This is an article that appeared in the Times of India today. It's written by Vinita Dawra Nangia and no matter how hard I try, no matter how many redrafts I make, I'd never be able to write so beautifully,packing so much punch in just one piece.Nevertheless I wanted to share this with everyone and anyone who bothers to read this. It might be long, but trust you me, it's worth the time and effort:
"A colleague’s g-chat tagline read thus… “So, let’s put it like this: I asked for a small round ice-cream cake with a cherry on top. . . and I got a 3-tier German chocolate cake with an extra supply of mango soufflé and butter cookies!! Now, that’s great. But the point is... where is my “small round ice-cream cake with a cherry on top?? Is that too much to ask for?” No, it isn’t too much to ask for. It was never too much. But maybe someone thought they would give you more than you wanted assuming that would make you happier. But they assumed wrong, didn’t they? You wanted just that one small cake, and all the big ones in the world cannot make up for the fact that you didn't get the one you really wanted. Things don’t always work out exactly as you want them to. And if the intensity of the desire was strong, then even though you may have got much more than you wanted, the craving for that one thing that escapes you never really goes away. Anjali, a friend, was working her way up to Head of Operations for a firm in Hyderabad. When promotion time came, another colleague made it to that slot while Anjali got a double promotion and was made the South Head, controlling all southern city ops. Even through the congratulations and accompanying euphoria, she admits to having felt back then a deep regret that she never could hold quite the post she had dreamt about! Today, five years later, though enjoying her job, she still wonders what it would have been like to have had her dream fulfilled and head Hyderabad ops! Would you say she was being ungrateful? Sure, you would. But then what about the boy who made it through the JEE IIT and yet committed suicide because he got Kharagpur rather than Delhi IIT, his first choice? He hadn’t got a better centre, but he did at least get into IIT. What about the many others who were nowhere on the merit list? Such disappointments occur when we allow our desires and dreams to overtake us and start living in anticipation of their fulfillment. A narrow focus makes us oblivious to all else but the goal in mind, very often blinding us to better options or greater pleasures just within our reach. A closed mind doesn’t allow us to enjoy that which we got instead of hankering after what escaped our clutches. And life carries on…a series of regrets and what ifs…. How does one avoid this trap? We all grow up hearing the adage, Jo hota hai achche ke liye hota hai — whatever happens, is for the best. And most of us grow up to believe it and pass it on to the next generation. Situations we have fought and protested against, turns of Fate we have cribbed about, or choices forced upon us that we have kicked out at — haven’t we all so often lived to bless these “adversities?” In retrospect, much of what we desired and didn’t get later seems like stuff we are well rid of, be it a job, a car, some particular house, a dream or even a lover! Life has a strange way of falling into a pattern as we move on, creating an interesting mosaic, which though unfathomable from near, assumes greater meaning as we move further away from it. There seems suddenly to have been a reason for whatever happened. Well, the reason was always there, I guess. Suddenly it seems comprehensible to us. As we move away from a situation and move on in life, we understand why we were denied certain things and how not getting others that we coveted actually was a great blessing for us. There seems to be a Power, someone up there who knows it all. Someone who has laid out the pattern and reveals it to us only bit by bit. As long as you trust in this, you may rest assured that life seems more manageable and you better equipped to handle it. This serves as a great source of solace too. Whenever you don't manage to get what you aimed for, you can always fall back on the face-saver that whatever happens, is for the best! However, let’s not sound facetious here. If you believe in the Power that be, great, if you don’t then you have to believe that the only reason you seem better off without what you got is because you convince yourself into believing so, and it’s no better than a case of sour grapes! I prefer to go with the first explanation…What about you? "
