Each one of us is a hero or heroine of
our own story. No matter what our failings, in our imagination, we
always triumph; and if we don’t, then we are the repressed victims,
seething from within because life has been most unfair to us.
Most plots of a story follow the
pattern where the protagonist encounters some difficulty, whether
based on external circumstances or his or her own shortcomings. The
struggles of the protagonist and her/his realisation
on how to overcome the problem form the basis of the story.
Ultimately, the protagonist triumphs over the problem by identifying
her/his own shortcoming and correcting it.
Our lives are also full of such
dramatic situations, whether they are
relationship problems, work woes, financial difficulties or health
issues. We wish to triumph over every
obstacle we encounter or at least lash out like the ‘angry young
man’ (or woman) at the world for the injustices it metes out to us.
Our struggles are real, so real that we sometimes do not acknowledge
others’ problems.
We do not realise
that each problem contains a lesson within it. Life teaches us new
lessons every day and as a result we evolve
as people.
If we were to compare ourselves to what
we were 5 years ago, we will notice a huge
change in us. Nearly none of us is the same person we were 5 years
ago. Each one of us thought differently at different stages of our
lives – as a child, a teenager, and an adult. Even as an adult, we
think differently when we are in our twenties, thirties or in old
age. We evolve.
The sad bit is that while we are aware
of how much we have changed, our loved ones
rarely notice that change within us; they
stick to their perception of how we were earlier. A sage has said,
you never pass the same river twice. This means
that the river is constantly flowing and therefore, constantly
changing. Similarly, we as people are constantly changing, from one
moment to another. The change may not be drastic enough for us to
notice it instantly, but over a period of time we do realise
how much we have evolved.
Others choose to stick to their past
perceptions. They label us as short-tempered, arrogant, headstrong,
stubborn, etc. Some go so far as to judge
us based on our spiritual activities. You may have heard people pass
comments such as, ‘Oh you meditate so much, why then do you have
attachments?’ or ‘You listen to so many sermons, then why don’t
you apply any of those teachings in your life?’.
To judge others based on how we are or
our pace of evolution is unfair. Instead of using our own evolution
as the yardstick of measuring how much the other person has changed,
we should be mindful of where they started from and how far they have
come. For instance, if a short tempered person loses temper at
a lesser frequency, we should acknowledge that, instead of
comparing her/his temperament to our own.
After all, we are all different people and each one’s journey in
life is different. We start at different levels of evolution,
and not everyone evolves at the same pace.
