A Disclaimer: The author is not a self-declared Guru of Good Living or Living Successfully.  If he was, he won’t be copy/pasting it here. You would have to buy it and then only read it.

Think about this for a while.  In the silence of your home, in the quietness of the shadows, sit down somewhere where the light falls gently and as you reach out for your cup of tea or coffee ask yourself this question – what is it that you are living for, or who is it that you are living for?  Let the pace of work, the cares of the present be set aside for a while as you ponder on these questions.  Even as you read this I want to tell you at the outset that I don’t know who you are; you may be a housewife, a teacher, a 9 to 5 professional, a police officer, a businessman, a student, an activist, an intellectual or a salesman.  Whoever you are, you are a person who has to deal with decisions everyday; some minor, some crucial and others quite tricky requiring you to summon all your talents, skill and character to execute the right one.  Sometimes there is neither right nor wrong, it seems (I am not going to be the Judge of anyone’s mistake/error).  But nonetheless at the end of the day when you are alone by yourself and a certain amount of reflection starts pouring in to your mind, you wonder, now that today is about to crawl back into the dense past, what about tomorrow?  Will things be still the same?  Am I satisfied about myself?  My work, my family, my money, my resources, my friends, my car, my health.  What about my future?  Will I be a successful/influential/happy person?  Now friends let me tell you that I am not a mind reader.  But if you are like me, the normal/average person, I can say with a fair amount of boldness that these are some of the thoughts that can bombard us from time to time.  Let’s face it guys, the world is not a safe place to live in.  It’s a rat race, it’s dog-eat-dog (funny how we humans have now descended to the level of animals, even if these are just metaphorical terms).  You know as well as I do that everywhere we go, at every turn, there is competition, stiff and relentless, like a phantom figure somewhere behind the walls of a dark street looming large waiting to catch you without warning.  Now that’s a scary thought, isn’t it? I would not want to be caught in its embrace and lose myself in it.  Not that I want to make you feel that all that I am about to write about is oh, life is rotten and there is no joy in living or that I am against competition.  What I am laboring to point out is that very often we kind of lock ourselves out of the meaning of life, willingly or otherwise.  I do accept that there is an ugly side to life that we would rather choose to shut our eyes to.  Or that there is a faculty in us that makes us want to dream of better things and reach out to grab a hold of that.  And very often we fail.  Haven’t we all?  (Putting aside the few in the world who have made a difference and let me say that I am glad there are examples/heroes/heroines that we can emulate or try to be like).  But let’s face it.  All of us want a better life, don’t we?  Who doesn’t, you might say.  But have we become so engrossed in our straining, making all efforts to reach for the sky that we have left out a perspective, that of knowing where we have come from and more importantly where are we going to end.  I am not referring to death itself.  But right now, ask yourself, where are the decisions that I am taking going to lead me to?  That’s sobering for me, at least.  I don’t know about you, friends.

So coming back to where we started (I am sorry for the long digression):  What is it that you are living for?  What adds meaning to your life?  Is it full, vibrant, joyful, content?  Is love (not just the love between filmy heroes and heroines running madly around trees) a vital part in your life? Can you live in forgiveness?  Do you live in fear of losing something, or someone? Because if you are, then that something or someone will control you, with or without its or his/her knowledge, for the rest of your life, without a doubt.  And when you lose that thing (a position, a job or a title) or person (spouse, child, lover, mentor) will you still be the same person?  What about your failures?  Just because you have wiped it away from your memory, does it mean that it’s not there.  Do you struggle with past hurts?  Does guilt, addiction or the burdens of life rob you of happiness/completeness?  Are you ever chasing after things but never knowing what is it that you want?  Just ponder.  Let it settle in your mind.  Don’t worry about the mobile. It is your life.

The reason I am asking all these questions is because:

1.   I do not have the answers to them.

2.   I do not know what your life is like (assuming I am not yet your friend as of now).