Choices, Chances, Changes...Love, Life..

It has taken me a bucketful instances of having my heart broken and breaking hearts, a half life of mistakes, a tough marriage and an enviable assortment of life's lessons to know what I know of love and life today. What is it that binds one immortally to another ? Can anyone be bound immortally to another ? It's a question that even the ones who are thus bound fall short in answering sufficiently. It could perhaps be science of hormones and blood or could be beyond mortal explanations. The truth is that it's a feeling, fundamental, rudimentary and deep rooted in the purpose of human life. A joy not containable within definitions and a sensation not explained by commonplace phrases. A perpetual state of agonizing bliss. You are likely to burn holding it and sure to die cold letting it go. The mysteries of love are attractive only if left unexplained. I do not wish to seize the mantle of defining and explaining love and its myriad forms. I am only trying to share its mysteriousness from my unique life experiences and in doing so none of my words should be considered as binding. For the beauty of love lies in the room for exceptions it offers. A hundred lovers may have similarly felt about a particular aspect of it yet the next lover's feeling will hold equal significance and value and cannot be derided just because it does not fall in line with majority. That's how broad and all encompassing love is.

                                                                                   Choices

The path of man's life is determined by his choices. It isn't different in love. But it’s often mistaken that falling in love is a choice that can be exercised upon one's volition. However the truth unchangeably remains that no one knows how, when, where and in what strength love and its myriad forces will take you in their numbing grip and make you servile to their puppetry. My words should not be understood as demeaning the essence and splendor of the emotion. I am no one to judge it even though I have savoured and suffered the consequences of love. Love is compelling. It is persuasive beyond anything known to human mind. It is why one often finds himself making choices in the ‘other way’ in love. Interestingly when it comes to falling in love, one hardly has any choice. But to continue a relationship actively in love is to a considerable extent in ambit of personal choice. I admit, it isn’t black and white. There is grey where you often stand in making choices in love. Your choices ensure the pleasure or pain that you derive from it. Never make a choice against your love if you have the chance. For there is no greater beauty than being truly loved by someone. Make all choices that ensure its perpetuation. The things which you may have to give up in choosing love, are nothing compared to what you will relinquish if you lose love. A wrong choice, seemingly correct at the time of its making, can haunt you with unbearable anguish all your life. And the only way of knowing whether the lasting effect of your choice is bearable or not is by consulting your instinct at the time of making the choice. Instincts may not always guide you pragmatically but they guide you to your destination more often than not. You realize you were correct only when you have endured the challenges and landed at the end of the road. Until then and unless you take that road of instinct you will never realize the worth of your choice. Trust me, when you are living the ache of bereavement from the one who holds your joys, no deal of pragmatism can liberate you. You will suffer endlessly.

                                                                                    Chances

We all get our chances; our own shots at our dreams, our contentment, our happiness. But in every chance lies a hidden offer of life, of mistrust and self doubt. Don’t let it append to you. A chance is always a chance not a cloaked scope of error. Trust in it. Trust your guts. And take it. Unless you take the road you fear you would never overcome that fear. Give in. Surrender wholly. Don’t reserve any shred of yourself when you do that. Chances are like these small windows to living your purpose. They ought to be seized at first sight. There is always someone waiting to seize it. If you don’t they would. I have learned it the hard way and continue to live the consequences of untaken chances. Believe me, it’s better to live a life full of challenges and difficulties with the chances you want to live with than lead a life of regret in misery and lament with the ones you may be comfortable but not ecstatic with. Life is itself a single big chance for fulfillment. That fulfillment may either come from dedication in service of others or by accomplishment of personal desires. There’s no point, no greatness in a sacrifice if you can’t live with the consequences of it. It is self destructive to forfeit your joys for the sake of others if you are going to be miserable in the circumstances that follow your sacrifice. You will neither end up happy nor be able to keep happy those for whom you would be in that state.

