It’s been hectic few weeks since my last blog! Settling in with new work imposes its own challenges. However, I also had a moment of realization, a key lesson which I will delight in for life. Those of you who have visited Kanakapura road in Bangalore will be aware of the road work that is going on for a very long time. Dug up roads, dusty terrain, impromptu deviations, heavy vehicles supporting road work that further narrow the single lane adding to traffic woes, in summary a perfect mess one can whimper about! But does the mess always remain a mess? A question that I embarked upon!
My frequent visits to Kanakapura amidst maddening road gave me a beautiful surprise last week, i noticed some stretches of the road were open into wide beautiful two lanes with bougainvillea cuttings planted in the road divider soil. The view of this particular stretch was gratifying! That’s when it occurred to me that this transformation of the road was a journey over a period of time, it may perhaps take some more time to complete the road work but the result of this transitioning mess has started to show up positively. Very soon users of the road who crib about this mess will begin to appreciate hard work of all involved in this journey of transformation.
Well, road work was a mode of realization for me to recognize an obvious, ever existing but always ignored constant transformation within myself. I don’t look at complexity or problems the same way I did few years ago, I have begun to learn to easily acknowledge and accept everchanging life even if it means it uneasy! For instance, when a person decides to kick start a fitness regime, there are number of rigorous changes one encounters, staring from pain in the body, improper proportion of body before it moulds into optimal shape, discipline of diet and sleep, sacrificing several temptations, whoa what not! However, when one looks at the outcome of these sacrifices over a few months, its magical! Healthy, good looking, fit body and mind.
If we notice carefully, over a period of time, many of our relationships would have improved from complexity to understanding and respect, struggling as newbie parents to raising wonderful children, losing a well-paid job and eventually finding something much better than previous one, bankruptcy to abundance of wealth, losing a loved one to gaining strength in serving all with love, fear of stage to speaking flawlessly in front of a large crowd, being always angry to deeper sense of calmness, overcoming grueling health issues, depression to expression of joy , blaming to forgiving , plenty that one can list just by being aware and sensitive. We all can relate to various set of circumstances that were unfavorable, pushing us to an uncomfortable zone, moments when we perceived our problems were greater than our ability to deal with and life felt like a total chaos! Nevertheless, we choose to relentlessly work through those testing times resolving it one by one. Now, that is a massive transformation in true sense with deserves plenitude of applause! We all have come a long way without recognizing this metamorphosis within us!
When I look at life wholistically, it appears that every moment of our life co-occurs with opportunity to grow, to build a strong character, awareness of ourselves as well as others, to accept, to love, to be humble, be better and eventually shift the cycle of evolution into a new learning tangent. When we come across uphill tasks, we need to know what seems to be challenging now won’t be challenging forever. With openness to life in totality, intention to change sincerely, learning and solution to our problems begin to show up out of the blue! Just the way when someone decides to buy a purple car one starts seeing many purple cars, it’s not that the purple cars did not exist but one never noticed them.
This is everyone’s journey of a-never-easy transformation which needs patience, acceptance, persistence, acknowledgement, appreciation, gratitude and never giving up attitude. So, I think it’s important that we recognize every inch of positive changes, celebrate challenges that we have conquered, accompanied by great joy and being aware of every moment to be open to life as is! Mantra to remember is “nothing ever remains the same in constantly moving life”
