"Life goes on..."

“I can sum up in the three words what I have learnt in life – Life goes on.” – This is what Robert Frost had to say about life. Although we sometimes refer to time as standing still yet that is only a fleeting feeling. It moves on and helps to colour our life in varied new hues. Life changes each day. A day or more precisely 24 hours or 1440 minutes is not only a numeric figure but it connotes these many lessons learnt. The application of these lessons is carried over to the next day. And life goes on…

I once read a board in a hospital that said, “This too will pass.” What a wonderful way of inspiring the ones, who had been bogged down by one or the other ailment. Moreover, the essence of life lies in seeing the glass half full and not half empty. It’s all in our mind, the way we look at the things life will seem to be wrapped in those colours only. A person, who is happy will see the bliss of spring all around him; and when we feel sad, dejected and lonely, the whole of the environment seems to be engulfed in the aura of solitude.

Keep in mind the next time, you see a flower laden tree, carry the happiness in your mind and you will see the nature herself spread cheer around you. Life goes on … true! But we have to make it run on our own terms. Be the controller, director and writer of your life. Adapt yourself to changing moods of the life. And not even for a moment you will feel the pinch of the extremities of life.

Alienation

According to Enclopaedia Britannica, the meaning of the term alienation has been analysed as under: “The idea of alienation remains an ambiguous concept with elusive meanings, the following variants being most common: (1) powerlessness, the feeling that one’s destiny is not under one’s own control but is determined by external agents, fate, luck, or institutional arrangements, (2) meaninglessness, referring either to the lack of comprehensibility or consistent meaning in any domain of action (such as world affairs or interpersonal relations) or to a generalized sense of purposelessness in life, (3) normlessness, the lack of commitment to shared social conventions of behaviour (hence widespread deviance, distrust, unrestrained individual competition, and the like), (4) cultural estrangement, the sense of removal from established values in society (as, for example, in intellectual or student rebellions against conventional institutions), (5) social isolation, the sense of loneliness or exclusion in social relations (as, for example, among minority group members), and (6) self-estrangement, perhaps the most difficult to define and in a sense the master theme, the understanding that in one way or another the individual is out of touch with himself.”

In today’s modern world, when we have so many new gadgets to talk to any person, in any part of the world at any time, we have the feeling of bonding that used to be there in the past times. A feeling of alienation has crept in. We often have the feeling of being ‘lonely in the crowd’. Man is not at peace with himself. So he cannot stay at peace with the society, his neighbours and his family. This instability and uneasiness that has entered into the modern materialistic life has led to the thinking man’s alienation. It also should be noted here that the feeling of alienation is a subjective term. We all have the level of alienation we feel or the kind of affinity we have with our surroundings.

It seems ironic that with the increase in methods and techniques of communication, the feeling of isolation, loneliness and alienation has increased, instead of waning. We have lost the opportunity of experiencing what Sir Edward Dyer said: “My mind to me a kingdom is”.

International Women's Day - March 8

March 8 is celebrated as International Women’s Day. There is no harm in celebrating days dedicated to some event. But the point is that we need to carry the essence of the celebrations to each day of the year and not keep it reserved for only particular day only.

Talking of Women’s Day I can say, everyday needs to be a Women’s Day. We don’t celebrate any Men’s Day. So does that mean – we celebrate only one out of the three hundred and sixty five days as women’s day. To obtain equality of sexes, women need to make efforts on their own part as well. They should not demand recognition for their work. Instead their deeds, actions and the work done should itself do the talking. In order to earn respect from the men’s world, they need to respect themselves first of all. Respecting oneself entails understanding one’s own capacities and abilities, and not underestimating oneself. It also includes not being dependant on others for things that can be done well independently.

To end on a lighter note, I would like to share a message I received yesterday:

‘Practice makes a man perfect.’ So what about women?

They don’t need any practice, they are born perfect.

We girls rock!!!

Moreover, “Never blame a girl, she teaches better than anyone else. If she is with you, she’ll teach how to live; if she leaves, she’ll teach how to survive.”