So, you were born to feel “nice”? Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Don’t you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can? And you’re not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands? – Marcus Aurelius

We are always stuck and are reluctant to do things just because we find them uncomfortable. We fear angering someone, or losing someone, or someone’s uncomfortable opinion about us and the like. Yet, we need to do things. For action is life, decisions bring harmony to the world.

Indecisiveness causes suffering. There is something called Lagrange Point in space. It is a point where the gravity of the earth, the sun and the moon are in a proportion where none of them wins and the object parked at the point doesn’t move. The universe is moving. The universe is expanding. It is changing. Galaxies are drifting away from one another and they are waving a goodbye to each other, perhaps never to see each other. There are black holes gulping matter down. There are supernovas that are exploding, spreading heavy metals in the empty space as seeds of life. Aren’t all these uncomfortable?

Yes, it is. But what if everything comes to a halt? What if the earth stops orbiting the sun? A heavy storm with winds blowing at almost one-and-a-half thousand kilometers per hour will sweep the face of the planet and nothing will survive. What if the sun stops orbiting the center of the milky way galaxy? It will start falling into the gravitational zone of the center of the galaxy and end up being destroyed by the supermassive blackhole at the center. What if the milky way galaxy stops floating in the universe? Another galaxy will collide with it and it will lose matter, shape and the like. In short, in order to remain in harmony, the universe keeps changing by every passing second and it does so by acting – not wishing. The scientist community has to opine that extinction finds the senseless creatures from the face of the planet and eliminates them.

Now that is a picture that not all of us would understand. Let’s talk about our country – or any country for that matter. What if the government stops working? The foreign relations of the country would collapse. As a result, the economy of the country would collapse. And when there is a financial chaos in a country, crime always skyrockets. And crime would devastate the social structure of the country.

Let’s step down. What if the city that you live in, doesn’t follow the natural order of daily life? The streets would be dirty. The water won’t be supplied. Electricity would go off. Stray animals would rule the streets. And we would soon find ourselves in a jungle with danger lurking around us all the time.

Similar is the case with our lives. We want to do something; we don’t want to do something. We are attracted to one option, whereas another option is being forced upon us. And we are at the Lagrange point. Unable to move to something. And such resistance to action, starts to create troubles for us. We start to drift away from people who are close to us, just because they are asking uncomfortable questions or expecting an action according to their motives or may be for a common good. And we end up feeling low. We get directionless. There are cases people ending their lives.

But what is the definition of action here? Action is the decision that you take and follow it. And by the word decision, I do not mean that you choose between option A, option B and the like. Action also means not choosing an option as well. Yes, that is also an action. And we are afraid of the consequences of the actions. What if someone gets disappointed or angry? What if someone leaves me? What if I face this or that? Irrespective of your decision, you are bound to face something. Suppose you are hungry. You are left with two options: either cook something for yourself or order something. Now, in order to cook something, you need to withstand the heat and the smoke in the kitchen. You are prone to cut your hand while chopping the vegetables. In order to order something, you got to wait a little to get the order delivered and then pay some price and you are prone to unhygienic food. Both solutions have their own consequences. They say, solution to a problem, only changes the problem. Meaning, there is a chain of problems you need to deal with once you try to solve a problem. What if you don’t cook anything for yourself or don’t order anything? You still need to face the consequences of being hungry. You’ll be malnourished, you’ll be weak, your mood would go south and others around you, will certainly be affected.

Why are there consequences to face? For it is the course of the universe. One event trigger another and it goes on and on. And it is the harmony of the universe. When an organ is played, the air gets disturbed, but at the end of the event, it brings a melody to your ears. So, what is wise here? Not to disturb the air or not letting there be any music at all?

Life is like riding a bike. If you don’t maintain a balance, you’ll fall and end up hurting your knee. And how do you keep it in balance? By keeping the minimum required pace. And in order to keep the pace, you got to keep the engine running. It will burn fuel. And the burning of the fuel will cause smoke and heat. You will need lubrication in the engine. You will need to take the bike to the service point, and it will cause you money. And if one small part malfunctions, the bike – irrespective of how powerful or costly or advance in technology it is – will be nothing more than a heap of metal.

