We cannot ignore the fact that we have been prepared by almost everyone we have met in our life. And what have we been prepared or warned about? Mistakes, wrong choices, and heart breaks. Every other person I meet seems to have differing ideas or opinion about it. How to tackle them, how to dodge them or simply how to get through them? But to what extent do they truly help us?
Choices; we make hundreds of choices a day. From when to wake up in the morning to what time at night to hit the sack it is all choices. Some choices are guided and shaped by our traditions. We wake up, brush our teeth, wash our face, and have breakfast and so on. We need not stress the flowing gray matters inside our brains for it. They are simply instinct based. But some choices drain us, because every day is not the same. Though yesterday and today might seem the same, it is not. Today might be similar to yesterday, but it is definitely not the same. As the options you have today may be similar to the options you had yesterday but the choices you make today may be different and so would be the consequences that follow.
I do have an option just like yesterday to go to school or to bunk. I do have the same underlying options basically six days a week, except of course for holidays. I would be a fool of thinking of going to school on a holiday. So, I need not think much, just like yesterday I will be going to school today too. Then again, there are choices that change our lives forever. One split second and you are a different person; you cannot go back to where you were a second ago. Those are the choices that shake our ground our very foundation. Those are the choices that everyone warns us about all our life.
We do not reach out to touch the burning flame even though it shimmers beautifully in the moon light. Because we have been told fire burns and we can feel its heat even from a safe distance. But one cannot deny one self’s curious nature. We all have at some point in our early years sat down in the secrecy of our dark room with a candle burning besides us. We have held our palms on the side of the candle and realized it’s not as hot as we have been warned of. We have mused at our new found invincibility and have been amazed with the way the flame dancing with the waves of gush created by our little hands. We have then slowly put our tiny hands directly above the flame just to feel the hopes of invincibility just starting to brew inside us dive deep down to where it came from faster than we could pull our hands away.
Some choices, as such, leave us with regrets. Some are fruitful and some do not even matter much. But every choice we make, every mistake we make teaches us something. One experience is a greater lesson than hundreds of warnings. Like Benjamin Franklin had said, knowing is better than wondering, and waking is better than dreaming. Making choices and making mistakes beats the hell out of never trying. It’s just the way it is, isn’t it? Everyone tells us of the forbidden fruit, but the forbidden fruit tastes the most delicious of all. And so we tend to do what is not meant to be done. We make mistakes, a lot of it. Some graver than others, some leave us with a scar that never heals and some leave a tingling sense of bitterness when we reminisce about them. But that’s the only way to learn. And once we learn it, we try like hell to convince someone else not to go down that path, never realizing that we were told the same thing. That even though how much we convince them, they are bound to make the same mistakes. And sometimes, we too make the same mistake because some mistakes we make over and over, yet never learn. Or we simply ignore them!!!