Love is a chance at eternal bliss. I reiterate a very famous line which says “Never be cynical about love for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass”. When I recall my days spent wrapped in that emotion, I wholeheartedly agree with the great man who uttered these words. It is something else, a joy so serene and satisfying to sleep and wake up in realization of being truly loved by someone. Nothing compares, nothing can even come close to that pleasure. The whole gamut of accomplishments and laurels in your life will feel like mere dust if you have loved and lost it. The whole galaxy of joys cannot surpass the simplest delight that love is capable of filling your heart with. I can tell you with the highest of confidence, since I have lived that truth. We didn’t agree on many things. Sometimes it felt as if we didn’t agree at all. But when we did, it felt like being born for each other. Despite all the hurdles, differences, anguish, the only and the greatest leveler was that we were crazy for each other. That kind of evened everything odd. That common factor between us surprisingly sorted out every challenge we faced.

I endorse love despite my confession of pain which I endured in it because the truth is that it also offered me all, perhaps the only real pleasure of my life. And I was either weak, unsure, careless or scared to take the chance. Interestingly when it stands facing you on your threshold such debilitating is its influence that the more you try to evade the harder you feel its grasp around you. If you are destined to fall for someone with all heart, you will fall and all the will power mustered from the deepest of one's guts against it cannot prevent it. Once you do, take the chance and stand up for your love. The other way is undoubtedly settled and easy. But trust me, the inimitable delight and completeness walking on that difficult path of love would bring will heal all wounds the world will inflict. It will be the most sacred refuge when you have been abandoned by all and sundry. Her arms will comfort you like you cannot even begin to imagine. Take the chance, seize it, there may not be another chance, again.

                                                                                   Changes

Man by nature is a lover of status quo. We despise changes being shoved into our faces. We are a breed unaccustomed to being unsettled. Ironically however, as the hackneyed adage goes ‘the only thing constant in this world is change’. Everything we see and know, every entity created, is in a constant state of efflux from one status to another. As if that thing was created to change, and keep changing till its closure. Everything that ever began must end, and to end, it undergoes all changes possible in its lifetime. Instead of asking you to manoeuvre change, I’d rather beseech you to walk into the change. Why wait for something to happen when you know it’s going to occur anyway and why then make plans and strategies to evade it. Step into it. Embrace it. Love it. Mark the goodness it brings along. I will not join masses who ask you to let go of the past. Rather I ask you to hold its memories and enlighten your soul. But do not close yourself to the present and the future. No one, believe me, no one has any control on the course of his life, no matter howsoever otherwise one may believe. Howsoever otherwise the best selling self help books may tempt you to accept as true. At some point in time or other you would eventually realize that you cannot exercise any real power or influence over circumstances. And they occur and change as per some invisible yet all pervasive force guiding their course. But the beauty of this powerlessness lies in the sense of adventure and unpredictability it brings. I have let go of things I never thought I could. They were so dear to me. But I had to. I pined and languished for days, holding on to their symbols, their reminiscence their memories, suffering, falling, lying near dead for days. But eventually there is some supreme energy that settles inside you momentarily and ushers you out into the light. Into that moment of truth when you smile inside and come to terms with everything unmanageable so far. I am not saying the past is darkness. To me the past has always been full of sunlight, joy and incomparable delight as much as it has been the source of inescapable distress. The whole idea behind the philosophy of letting the past go may be unnecessary. You may not need to let go of the past. The past and the future alongwith your present can co exist. Give the three of them a chance. I have and I always will. If I could in all ordinariness, why can’t anyone. Let the change come over. Take in its gifts. Surrender gracefully what it wants to take from you. Life is a great leveller; if it takes it would give back likewise. Release the murkiness, let it sink in and do its job and leave. Do not hold onto the pain. It’s leech like. The more time you give your miseries the more they will grow on you, feeding on your blood and life. Smile and wave adieu to your woes and hug the happiness that also lies hidden somewhere in the mud.

No one knows how things would turn out to be. But that is the whole point of life. Take the wrong turn, get lost, find your way back, endure the challenges on way and emerge enlightened. The only treasure that is ever going to be with you even after your departure are not the ornaments or the wealth you discovered, but the experiences that enriched your life, the fulfillment you felt on your journey and the memories you would earn in the heart of others. Life is like this. It is not a problem to be solved; rather all its choices, chances and changes make it a mystery to be lived.

Live it..