I took a right turn to exit the highway and almost immediately contributed to the ever extending “tail” of the most regular traffic bottlenecks of the city. Today was no different and there was only one thing that would clear the bottleneck I believed and that was TIME.
As I was waiting I just started thinking if this road was life, and all the people on it were moving towards a destination which was death or some logical end to their jouney. The more I thought the more this idea of road being synonymous to life become stronger.
As in our own life we see different people, we see lot of them on the road as well some like us, some inferior to us and some superior to us. The inferiority or superiority is purely the individual’s perspective to look at other people. It’s the same way how a student with 70% marks looks at the one with 90% and how he would look at student with 50%. I as a biker, also looked with the same outlook at the person in the car with a chauffeur and at a person with a bicycle. We always have this comparing streak in us and always try to get where someone else is. Looking at the chauffeur driven car I would like to be there, we hardly find time and also don’t see if there is something else where we can be. Our success is relative from bike to car, from bicycle to bike/scooter etc. I just wondered whether the person sitting in the AC car was really happy? Don’t know.... but I was struggling in the sultry heat and he “seemed” to be happy.
The traffic jams on the road I thought are like hurdles in our life which slows down our pace. Initially we get frustrated, disheartened by them but what they actually do is they give you time to think, strategize and plan your way ahead. We normally forget to get our act together in such times and most of us even turn back and try to find a different road to their destination. In turn they only reach late to their destination and rue the fact that they turned back. Sometimes the road jam is just to test our patience and a little perseverance and the road clears and we think why the JAM was there in the first place.
Similar to be on the road, in life we all head in one or other directions, while doing that we change course, take a different turn to see if we can reach quicker or take a different route to explore a new endeavor. All of us have the same aim but all try different methods and no method is right or wrong. We say the road was wrong when we reach the end of it. It’s just so simple to conclude this in the hindsight.
I think every time we reach the wrong end of the road we start with a new vigor and are hugely motivated to mend ways, sometimes even the pace is increased and we make up for the lost time and effort and reach the destination on time. How many times we find ourselves telling people around that though I lost my way I made it in time, we actually are surprised at our own ability of moving in with such a pace and making it on or before time. It always needs an adversity, a wrong turn on the road to test ourselves and reach greater heights.
On the road to destination, we help people, help our friends by giving them lift and making their journey comfortable and/or we also help someone who had a terrible accident or a breakdown of his/her vehicle. We help people in our own way and I must say we feel immensely satisfied, happy when we help others reach their destination quicker. The gratitude in the eyes of such people is so satisfying that it cannot be compared to anything else.
The race to the destination is so grueling and taxing for us that we completely ignore the pains and rigors taken by the medium on or because of which we reach the destination. The importance of the medium is only felt when we have a breakdown or it’s just not available. Similar to this we are so worked up in our own lives that we don’t care about the various mediums that keep us going in our lives.
The medium which could be our parents, wives, friends to morals, ethics, principles, trust, knowledge, attitude, thinking etc… this list could go on and on. We service our vehicles regularly so that we would have hassle free and comfortable driving but hardly care about the driving forces of our life. We don’t care to service our minds and soul and at times even our body. That’s why in a traffic jam or any hurdle we become impatient, intolerant and uncompromising at times. We assume everything and everybody to adjust except adjusting or accommodating our own selves. We tend to hide at times or just surrender to the fight; we do not have spirit and courage to lift ourselves for the battle. The main reason for we being vulnerable is that we don’t have our medium serviced as our vehicle to maneuver us out of the LIFE JAM.
The traffic rules and one way restrictions are similar to the ethics, principles in our lives which make sure that we are always in the right scheme of things. We should not be crossing our boundaries to and break moral signals to achieve successes. The speed breakers signify an alert mechanism of sorts for over speeding and potential of crushing someone beneath your aspirations.
As I was thinking on these lines I heard a loud blaring sound of a horn from behind and I instantly realized that the traffic has finally started to move and my struggle was about to get over and very soon I would be well on course to my destination. While on the move I was wondering whether I would curse the traffic again as it has some significance in my life and probably teaches us some important lessons in our lives.
As I was waiting I just started thinking if this road was life, and all the people on it were moving towards a destination which was death or some logical end to their jouney. The more I thought the more this idea of road being synonymous to life become stronger.
