A Fleeting Glance Backward

What distinguishes real life from a dream is our ability to recollect how things began, where we came from and what we are or will do. Frankly, I do not find it really pleasing to stop for a moment and rewind the years that have gone by. Some of them are depressing ones, I’m waiting for a fact for even this year to end. Each of us await something new in life, we are like children eagerly looking forward to our Christmas toy or new clothes for Diwali. But a moment, just that one fleeting moment draws upon some kind of a realisation like never before.

I walk backward for a moment, the time when I was in school. Sometimes you would laugh at yourself when you know what thoughts or ambitions ran in your head at a certain age. I wanted to become an engineer back then, pursue my MBA and then wanted to do a job and earn my salary in lakhs. Had just one simple three letter word struck my head, I would not have spent two years of my life under depression. Why? Why did I want to do what I wanted to do? It was only after I took up science for two years that I realised I had to look for another alternative. Poof. All those thoughts of becoming an engineer vanished just like that.

In a way, I hadn’t questioned myself then for the better for my decisions henceforth are well thought of and not hasty. Now my eye looks for a clear vision of things, any venture before it is begun has the output or at least a vague output decided.

It is a way of life that when you have things sorted out, something has to go wrong. You only learn things one at a time, sometimes one experience or one phase is enough to teach you number of things. I had so far learnt only one and missed the others. As a boy I learnt quite early never to jump into a relationship with a girl. My disastrous experience was enough to teach me this. Again, looking back, there was only word that failed to occur in my head. What? What was I thinking back then? Why did I like her? I didn’t know. It’s not a big task to ask yourself what and why you are doing something. People often dislike me for asking a lot of questions, either to myself or to others. I take my lesson that these questions that I put and the answers that I learn from it take me forward. They make my way forward smoother.

Drifting away from questions, there are times when you do things right yet they go wrong. I chose BMM to do journalism. It is not often when new ideas occur in your head and you discover yourself and your passions a little more. I had always wanted to write, a collection of short stories or even a novel; for that matter even for a daily. Yet what am I doing right now? Clearly, that was rhetoric; I’m not one bit enjoying my job. Yet I’m at no fault for having to spend a few months at my workplace. My graduation choice was well thought of, my plans ahead too are quite well decided, however a simple University error has my year wasted. Yet, my perception tells me it’s not all bad an experience for I have my own funds and an additional year to plan further and strengthen my base for life.

The most important things that my past has taught me is to get things right and sorted out. Eventually what makes one happy is what one must do. A smile is a necessity. Of what use that life spent in sorrow, we live life yet learn nothing out of it? A fleeting glance backward might just be the tonic that one needs.