Its so strange. There are things that we had always known but didn't care for until a moment came when we realized the importance of those things.
From a long time, I have wondered why everything is more competitive now. What was it that kept us from all this development for so long. Why the academics now becomes almost twice tougher in about a decade. And how children can always cope with their level of academics with the same general performance levels as shown by their counterparts a decade back. Why the percentage of failures in a grade doesn't increase with increase in the level of academics for a grade. Why its much more tough to get into a good university today than it was a generation ago and how still the highest score remains the same as was always.
And when I pondered over this, I realized that the true potential of a human is far more than has been realized even today. And thats precisely why the limits of our minds and capabilities are far from being achieved in a long long time to come. And thats where the base of that old adage lies: Stretch yourself, your mind, your abilities...the more you stretch yourself the better you get. And there is no need to worry about the harmful consequences of stretching ourselves for a long time yet because the limits are still invisible.
In this process of continuous learning when we stretch our horizons, we continually come across new things...things hitherto not thought, not realized. And then our life gets suddenly better and then we wonder why we did not realize this earlier ! We could have done much better.
In one such event, I realized something recently that I had been overlooking for years. People had time and again told me I should smile more often. I looked hot headed. Always thinking something. Always lost. Mostly tense. And I sometimes tried to get over it. But always failed, for people kept saying this to me. And then I brushed the entire issue aside concluding I was of my type. Perhaps it was my facial arrangement that gave me this look. Of course I knew I was mostly lost, tense and thinking of something but all my attempts to bring a perennial smile to my face failed. And I accepted my defeat.
I got over it. I learned to live with it. But then something happened. My moment came when I realized the toll it was taking on many things associated with me. And this time the realization was through another channel. Nothing about tense looks and all. But my studies were severely getting affected because I was under pressure. Peer pressure, pressure from the knowledge of my standing in the competition, and pressure from the expectations from the self. I was breaking and was getting into a doom very fast. I was seeing the way I was letting a chance go out of my grip. And I struggled for days and weeks and months. The time was really trying and even this continual introspection was dampening my spirits even more. And then the prized moment came. I pledged I would never let frown cross my face now. And the miracle happened. You know what I found out. The natural intersection of frown on your face and the smile on it is a null set. Of course you can force such a expression but I said natural intersection. And in my case natural was frown. So here I was now...determined not particularly to smile but never to let frown cross my face. And guess what...I discovered that not only the intersection of frown and smile is a null set but these two form a mutually exclusive and exhaustive set. So there you guessed. If not frown, the face carries a tinge of a smile most of the time. I discovered this to be true of human beings in general. And since that day the natural looks of almost everybody I met reinforced my belief in this. The determination of not letting a frown come to my face made me ever more happy, socially charming, cool headed and had a profound influence on my concentration on things I deemed important.
And all that amazement of mine regarding the way of general human development since my childhood came back to me. I thought once again why I hadn't thought of this before. Why I hadn't realized this before. Life could have been so much more beautiful !!!
Perhaps its simply that events take their own course in time. And sometimes we just have to live our role in this grand drama called LIFE.
From a long time, I have wondered why everything is more competitive now. What was it that kept us from all this development for so long. Why the academics now becomes almost twice tougher in about a decade. And how children can always cope with their level of academics with the same general performance levels as shown by their counterparts a decade back. Why the percentage of failures in a grade doesn't increase with increase in the level of academics for a grade. Why its much more tough to get into a good university today than it was a generation ago and how still the highest score remains the same as was always.
And when I pondered over this, I realized that the true potential of a human is far more than has been realized even today. And thats precisely why the limits of our minds and capabilities are far from being achieved in a long long time to come. And thats where the base of that old adage lies: Stretch yourself, your mind, your abilities...the more you stretch yourself the better you get. And there is no need to worry about the harmful consequences of stretching ourselves for a long time yet because the limits are still invisible.
In this process of continuous learning when we stretch our horizons, we continually come across new things...things hitherto not thought, not realized. And then our life gets suddenly better and then we wonder why we did not realize this earlier ! We could have done much better.
In one such event, I realized something recently that I had been overlooking for years. People had time and again told me I should smile more often. I looked hot headed. Always thinking something. Always lost. Mostly tense. And I sometimes tried to get over it. But always failed, for people kept saying this to me. And then I brushed the entire issue aside concluding I was of my type. Perhaps it was my facial arrangement that gave me this look. Of course I knew I was mostly lost, tense and thinking of something but all my attempts to bring a perennial smile to my face failed. And I accepted my defeat.
I got over it. I learned to live with it. But then something happened. My moment came when I realized the toll it was taking on many things associated with me. And this time the realization was through another channel. Nothing about tense looks and all. But my studies were severely getting affected because I was under pressure. Peer pressure, pressure from the knowledge of my standing in the competition, and pressure from the expectations from the self. I was breaking and was getting into a doom very fast. I was seeing the way I was letting a chance go out of my grip. And I struggled for days and weeks and months. The time was really trying and even this continual introspection was dampening my spirits even more. And then the prized moment came. I pledged I would never let frown cross my face now. And the miracle happened. You know what I found out. The natural intersection of frown on your face and the smile on it is a null set. Of course you can force such a expression but I said natural intersection. And in my case natural was frown. So here I was now...determined not particularly to smile but never to let frown cross my face. And guess what...I discovered that not only the intersection of frown and smile is a null set but these two form a mutually exclusive and exhaustive set. So there you guessed. If not frown, the face carries a tinge of a smile most of the time. I discovered this to be true of human beings in general. And since that day the natural looks of almost everybody I met reinforced my belief in this. The determination of not letting a frown come to my face made me ever more happy, socially charming, cool headed and had a profound influence on my concentration on things I deemed important.
And all that amazement of mine regarding the way of general human development since my childhood came back to me. I thought once again why I hadn't thought of this before. Why I hadn't realized this before. Life could have been so much more beautiful !!!
Perhaps its simply that events take their own course in time. And sometimes we just have to live our role in this grand drama called LIFE.
4 comments:
Cool One Phosphate!!! Urs is one of the best smiles i have ever seen. Keep Smiling :))
:)
I am flattered
Keep Smiling...
@ anchal
:)
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