Similarly, every single act of yours throughout your day, does lead to some major outcome. It does happen. That’s why it is said that every great journey begins with one small step. Step by step, you are getting closer to your destination. And every act of yours, bring you to your destiny.

Is it true that we are predestined? The answer is yes, and no at the same time. You are never predestined to have a life like this or that, but the fate does put a pen in your hand and make you to write most of your destiny. It is like the architect has designed a building, but the mason has to build it and he does it brick by brick. His reluctance to putting a brick in the wall, will certainly put a halt to the construction of the building. And if the mason still doesn’t put the brick, he will be replaced for sure. For building the building is the destiny, it is the mason who is contributing to it for he is somehow involved into the cause. And if the bricks that he is putting in the wall aren’t put in a specific way, the integrity and the strength of the wall and thereby the building won’t be the way it is supposed to be. Meaning, putting one brick out of a thousand or ten thousand bricks doesn’t look that important a matter, but eventually every single brick does contribute to the strength and the integrity of the entire building. Similarly, every single task that you undertake, irrespective of how minute it is, it does contribute to the creation and development of your destiny.

Hence, one should never ever resist taking an action to solve a problem. For nobody has been able to escape gravity of the fate. The more you avoid looking at the problem, the more strength they gain. And a wise farmer knows that eliminating the weed at the very beginning of the harvesting season would yield him an amazing crop. Meaning, the more the farmer avoids the weed, the more nutrition from the soil it takes away and the rest of the crop does suffer.

Thus, in order to have a better yield of crop, the farmer must be alert all the time and keep a check on the weed in his farm. I have heard people that they are looking for eternal peace and there is nothing called eternal peace. As I have stated earlier, solution to a problem only changes the problem. Peace itself is a mirage. The Romans used to say if you want peace, prepare for war. Meaning, when you keep sharpening your sword, keep honing your shooting skills, when you are all into building a cavalry and the like, the neighboring kings won’t dare to threaten you with anything.

The Greeks, the Spartans, the Romans knew this. The Israelis, the Swiss government knows the importance of warfare skills in the youth and they went on to encourage or are encouraging the youth to participate in the army, Israel still has that mandatory service law for the youth to contribute to the defense of the country whereas the Switzerland has liberal laws to control guns in the country. We think that the USA has the highest rate of per capita weapons in the world, but that is not right. Switzerland has the highest rate of per capita weapons in the world. However, it is the culture of the country that decides which country has the highest rate of civilian shootouts. In the USA, kids have demonstrated – time and again – that they think that the schools are a synonym of shooting range.

Why would a government go on to encourage the citizens to own guns or participate in army? For they know that survival in this world is too difficult if you do not know how to fight back. Switzerland got independent from something called Holy Roman Empire in 1499 and ever since, Switzerland has claimed to be a neutral state and does not have an army. Now, why are they posing to be neutral is a different topic altogether. However, even after claiming to be neutral in this world, they know that danger is still lurking somewhere and if something goes wrong, we would need an army to defend the country. Now if you have disbanded the army, how would you get a trained army overnight to defend you? Simple. You train your citizen to use weapons.

There are more than 30 Arab countries who have sworn to eliminate the state of Israel from this world. And they have been trying to do this since Israel came into existence as a by product of the second world war. They have fought wars in broad day light and there have been a lot of wars that were never declared but were fought underground. The Arabs have tried almost all tactics: war, diplomacy, terrorism and all others. Still, Israel does exist today. Why? For the youth is not afraid of guns and blood. A simple google search will give you numerous results of photos where Israeli girls are hanging out with guns on their shoulders.

Are you sure? I can imagine a group of girls hanging out, but with guns? Yes. The answer is yes. For they know that if they want peace, they must be prepared for war. If they want eternal peace, they must be ready to fight eternal war.

