It's simple. Because to me, life is all about finding my direction. To me, life is a journey where death is the end. Through life, we have to find our directions so that we can walk through the journey of life. We can take wrong or right turns. It doesn't matter. What matters is that through these turns, we find the puzzle pieces to for who we are. Life would be joyful but utterly meaningless if we get everything right the first time. For example, the person a lot of our parents want us to be- The smart and inquisitive kid, the knowledgable scholar, the high flying executive, the happy family man or wife, the old person with a large pension and then the person who died peacefully in their sleep. Yes, that would be a perfect life; there is nothing bad that happens in that life right? What what type of adventure is that? When everything falls into place just like that, and there is no pain, no hardship, no sadness and no hunger, is there any true learning? For me, the largest happiness in life is when I have done something wrong and suddenly it comes to me with a snap of the finger as to how I can make myself right again. I grow stronger through hardship. I grow fiercer through pain. I become hardier through sadness. And I become more ambitious with hunger.
When we are young, we should make mistakes. Make a ton of them if we want to. When we grow older, and the song "If I knew then what I know now" plays in our heads, we should be happy because we have grown for us to notice our mistakes. Here, there are two ways to go about it. One is to be sorrowful that we had made such mistakes. Two is being happy to finally see these mistakes and get out of it. It would be a happier case if right now we are doing fine when we are old, that means we must have done something right to counter our wrongs when we were younger. And most of the time, this is what happens. Except that people wallow in selfpity too much to realise that the success that they are today is because of their failures before and their ability to save their asses in times of crisis.
I just had a tiff with my mother. Through which she disagreed with what I had said above totally. She found it very hurtful and hard to speak to me when I think this way and she keeps telling me my mindset will change when I get older. I have never once denied that my mindset will change when I get older. In fact I expect it. What she doesn't realise is that that is what I was saying in the above; that I will be making mistakes now when I am young but will realise it in due time aka when I am older.
She has no right to say what I think is wrong. What she can say though is that this may be a mistake but I will learn that it is a mistake. We have to find our own way in life. She reminds me of Jerome, who told me off for writing what I felt on the blog, even when it was a private one. In a sense, he is telling me that my thoughts are wrong and what I think shouldn't be this way. My thoughts belong to me. No one can tell me what I should or should not think. You should be goddamned happy that I am opening up my thoughts to you. This means that I trust you enough. But for you to judge my thoughts is a disappointment to me. No matter how idiotic a person's views are, or how much against my views are their views, I never tell the person they are wrong because I feel everyone is entitled to their own thoughts. And I know that their thoughts will change in the future. So why give them flak for their thoughts now?
This is the difference between my parents and I. I believe everyone is free to think how they like. And everyone's thinking changes. When they tell me their thinking, I am honoured that they share their thoughts with me. And my thoughts are forever fluid, because change is the only constant. I promise myself not to be like my parents in this way. I do not want to have a fixed set of ideals that cannot be changed and that I want to enforce on everyone else by telling them that they are thinking it wrongly and that my way is the right way. There is no One Best Way in life. I will stand by what I think, I will debate, I will share my side of the story. But my side of the story is not fixed in stone. And I hope neither will others'.
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