Nonetheless, it's my birthday week, and that gives me enough reason to at least scribble something, if not for anything else, for the plain reason that before I complete a-quarter-century of my life, I need to have a small scale evaluation of my life so far... And, yeah, it turned out that, I did a good thing by deciding to do so, cuz, I realize, it's high time I got back on track to realize that, no matter how happy or sad I seem, I'm actually missing out on a lot in life, and yeah, that makes me deprived of a million things that I should be doing right now, or be having right now...
Coming back, over the weekend I decided I would get myself some time in a lonely corner of any coffee shop in the town, and would start scribbling down my thoughts... And, the thought of having a longer than usual weekend made me twice the happier to stick to the plan... However, practically that was more like a day dream to me, as it turned out on Friday morning that, I would spend the weekend working... And, well, I realized that I would again end up not putting down even a single letter of my planned blog-update...
And, from then on, I've been constantly looking for a handful of minutes to make my plan take shape... And, in that endeavour I realized that actually there's a restless inside me to do so... Although I was li'l vague about the reason behind initially, as and when minutes turned to hours, I realized why... There's always this thing in me that makes me adjust to things without cribbing much, till a point that's the highest of all my tolerance level... And, the moment it crosses that I start getting suffocated... And, yeah, that's what's happening with me in this event too...
And, then I decided, no matter how my today turns out to be, I would definitely find some time for myself today... And, thus, I'm sitting in this coffee shop now, taking out my frustration by scribbling down on my blackeberry with my perfectly manicured nails and without bothering they might break...Well, as usual, it was a pathetically hectic day today too... Had started the day so early that at this point in time I hardly remember it was today itself, and not yesterday... And, only when I get my credit card bills I would know exactly how many mugs of coffee I've gulped down during the day... Yeah, that's how I survive these days... Totally in trance, cuz of heavy dose of coffee... Nonetheless, I don't mind, cuz end of the day I get a sense of satisfaction for what I'm doing, yeah, unlikely to say, but I love my job...
As I ordered a mug of strong coffee, along with a chocolate dipped pastry, I let myself sink in the couch, and also in my thought... I felt a li'l better... It's been really long since I last sat like this... I remembered the days when I was in college... Over-priced coffee wasn't something me and my friends used to indulge in on a daily basis, but then every time we had gone to sip on some, we used to make sure that that stayed as a memorable event... Not cuz of the coffee, cake and the paraphernalia, but cuz of the floating laughters, cuz of the endless conversations, and cuz of the small happiness of coming to a place like this coming true... But then, those days are over... And now, even though these are places that I (and for that matter a millions like me) visit as a norm, where's the overflowing happiness??? In fact, there's no excitement in anything I do these days, cuz, the thing that's lacking in my life at this moment is the habit of enjoying the small moments of happiness, with the people I love and I care for...
Yeah, there was a time, when no matter how difficult life was, I used to smile always, with a content heart... I was small, hardly knew the complexities of life... Those days in college, the small pocket money used to be something I used to be waiting for from the middle of the month... It was a small amount, but used to bring mountains of happiness... After clearing monthly rent, keeping aside a li'l for travelling to college and back, and doing the li'l grocery shopping for the month, I used to count the money left, to plan for the most-awaited visits to the amazing (and pathetically expensive) food places, and coffee shops... Those visits used to be very limited in numbers, but the happiness that each of those events used to bring saw no limits... And yeah, the loaded memories that used to get piled up from each such day had only one thing to say, that, life was full of happiness, and certainly lively...
And there's today's day... When, those moments of happiness have turned into rare commodity... In midst of running from office to office with a prospective of climbing up the ladder in so called career, these moments of simple bliss have gone into becoming rarity... No doubt, from a distance this is the life I was dreaming back then in college... A well-paid job, a good place to work, and all the luxury of strolling in the expensive outlets of the city... But then, now I realize in midst of fulfilling all those dreams, I’ve turned into someone who doesn’t find a moment to indulge in what actually is called happiness... Not that I hate my life... In fact I’m extremely passionate about my life and each day of what it brings to me... And, everyone else around me feels so too, that I’m happy and content in my life... Not that I’m not... But then there’s always a longing inside me for the simple pleasures of life and the joy from meaningless million things... Cuz, somehow I believe in the concept that happiness and joy that come from these sources are the purest... And, somehow when I realize that I’m not happy in that way, it leaves me to wonder if I’m still alive...