As in our own life we see different people, we see lot of them on the road as well some like us, some inferior to us and some superior to us. The inferiority or superiority is purely the individual’s perspective to look at other people. It’s the same way how a student with 70% marks looks at the one with 90% and how he would look at student with 50%. I as a biker, also looked with the same outlook at the person in the car with a chauffeur and at a person with a bicycle. We always have this comparing streak in us and always try to get where someone else is. Looking at the chauffeur driven car I would like to be there, we hardly find time and also don’t see if there is something else where we can be. Our success is relative from bike to car, from bicycle to bike/scooter etc. I just wondered whether the person sitting in the AC car was really happy? Don’t know.... but I was struggling in the sultry heat and he “seemed” to be happy.
The traffic jams on the road I thought are like hurdles in our life which slows down our pace. Initially we get frustrated, disheartened by them but what they actually do is they give you time to think, strategize and plan your way ahead. We normally forget to get our act together in such times and most of us even turn back and try to find a different road to their destination. In turn they only reach late to their destination and rue the fact that they turned back. Sometimes the road jam is just to test our patience and a little perseverance and the road clears and we think why the JAM was there in the first place.
Similar to be on the road, in life we all head in one or other directions, while doing that we change course, take a different turn to see if we can reach quicker or take a different route to explore a new endeavor. All of us have the same aim but all try different methods and no method is right or wrong. We say the road was wrong when we reach the end of it. It’s just so simple to conclude this in the hindsight.
I think every time we reach the wrong end of the road we start with a new vigor and are hugely motivated to mend ways, sometimes even the pace is increased and we make up for the lost time and effort and reach the destination on time. How many times we find ourselves telling people around that though I lost my way I made it in time, we actually are surprised at our own ability of moving in with such a pace and making it on or before time. It always needs an adversity, a wrong turn on the road to test ourselves and reach greater heights.
On the road to destination, we help people, help our friends by giving them lift and making their journey comfortable and/or we also help someone who had a terrible accident or a breakdown of his/her vehicle. We help people in our own way and I must say we feel immensely satisfied, happy when we help others reach their destination quicker. The gratitude in the eyes of such people is so satisfying that it cannot be compared to anything else.
The race to the destination is so grueling and taxing for us that we completely ignore the pains and rigors taken by the medium on or because of which we reach the destination. The importance of the medium is only felt when we have a breakdown or it’s just not available. Similar to this we are so worked up in our own lives that we don’t care about the various mediums that keep us going in our lives.
The medium which could be our parents, wives, friends to morals, ethics, principles, trust, knowledge, attitude, thinking etc… this list could go on and on. We service our vehicles regularly so that we would have hassle free and comfortable driving but hardly care about the driving forces of our life. We don’t care to service our minds and soul and at times even our body. That’s why in a traffic jam or any hurdle we become impatient, intolerant and uncompromising at times. We assume everything and everybody to adjust except adjusting or accommodating our own selves. We tend to hide at times or just surrender to the fight; we do not have spirit and courage to lift ourselves for the battle. The main reason for we being vulnerable is that we don’t have our medium serviced as our vehicle to maneuver us out of the LIFE JAM.
The traffic rules and one way restrictions are similar to the ethics, principles in our lives which make sure that we are always in the right scheme of things. We should not be crossing our boundaries to and break moral signals to achieve successes. The speed breakers signify an alert mechanism of sorts for over speeding and potential of crushing someone beneath your aspirations.
As I was thinking on these lines I heard a loud blaring sound of a horn from behind and I instantly realized that the traffic has finally started to move and my struggle was about to get over and very soon I would be well on course to my destination. While on the move I was wondering whether I would curse the traffic again as it has some significance in my life and probably teaches us some important lessons in our lives.
5 comments:
Well Written Ashish! Indeed thought provoking. Way to go bro!Reminds of the wonderful song starring jeetendra "Musafir hoon yaaron...na ghar hain na thikana... :)"
nice thought.. :)
Well written Ash...good food for thought :-)
Ekdum philosophical .... great metaphor
Nice one dada...!!! Your write-ups are like food for the brain to start thinking about stuff..!! Amazing!
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