Good and bad years of life
As one goes through life, one passes through great years of
joy as well as hard years of difficulty due to various reasons from health,
finances, relationships and a host of other reasons that can make life tough.
The difficult years are the ones when we learn most; without them one may end
up quite foolish and stupid or at least I would have.
It is in one’s good years that one has to be careful. It is
usually a human habit that we tend to remember God in difficulty and forget him
when the going is comfortable. The famous saint Kabir has said that if humans
remembered God in good years too then there would be little reason for the
Universe to grant us hard times. It is also important to be grateful to Father
Universe and Mother Earth in good years for everything from sunshine to our
life breath comes from Him and Her. It is also important to help others in
whatever way one can, those who are going through hard times in these years,
especially the poor and the vulnerable like children, for if we did not do that
we too would get little help when we face our hard days. Moreover if we did not make others happy we would find little happiness even in our good years because true happiness comes form adding that in the life of others. Things can change in
an instant in any life for that is in the hands of the Universe than in our
hands through the little freedom we enjoy with the grace of the universe to run
our own lives.
While this blog, now around eight years old contains many
topics of general interest, every now and then I have included sketches from my
own life so that if a researcher got down to it he could get a fairly good idea
of how my life went. Today I tried to score the different years of my life on a
scale of -10 to 10 with the negative scores for bad years. It is a score for
the overall trend in a year because even in bad years there are good moments
and in good years bad ones and it is very approximate just to get an idea of
the overall trend. I kept the rating between +9 and -9 for the most part with
+9 for the best years of my life and -9 for the worst. If one knows how to put
the data in excel one can easily come up with a shaded chart of the resulting
score. It seems that with the grace of the Lord life has been good for the most
part. I am thankful to the Lord for it and have remembered Him and His Grace
all through. However undoubtedly most learning and wisdom came through the hard
years, therefore in the chart I have marked these as years of learning rather
than bad years. Unlike the change of seasons and motion of planets that go through gradual cycles, changes in life appear to be more sudden from good to bad and bad to good.
The dark negative years of life, even though they may
be a briefer portion of one’s life, leave a deep impression on one’s psyche.
They make one, regret for foolishness, immaturity and wrongs one did that are
in the ultimate analysis at the root of difficulties. They make one
philosophical and reflect. They also make one appreciate the good years more
and be grateful for them and cherish the most valuable in life – Love, Truth
and Simplicity.
There are the earliest years of life that one cannot
remember prior to age 3 but one may rate them the same as from the time one
does. My earliest years were spent in the Himalayan town of Nainital and the top picture is from there. But
life continues endlessly through many life times and that journey from eternity
to eternity is far more important that the blip of a single life time. That belief
is something that has helped shape my present life. I have given as much
importance to my next life most times as the present one.
A Journey through the good and hard years of life |
Comments