I remember those days in college, when we used to plan for sudden trips on the highway... And, so do remember those multiple stop-overs by the roadside tea stalls on the long non-ending highway... And then, there were those economic trips to the close by tourist places on Friendship Day, Valentine’s Day and birthdays... Those were fun times... Away from the load of college texts, and from the extreme busy-ness of the city, those were our own time of freedom... Who could touch our happiness then??? We were free birds, waiting for the open sky... Yeah, there were stress-phases too... Exams, assignments, always short-on-cash wallets, pending gifts to best friends, budget shopping for V-days, last moment trips to book-stores, and more... But, each of these occasions used to be eventful... No matter whether we struggled, or were in stress, somehow the jest for life was never less... There was always a bunch of rays of endless hope to say that life is so alive... And, certainly happy...
I can’t really find a reason behind why I happen to gather restlessness over my life that I lead today, neither can I make myself understand why in the first place I need to consider myself deprived of real happiness... Nor can I find an answer to end my restlessness of all sorts... And, as I go deep down finding the root of all these, I vaguely realize, maybe somewhere deep down inside me lives a child that refuses to turn complex, refuses to understand that chaos is a part of life now, refuses to get carried away by the so-called norms of leading a successful life... Then I look at my parents, and realize there are reasons why I feel so... They, unlike many others, refused to get carried away by the glamour of material life and still believe that happiness and other truths of life come only from simplicity... And, in reality, that’s such a fruitful concept... If I look at them I realize, they’re happy and completely content... The race for keeping upto the world could never make them run so fast that it brings exhaust... They take their own pace to be where they’ve decided for themselves... They don’t consider the social norms that restrict them to not explore the path of real happiness; neither they care about how others perceive them as... What matters to them is the fact that they want a peaceful and truly happy life... And, they’re surely successful in what they wish ‘success’ to define as...
Yeah, on the contrary, in the effort to make something big in life (that’s how we, the generation of ours define it), I’ve got so stuck in making the bigger picture that in that process, I’ve lost out on realizing that the smaller bits need to be taken care of first, to make the bigger one look eclectic... Maybe, I’ve started losing out on the vision that says the fun in any journey is not the destination, but the journey itself... Or maybe, I’m starting to stop being myself... Or maybe, it’s my plain failure to see the beauty of my everyday life, cuz maybe all I’m being used to doing is running after a mirage of happiness, which actually is a false rendition of my expectations...
The sudden laughter from a group of young girls across me brought me back to reality... I hadn’t realized that my coffee was over, and the pastry untouched... I quickly started to pick up a piece from it... But then, back in mind, I was still loitering in the world of randomness, of random thoughts... And, I knew I would still be there for some more time... But somehow I felt a li’l relaxed, cuz i also realized that maybe I’m starting to know what’s been eating me up all these days... Maybe I’m giving more importance to the everyday chaos rather than trying to find a reason to smile in middle of it, like I used to do when I was not so grown-up...
Suddenly, I realized, before I start the second-quarter-century of my life, I need to come to a conclusion that leads me away from the chaotic restlessness of my life... And, somehow I’m determined now, that, no matter what, I would make a way to reach to the freedom that doesn’t get me obliged to stay loyal to an expectation of a larger life... Rather, I would re-learn the art of finding peace in all that is true, real and ethereal... I would again smile staring at the moon there, find some time to wander on the deserted walkway, find glory in living without expectation, find reasons to laugh without a motive, and most importantly find reasons to be happy always...
In a word, I would find a million reasons to be alive...
