The missing pages of my life

Robin Kumar Das Dhaka Diaries /Aug 2021

Learning from small incidences and life experiences is the most important part of our living. And I have seen the best learning comes from the interaction with your children’s. There is always a unique way a child responds to a certain stimulus. The most important characteristics of these responses are that they are honest about what they feel. They will not hide or shy away from reacting to things that matter to them. The top five emotions of human beings are joy, fear, sadness, disgust, and anger. And the children’s responses to these are the promptest and straightforward.

I recall one such small interaction with my daughter and that opened a new paradigm for me. My daughter has this beautiful habit of writing things on multiple notebooks, diaries. In these, she will doodle, write some small notes for friends, sometimes about the day, about travel, or any other things that come to her mind. These notebooks keep floating around the house and are easy to reach for any emergency things to be noted. Whenever I am at home and need to attend a call or scribble something, my eyes keep looking for something on which I can write or tear of a small corner from a page. And most of the time, these are my daughter’s notebooks floating around. And only after jotting the notes from the call, I realise of the great mistake that I have done. My daughter on seeing that act would give a long angry speech and even scream of how insensitive I was in taking a page out or scribbling on her notebooks without her permission. No justification would console her that it was only a small page that I had taken, and anyways she had so many unused pages in each of them. But no logic or rationale can pacify or convince her about my action being pardonable. So just imagine what she will do to me if I tear out few pages “intentionally” from her “most favorite” notebook.

Just take this corollary to our life. Our life is the most important notebook that we possess. You have been writing in this notebook since the time you have been grown enough to understand things around you. And it’s your most important notebook you would always want the best of things to be written in it. Reflect into the notebook of your life, has it been the way you wanted it to be? Just rewind and take your memory as back as you can. Are there instances when people around you have interfered with your life? It can be from the closest of relation, family, in the schools, places of study, community, offices and so on. What did you do when something like that happened? Someone was tearing into the most important notebook of your life, and how did you respond. Was your response like a child, who is honest and straightforward in what he wants? Did you take the desired steps in the past to ensure that your most precious notebook; your “life”, is the best story you can dream for yourself?

Life is a song, a ballad, a poem, and a dance. Just as every note, stanza, line, and step is important in a song, ballad, poem, and dance, life also should not have any missing pages in it. Life should be the song that you want to play. Let it not be disrupted by things that do not matter to you. And believe me, those who matter to you, will not disrupt your life.

Just start from as far as back your memory can take you. See how many people have tried to meddle with your most favorite notebook “your life”. People have scribbled into your life when they were not needed. Some have simply plucked many important pages from your life and now those remain as a missing page all throughout your life! so how did you react to all these situations? Were you straightforward like a child and tell them not to do that? Did you scream at them when they did even after you told them not to?

The past cannot be undone, but the future is your responsibility. The only person responsible to make it brighter, more promising, and more meaningful is YOU. There are strong reasons to believe why you can do it today. You are a much upgraded version of yourself, then what you were 20 or 30 years back. Be it the physical resources, the intellectual resources, or the life experiences, you are more powerful than what you were 20 years back. Today you are well equipped to handle things much better than you had ever done. While many situations can be countered with logic and rationale, some might not be. They can be beyond an explanation. But that’s fine, your life is your most precious notebook, let it flow the way you want it to be.

But this does not mean in any way that life is giving you a choice to turn your back to challenges, run away from your responsibilities. They are the things that add meaning to your life, and no one would want to lead a meaningless life. This meaning is most intense when it comes to your life, your immediate and extended family, and your friend. Believe me, for the rest, you can be replaced and forgotten in few days! Let the notebook be a pleasant reading for them as well.

Just like to end with a simple message. As a child you were ‘fearless’, do not grow up as ‘frightened’.

Happy Living

Robin