Life is short…Live it…

My sister told me about her friend who died a few days back. The boy was just 23 years old and the only son of a very established business family, died in a road accident. Till today I didn’t know if my sister knew any such person, finding my sister all shaken by this incident I felt there’s a need for all of us to think about something that we never think of, Death and Life. The one thing we completely take for granted is the life that we are living, we very conveniently forget that one day we would die.

Ankit (name changed), was just 23. He would have had a million dreams he would want to fulfill, like falling in love, like seeing the world, like experiencing the ups and downs of life and grow old etc. Now since his story came to an abrupt end, he would not be able to do that.

But what about us, people who are still living, are we living our dreams. I think the answer is NO.

A lot of people might say that it’s not true, because someone wanted to become a business tycoon; he became one. Someone wanted to own an expensive house, he now owns one. Someone wanted to be the head of the company, he became that. Most of us dream of material things and we strive to achieve them, and for us that is in the true sense living your dreams.

But tell me honestly, if tomorrow you get to know that you have just a few months left to live, what would you do? The question is very filmy, there are a thousand films I can think of, made on this question, but has anyone ever seriously given it a thought.

We’re all crazy collecting material happiness, ignoring friends, family and our own self on trying to be successful. And one day without notice it’s all over. Then what….???

I know of someone who’s a mother but spends 14-18 hours in a day at work, leaving her 2 year old daughter to be taken care of by a maid. Why…professional success. Then I know of someone who I’ll treats his family and ignores them and prefers to earn loads of money and buy property.

You know when my grandfather died; I was of course very sad and upset. I reached home dreading to see my grandmother’s face. And to my surprise she was calm and composed, wiping off other peoples tears. And every now and then with a brave face touching his forehead, I don’t know if anyone else saw what I did, but all I could see on her face was a hope that one last time he would open his eyes and tell her how much he loves her.

Not even one percent people in this world are as lucky as my grandparents were. They were married for 60 years and each day of at least my life which is a long time I saw them say “I Love You”.  And not just to each other, they did not spare the opportunity of telling each person they loved how much they loved them. And they both died surrounded by all the people they loved; with a smile on their face they left the world seeing everyone around them.

We might not be as lucky. We don’t know when our lives would come to an end and how. Would it be the end of the world as they say in 2012; Or World War 3; or a terrorist attack, bomb blast or some deadly virus infecting the world? We don’t know that, we don’t know when, where and how, but yes someday sometime for sure. And guess what when death stares us in the face, most of us would be filled with regret of not living our dreams, or not loving our families enough, or not having told the one I truly loved what he/she meant to me.

When I look around, I see people running after material wealth at the cost of anything and everything. People spending their lives scheming and plotting how to take away one bit of happiness or success from the person they consider competition. We compete for money, for success, beauty everything, we compete and fight hard to win. But what after you’ve won that competition; another one.

Ask yourself what truly makes you happy and how often do you do that.

Why are we so crazy about winning….???

What do we want to win….???

Why can’t we just live….???

How does it matter what country, caste, sex, religion or social status you are from…why can’t we be free to go where we want to and do what we want to??/

We hesitate in getting drenched in the rain because we worry about what people would think. We hesitate in crying or laughing out loud because of what people will think. We don’t do what brings us true happiness because someone somewhere (parents, spouse, or society) would not think very highly of it. And we don’t eat what we want to eat coz we want to be size zero, and appreciated by the world around.

We stop ourselves from everything, smiling, laughing, crying, singing, eating, and sometimes even breathing because someone somewhere would object to it.

We’ve given up our freedom, to get this stupid social system around us. A system which evaluates people on the basis of their material wealth, color, caste, sex. A system which is willing to kill and crush each meager life for the material benefits of a handful people. We keep giving up things or people we like/love for material benefits and silently one day it’s over.

And trust me, that day all the money and power holds the value of dust. At the end it doesn’t matter how many promotions I’ve had or how many houses I’ve built or how much money I have. What matters is did I live each day to the fullest. Did I do everything I ever wanted in life (not material things of course)? Did I tell each person who meant something to me how much I loved them and how thankful I feel for having met them? Did I ever make someone truly happy? Did I ever comfort someone who needed support? Did I feed a hungry child? Did I ever spend time listening to a lonely soul and telling them that they are not alone?

Unfortunately, Ankit couldn’t do any of these things, he was too young. But when you see someone die young, don’t be scared or sad, learn a lesson.

Life is too short; you don’t know when it would end. Live it to the fullest, live not to earn but to spread happiness, hope and love.

That’s the purpose each one of us has no rocket science to it.

Wrote this one a long time back...was lost in my folders... 24/10/2010