Indipendence of Heart

It’s yet another gloomy day. Gloomy because sun refused to show up, gloomy because clouds hovered over the sky all day and gloomy because people are not happy at heart. It might be the Independence Day in the United States that people are celebrating with fireworks. But unfortunately, not everyone is independent yet. People are enslaved still, in their own worlds, in their own mind and within their own heart, demoralized, discouraged and disheartened, low on their self-esteem, depressed and let down. They have their heart on ‘fire’ stopping them from the ‘work’. What good it is that you light your house when all the darkness looms over within the heart?

It might seem to us that the world is full of troubles. Looking at it from one perspective, it is. Each and every following moment, something goes wrong, which obstructs us. Time and again, that befalls on us which we so badly wish that it would not. And at times when we so badly expect something to happen, never does. Many a times when we give our best efforts, we still end up making no progress. Every now and then that the BAD guys take you over, when you are trying to be the GOOD guy. Here and there we notice that the falsehood works, and that we are penalized for telling the truth. Something we do innocently ends up taking us to yet another problem and that we get punished for it. Every time we try to explain something, we are not understood and quite often even misunderstood. Before we could have taken care of one problem, there is yet another fresh one at the doorstep knocking. Your Boss shouts at you because he lost a contract with a client, or his son failed in the school or his wife filed for a divorce. Your parents think you are born without a purpose and are good for nothing. Your friends think that you have gone crazy, and that you are living a life of shame, that you are a looser. Round and round you see around, and you will find yourself tied, and entangled, within the web of these ‘troubles’, and be frustrated, unhappy, depressed, downcast and in blue. Let me tell you that YOU HAVE A PROBLEM, that you are mentally ILL. I know it sounds bitter, but that is the truth.

You have accepted at one point of time, that you are good for nothing, that you are born without a purpose and that you are a looser. You have viewed yourself down there, fighting and trying to get out of the unfathomable vast matrix of social, economical, political, religious, moral principles, and given up. You have decided that you are never going to come out of it, and that it’s almost useless to give it a shot. You have cursed yourself for not being able to pay for your child’s education, or not being able to help your aging parents, or take care of your wife’s needs or not having been able to pay the credit card debt or buy yourself a beautiful car. You have seen all the problems wandering on your way, obstructing your vision, and you find your limbs bound by the heavy chains. You can’t walk and you shuffle your way into the unknown destination, that you can’t speak and you stammer. I am sorry for you, but its all in YOU. You accepted yourself as who you are, because YOU BECOME WHO YOU CHOOSE TO BE. When you are there seeking SOLUTIONS, I am here trying convince that there are no PROBLEMS. It’s just your perspective. You are sedentary, fixed at that end of the cylinder which shows you the circle, and you regret that everything is void. I am here going around it trying to tell you that it has a face surrounding the void, and that it’s not just a circle. You have accepted yourself as the CATERPILLAR and want to crawl with itchy spikes on your body which everyone hates. And I am here trying to motivate you that you are a BUTTERFLY and that you can fly if you can transform yourself through a phase of life. You are there sitting down miserable because all that you can see is pain and suffering. I am here to tell you that “PAIN AND SUFFERING IS INEVITABLE BUT BEING MISERABLE IS OPTIONAL”. I am here to tell you that LIFE IS LIKE THAT. But it’s up to me whether I want to accept it that way, or accept it MY way.

I choose to believe that there are NO problems. I choose to believe that hard work pays, and choose never to give up. I choose to believe that truth wins, and continue to keep promises. I choose to be HAPPY. I understand that LIFE IS NOT EASY. But it’s OK with me, that it is not. I still love it. I know my Boss shouts at me in the office, because a wrong file I created the other day caused a delay of two days. I MAKE mistakes at times, but I never REPEAT them. Next time he will shout at me for something else, and it is acceptable for me because I am learning everyday. I live almost the same life you do. But I differ from you in the fact that I am elated when a plant I watered blooms the next day, in the fact that I can always find some time for a cup of coffee with a friend, that I watch out of the window and hum a song when it rains, that I sit down by the river one evening and afford to miss the news on the television, that I sit down one fine winter day under the sun and read ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’, or listen to music, or sit inside the house one Saturday afternoon and watch a beautiful movie and not worry about what my electricity and gas bills for the month might be. Once in a while I sit down with the love of my life in a café round the corner, sipping a cup of coffee over mushy conversation, listening to Ella Fitzgerald singing “They Can’t take that away from me” or Don Williams singing “I believe in you”. That’s where I find LIFE. Sometimes when I am returning home from a tiring day’s work, I pause to stand by the wall of the bookstore and look at the torn poster of W.H. Auden’s “O Tell Me the Truth About Love”:

…. When it comes, will it come without warning
Just as I'm picking my nose?
Will it knock on my door in the morning,
Or tread in the bus on my toes?
Will it come like a change in the weather?
Will its greeting be courteous or rough?
Will it alter my life altogether?
O tell me the truth about love.

Once in a while, I take a casual leave for nothing, and take my family to a park and have fun in watching how my daughter enjoys the slide or the swing. More often, I sit down alone, and DREAM. That’s one thing I can do with the best of my freedom. I live my life one extra hour everyday and live it twice as beautiful. Everyday I wake up with a smile on the face, thinking how good I have always been, and how well my life has been. It’s the equal number of stones you and I trip to and fall down. You curse on the stone and walk away; I move it aside and watch my step and feel good about the fact that I wouldn’t have learnt to watch my steps, had there been no stones on the road.

I know you haven’t dreamt for months now. You haven’t sit down at the park wondering how life would have been, had she been there with you. You haven’t stopped over the bridge, to see how it feels when the cool breeze glides past your ear. You haven’t slept under the open sky one clear night, and wondered where the stars and planets might be. You are still there sulky, dejected and doomed, seeking the SOLUTIONS. And I am here cheering you up, still trying to convince that there are NO PROBLEMS.

Believe me, there are NONE. Let the rain fall, let the cloud scatter, and let the sun come up. Start your independence from right within. A light inside shows you a clearer path than the fireworks outside do. Let it be the end of the gloomy day.

 

© bipul luitel 08