Travelling Soldier

Image from WikipediaDecisions

Each decision counts. Each one.

Either you wake up now and start your day or press the snooze button. Either you choose to go to college or bunk it.

As you walk forward in the journey called your life, you have to make decisions regarding which road to take. Sometimes, there are clear directions to your destination, but sometimes there aren't any at all. All you can do is to decide which road next to follow based on your gut feeling, and with each decision you make, your course of journey changes, irreversibly.

There I stand on the crossroads, unable to decide on which of one to take. I recall Robert Frost's "Road Less Traveled":

ROAD LESS TRAVELED

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth

Then took the other as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet, knowing how way leads onto way
I doubted if I should ever come back

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence
Two roads diverged in a wood
And I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference

-Robert Frost

I am sorry that I can't travel both. Neither can I stand there indefinitely. I need to decide and move on. Life is made up of a series of decisions, each one changing the course of it. You eventually decide wake up and go to your classes.

Keep your destination clear in mind and believe that whatever you do is for the good, and you shall never repent. Hope is what keeps us running. It is with the hope that tomorrow's morning will be bright that we go to sleep today.

Continue reading →

The meaning of Life

What is it?



Its on a Sunday evening that I started introspecting and wondering about the meaning of life. This animation called life, this river that alters the course of life of others as it passes by, this gift given by someone up there beyond our understanding, this one beautiful recipe that tastes both joyish and sorrowish, this drama where some play big and some ever get noticed, what is it, what is its meaning?

As I stand in my room with my eyes closed, listening to the plain music that flows and fills the surroundings, I try to think about what I want out of my life? All I feel is a sense of deep silence and whenever I do this again, the question eludes me to the deepest of its mysteries. Why is it that on this road, we can only see backwards and not see what is at the front? Steve Jobs beautifully summarizes life:

"You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life"

And so what is my next dot going to be? Is it something that I know? I am never sure of what is going to happen tomorrow, may be that is something that keeps life interesting. If God ever came to me and asked what I would want, what would be my wish? I don't know and I never would know. I many times come up with an answer and it amuses me that each time its different. That is why, I tell God to deal with the problem of others, but I just ask him this one thing - that each and every decision I take, I would never like to repent in the future and I ask him for the strength to be able to face the results. After all, its these decisions that mark the dots on the canvas called life.

---

Further Reading : Steve Jobs' Commencement Address at Stanford

Continue reading →