As much as I dislike John Mayer for his doofus (read: bigoted) tweets, my soul still connects with his lyrics. Very few things can get me out of a down and out funk like a "Why Georgia" or "Heart of Life".
I do take songs on my iPod to be signs from the Universe and as "Heart of Life" came on my iPod today, I saw the significance of the lyrics. Just a couple of months ago, I was in a state of despair. No direction, no path (or so I thought). Just when I, the forever optimist, was about to give up, my loved ones came to protect that silver lining. They opened Pandora's box with hope just when I was overwhelmed with everything else that came out of it and boy, am I glad they did!
The heart of life is good.
It sure is. It takes a while to see and realise but as much as I don't believe in Karma/destiny, I do believe that everything happens for a reason. A good reason. It's hard to see that when all you can see are grey clouds but there is a silver lining. There always is.
The heart of life is good.
I'm grateful for that rough patch of my life and am also glad that life showed me that you can't continue to face every day with rose tinted glasses. The last few months have been humbling, have been enlightening and have provided me with a whole lot of insight and anecdotes for a commencement speech or a TED talk someday. Mostly, I'm glad that the rough patch has helped me appreciate and make the most of the smallest of joys! I'm a better and hopefully wiser person, because of failure and disappointment.
My perspective on the last few months changed after something I saw today. A kid was learning to ride a bike for the first time. This brought back memories of me learning to ride a bike in Muscat. I still remember my first time on a bike (without the training wheels). I always rode around our little colony in Oman with my training wheels on, admiring the bigger boys who went zooming past on their bigger bikes, sans the training wheels. I was in awe of them but also scared to lose my support system and join the big bad biking club. One day as I was somewhat trying to catch up with my friends Ahmed and Hamad, they urged me to lose those training wheels. I begged to differ, I would fall if I removed those wheels. I was only 6 at that time but I still remember what one of them said to me, he said falling was a part of learning to ride the bike. "You can't really ride a bike unless you have fallen. If you don't fall, you may as well not ride the bike". Failing, or falling in this context, thereby became a step to achieving success, not the opposite of it. So the badazz 6-year old that I was, went for that big bold step of riding a cycle sans the training wheels and voila! I did fall but I also got back up and tried riding again, because well, falling was a step to success. That pep talk worked and I'm still riding my bike till date, sometimes falling, sometimes scared of falling but mostly knowing that even if I do fall, it will just add to the joy of the bike riding experience.
The same can be said in life. Failing or falling don't have to be the antonym of success, they can just become a part of success by becoming the step that takes you closer or pushes you harder to be where you want to be. Failure doesn't always have to be the bad guy or something to be scared of or avoided. The last couple of months have been that step for me and although I resented it at first, I'm grateful for what I have gotten out of it.
Fear is a friend who is misunderstood, the heart of life is good.
I do take songs on my iPod to be signs from the Universe and as "Heart of Life" came on my iPod today, I saw the significance of the lyrics. Just a couple of months ago, I was in a state of despair. No direction, no path (or so I thought). Just when I, the forever optimist, was about to give up, my loved ones came to protect that silver lining. They opened Pandora's box with hope just when I was overwhelmed with everything else that came out of it and boy, am I glad they did!
The heart of life is good.
It sure is. It takes a while to see and realise but as much as I don't believe in Karma/destiny, I do believe that everything happens for a reason. A good reason. It's hard to see that when all you can see are grey clouds but there is a silver lining. There always is.
The heart of life is good.
I'm grateful for that rough patch of my life and am also glad that life showed me that you can't continue to face every day with rose tinted glasses. The last few months have been humbling, have been enlightening and have provided me with a whole lot of insight and anecdotes for a commencement speech or a TED talk someday. Mostly, I'm glad that the rough patch has helped me appreciate and make the most of the smallest of joys! I'm a better and hopefully wiser person, because of failure and disappointment.
My perspective on the last few months changed after something I saw today. A kid was learning to ride a bike for the first time. This brought back memories of me learning to ride a bike in Muscat. I still remember my first time on a bike (without the training wheels). I always rode around our little colony in Oman with my training wheels on, admiring the bigger boys who went zooming past on their bigger bikes, sans the training wheels. I was in awe of them but also scared to lose my support system and join the big bad biking club. One day as I was somewhat trying to catch up with my friends Ahmed and Hamad, they urged me to lose those training wheels. I begged to differ, I would fall if I removed those wheels. I was only 6 at that time but I still remember what one of them said to me, he said falling was a part of learning to ride the bike. "You can't really ride a bike unless you have fallen. If you don't fall, you may as well not ride the bike". Failing, or falling in this context, thereby became a step to achieving success, not the opposite of it. So the badazz 6-year old that I was, went for that big bold step of riding a cycle sans the training wheels and voila! I did fall but I also got back up and tried riding again, because well, falling was a step to success. That pep talk worked and I'm still riding my bike till date, sometimes falling, sometimes scared of falling but mostly knowing that even if I do fall, it will just add to the joy of the bike riding experience.
The same can be said in life. Failing or falling don't have to be the antonym of success, they can just become a part of success by becoming the step that takes you closer or pushes you harder to be where you want to be. Failure doesn't always have to be the bad guy or something to be scared of or avoided. The last couple of months have been that step for me and although I resented it at first, I'm grateful for what I have gotten out of it.
Fear is a friend who is misunderstood, the heart of life is good.
No comments:
Post a Comment