They say, there is strength in numbers. And it is a correct statement. A number of strong decisions gives you a great result. But you must not get tired. You will feel exhausted, thirsty, sweaty, worthless and so on and so forth, you are not supposed to give up. The moment you think of giving up, the wall that you are building, starts getting weaker – one brick at a time. You start with a great zeal to do something and then one problem shows up and then another one and it goes on. You have laid a layer of bricks with a great zeal and then while laying another layer, you get a bit tired and sweaty and uncomfortable. The higher you go, the more difficult it becomes. At the highest layer of the wall, if the bricks are not laid properly, the wall will be imbalanced, and a fall will certainly take place. Even if the wall doesn’t fall, the ceiling that you will put on the wall will be at risk for sure. And if there another story to be built on the ground floor, the entire story is prone to a collapse.

In a nutshell, your actions and decisions in your everyday life, is like your breathing continuously. You just force yourself not to breath for a minute and see how many minutes you suffer because of that. Similarly, in order to maintain a normal life, you must be making decisions and taking actions, irrespective of how difficult they are. My own experience says that following the decisions that I have made are far easier and enjoyable than the decisions that have been forced upon me. As Richard Feynman has said What I cannot create, I cannot understand. Similarly, the decisions forced upon you are decisions that have been made by someone who doesn’t understand more of your situation and when you follow their decision, you don’t know what mindset or motive was used to decide this for you.

Hence, there is always a gap between what you are supposed to do, what you wanted to do and what you are doing. And then you will feel low and disappointed. And an opportunity that you had to stand up for yourself, decide something for yourself is gone. You were a sheep in the herd, you have remained the same.

Such things are ok as far as we are kids. When you are an adult, when you are earning a salary, when you are liable to pay tax to the government, you are not supposed to be this way. For you are a responsible citizen. The government expects you to be a good citizen and contribute to the overall development of the country, society and the like and if you do not make decisions, you are certainly not playing your part.

Any relationship, be it romantic, social, family or professional. Demands a continuous contribution from all the involved. In a social relationship, we have to attend functions, we need to help our neighbors and the like, irrespective of how much would they contribute or help us when we are in need. Relationships in the family, demands your time and attention, priorities, sacrifices at times and financial helps at other times. Here, one can be a little selfish and expect or demand a return. The most difficult relationships are the married life or romantic relationships. Such relationships demand a lot on daily basis from both the ends. The guy has to give attention, priority, time and material things to keep the flame burning. The girl has to be there to offer emotional support in difficult times.

Most of the time relationships, specially the long-distance relationships, fail just because there in in imbalance in the contributions. I have seen guys cheating on the girl with other girls, or vice versa. I have seen guys giving away almost everything that he has to the girl in order to keep her by his side and still is dumped, or vice versa. But does it mean that we shouldn’t give it another try? Does it mean that we should quit and become a monk and move to a monastery in the Himalayas?

A Latin poem talks about the fate. It says Or Fortune, like moon, you are changeable. Means, the fate is bright at times and is dark or almost non-existent at times. The poet goes on to write – I know you are a villain, and I still bring my bare back to the game and I am ready to face your villainy. Just look at the audacity. He knows that the fate has put him down multiple times and he is still into making a come back for he knows that luck keeps changing.

The universe is a collective effort at the end of the day. Right from the scale of an insects or bacteria, to the scale of galaxies and clusters of galaxies, we all must play our part to maintain a harmony in the universe. We must not question the significance of our contribution to the overall outcome of our decisions or actions and that is the real sense of satisfaction. When you do something and fail, still feels nice than to regret not doing anything at all. In Gujarati, we have a proverb that it is always good to be worn out by hard work then get rusted with laziness. Keep going. You’ll face storms, rains, bumps, pits and dangerous animals on your way to your destination. But that does not mean that you just give up on your plans and let things just vanish.

Keep going. Keep going.

13-Apr-19

Rajkot