It is important to have a couple of failures early on in life, so that you are not under constant pressure to maintain an unbeaten season throughout. Few things matter very little and most things do not matter at all. In any case, a successful outcome of most events is rarely under your control; there being extraneous factors way beyond your limited, human frailties.
We are also incompetent to predict in advance whether so and so thing that we desire, will be good for us , or bad for us, or neutral ; unless we are omnipotent, or telepathic, or psychic, which most of us are not ( thankfully!) So when we strive and agonize for that plum post, or that wonderful metro assignment, or that yuppie private school for our kids, we do not know how it will turn out for us ultimately. We can only, at the end of such a tenure, or assignment, look back and determine whether what we had pined for and got, turned out to be a good deal or a bad one.
I was once posted to a remote locality in dusty Rajasthan, Lal Garh Jattan; a place not visible on most maps, and which by its very sound creates an impression in the mind of being the back of the beyond, rural, crude and primitive. I nearly lost my faith then, and turned agnostic. But a few months later, I entirely relished the place and the wonderful things that happened to all of us there. Today I regard my tenure there as the most satisfying and fruitful period in my life. Similarly, a plum tenure in metropolitan Delhi turned out to be a nightmarish experience with a stupid, suspicious and vindictive boss, and bad schooling for my kids. I once asked for an extension of tenure at Kanpur, hoping for some continuity in schooling for my daughter, and ended up getting into an enormous mess with the law due to some fracas with the unruly local elements.
Indians are mostly guilty of entrusting their fate to destiny, which seems to be an easy option, since you do not get to blame yourself for your misfortunes. This fatalistic approach has seen us glide through a tortuous, violent and bloody history with absolutely no blemish on our collective conscience; and therefore we have dismissed with a philosophical and spiritual wave of our hands- the waves of invasions that swept across the heat and dust of India. Our unknown past life deeds and karma exonerate our worst failings and omissions- how convenient indeed. Now I am not suggesting that we allow things to take their own course and place our trust in God , and await our destiny with inaction.
All I am saying that is at any given point in time we do know what we really want. We must also endeavor to get it, with all our might, no doubt. But be prepared : that the natural outcome of getting what you want in life is not necessarily happiness or satisfaction, it could be disappointment too. On the other hand, not getting what you craved for, may be a good thing for you after all. A little girl felt she was always unlucky and unloved. She would feel jealous at all the attention the girls who fainted in assembly got. She felt unwanted compared to the affection showered on a teacher who went down with jaundice, and wished she could get it too. So when she prays extra hard in school, an angel appears and promises to fulfill all her wishes. And when the little girl gets all that she wanted, she really wished the angel would take away her gift !
I feel that when God closes a door, he is really opening a lot of windows for you, all you got to do is to look for them and climb out . So friends, rejoice even at the disappointments in life, for now you have more choices to make, and relish your achievements and successes with sobriety and discretion, for you may have foreclosed some of your options.
