waken our senses. LIFE, the true existence of all energy and vigour, all emotions encompassing the heart. All in this journey, LIFE, so short, yet so eternal!
Everyday is a gift of life. Just as we learn all the petty everyday task, we are learning to live life as well. A teacher once spoke about how learning to live LIFE can be compared to that of learning to drive a car. It was interesting, I suppose, as I consider about the journey I had made with my own life, me, as the driver of my life. “We are the drivers of our life”, she had said. “The rear mirror show us our past. The future we look forward to, in front”
Memories, bitter or sweet, remain and we can always look back to them. However, some of us often look behind, pining and regretting, so much so that we forget to look ahead. We get lost into a bygone life, get halted by speed-breakers and then, the need to start all over again. What if LIFE is like that. Like turning the keys when halted by LIFE’s ‘mysterious surprises’, thinking anew, hoping afresh and starting all over again, gliding our wheels bravely along this rather rough journey we call LIFE.
Our life on earth is so complex, a crossroad where all meanings of life meet and change course. Of the songs of innocence so sweetly sung and of experiences treading towards the road to maturity.
Yes, I know my journey still continues.
Somewhere along the road, realities have chosen us to be the driver of our lives. With speed bumps on the way, blinding lights ahead, we must not give up. With the will to go on into the dark nights of distress and loneliness, for there is so much to discover on the way, with joys and laughter for every teardrop, new buds after every winter, many fruits of hard labour and many milestones to be surpassed.
With bittersweet memories and wondrous experiences of learning, I realised, this journey…..never ends.
