Is it worth it?

Finally decided to blog after more than five months...obviously there is no dearth of topics I have been thinking of, but this post is more of an impromptu one. Again, cant resist beginning with one of my favourite quotes:


The marvelous richness of human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were no limitations to overcome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to traverse.

-Helen Keller

I recently went through and saw certain family members go through a harrowing experience following a sudden tragic incident. As I stood among everyone else, plunged in grief, for a moment the thought crossed my mind...is it all worth it finally? Think about it. The most important things in life are those that we have no control over. Birth, family, death. Why then,all the intricate planning, the constant pressure and the mad rush? Sometimes, we get so caught up in the motions of daily life or even in our pursuit of carefully planned goals that we forget to ask this all important question - is it all worth it?

Am not suggesting an its-all-just-an-illusion-so-why-bother attitude to life. I'm just saying that its common to get too comfortable with our own daily life and its details read problems. So comfortable that we lose sight of its place in the larger canvas of life. I guess if one learns to preserve this realisation of the larger canvas, most decisions in life would be made more peacefully and less time would be frittered away in meaningless outbursts and heartburn.

As for the question that remains: is it worth it all...the answer came to me as follows. A couple of days after the sad moments mentioned above, I got a call from a friend who had just had a baby boy less than 3 weeks ago. Qucikly, my mind changed gears, and as I got talking to her eagerly, I realised it. That while our conversation seemed ordinary ; centred around the little one's activities, it occured to me that it would stand out in her memory and mine, for a long time to come. This was a new beginning of another beautiful stage in life. Another couple of days later , I found myself with friends at a classmate's wedding reception, laughing and posing for photographs with newlyweds who had just begun another new phase in their life. Another day, as i walk on my terrace during the evening, an old song which I had reluctantly added among other new ones, pops into my playlist and although I have listened to it before, these lines stand out to me for the first time : "Sukh ki hai chaah to...dukh bhi sehna hai" (classic song 'Phoolon ka Taaron ka', from the cult movie Hare Rama Hare Krishna)


In only a span of days, life allows us to witness endings and beginnings. I would not have agreed to this a few years ago, but life proves the existence of this concept in its own unique way each day. Maybe it always has, and it has just taken us time to see it. The necessary contrarian forces that are at work. The yin and the yang. Black and White.Hilltop and valley.

And the sooner we comprehend it, the better we understand why it's all worth it, in the end.