Many of us think life is as simple as 2 +2 =4. In most cases, we realise through our experience in life that 2 + 2 is not equal to 4. Life is not a mathematical equation. If it was one, the scientists in the world may have conquered it and solved the puzzles of life for us.

Life is not black and white as many of us want it to be. In most situations it is grey like the monsoon clouds. In the monsoon, you can be sure that most of the days when there is a cloud cover over our heads, it is likely to rain. However, in life we never know when it will be sunshine, when it will be rain and when it is likely to be just cloudy all day.

Some of us spend our entire life trying to figure out how to make life more black and white for ourselves. In my view, it is just a waste of time. It may be better of for us to figure out our own ways of dealing with greyness of life and enjoy it that way.

We need to view life as a new discovery every day. It is like a mystery movie whose script is written and re-written in our lives every day. We have a choice to make. Either we enjoy the mystery as it unfolds in front of us or we wonder what happened after its over. Some of us are neither willing to anticipate life as it opens up every day for us nor willing to accept it as it flows.

The day we realise that life is not logical or mathematical, we may have reconciled to ourselves and be willing to deal with its uncertainties as it happens every day. It is the like the pandemic today. None of us including the experts know for sure what is happening and why is it happening ? Everyone is trying their best to figure it out as it unfolds and then guide us to the best way to deal with it.

If one keeps wondering why this pandemic could not have been anticipated or why it cannot be treated , then we are being cynical as nobody knows its origins. Similarly in life, some things happen for no reasons. If we spend our whole life trying to go to the root cause of why it happened, we possibly may be wasting our time. It may be better to adapt, adjust and move on.

Our ability to adapt to change as it evolves may be one of the best ways to face life. We do not know better ways unless it occurs to us. We should neither get hassled by what happens to us nor worry about why it happens. We should prepare ourselves to face it with a smile and deal with it as it comes.

It may be easier to write about life than to experience it as it comes to us. I am writing after experiencing more than half of my life. May be a bit easier than my younger generations. But I have learnt that the better if not the best way to deal with life is to experience it as it comes and deal with it as you think best at that point of time.

This newly married couple ( as in the photo above) may realise today that 2+2 may not be always equal to 4 in life.

There is neither a right way to deal with life nor a wrong way. Whatever we decide is the best option before us at that juncture of life. It is upto us to take a plunge and experience success or learn from our failures in life.

Life is not a mathematical equation but a mystery movie. Lets learn to enjoy it as it unfolds in front of us every day.

S Ramesh Shankar

6th August 2021

I sometimes wonder how certain incidents happen in your life. You see something and you are inspired to shoot a photo. This happens more often than not. That moment may never repeat itself in your life time again. One may call it as a life time opportunity.

I remember some days ago I saw a cat feeding and playing with 4 or 5 kittens in my backyard. It was a scene to be seen. It was an experience of a lifetime. The patience of the mother cat vis a vis the enthusiasm of the children. As in the photo above, I got it and I shot it.

Many a time life is like that. We can get many opportunities to learn and grow every day. We may procrastinate or let go and then we may regret or we may not. Either way, we miss a chance in life and this chance may never recur.

It is upto us to keep our eyes and ears open all the time. As we see the wonders of nature from morning to night and many a time are stunned by what we see. So, it is in life. We have to be alert all the time. We never know when something beckons you. When such an incident happens, we need to wrap the opportunity with both our hands and give it our best shot. One may never realise that a missed opportunity is something which may never come back.

The alternatives before us is to consider life full of opportunities every day or it being full of challenges. What we choose is upto us. Like a thing of beauty in front of us is for us to capture or let go. We do so either believing that it will come back again or considering oneself very busy to capture such precious moments in life.

Moments come and go in life like the water droplets on a rainy day in front of our eyes. We could either capture the beauty of the water bubbles or let them burst away in front of us. Every opportunity we miss is like the water bubble bursting in front of us. We need to wait for the next bubble in life.

While on a long drive, I have sometimes stopped my car just to have a glimpse of nature’s beauty since I was not sure if it will appear on my return journey. I am not even sure if I will return and if I do will I take the same route and the same scene will appear again.

We need to pause every time we see an opportunity in life and give it our best shot. If it clicks, it is great, if it does not, we can move on and look for the next chance to appear for us. If we let go of chances, the probability of missing a good moment of life increases. So let us go with the slogan – “ Got it, shot it”

Life is full of chances and we need to grab each one of them with both of our hands, head and heart.

S Ramesh Shankar

24th August 2020

 

We all grow up in our childhood from different socio-economic backgrounds. Values are instilled in us by our parents, family and society around us. We grow up aspiring to do better in our lives than what our parents achieved through their grit and determination.

We realise that life is not a cake walk. As we finish our schooling and enter college, we experience the competitiveness of life. As we graduate out of college, we get clearer on what we want to do in life. Today, we have the opportunities to pursue what we want and aspire for. The world is an open playground for us.

We dream big and as we begin our career we realise that life is not an easy drive. We dream of acquiring all the best material things in the world, which we only dreamt of in our childhood. However, as we move on we realise that we cannot get everything we want in life the moment we dream of it.

Today everything in life is signified by a brand. We end up living and breathing brands. Aspiring from small brands to big brands is a natural evolution of human aspirations. However, in the process we sometimes may forget that we need to first build our own life brand before we acquire other brands.

We need to realise that brands we possess do not reflect our personality. Nobody in life remembers which suit you wore or which hand bag you carried for a meeting. What people remember is how you treated them and what is the lasting impressions you left in their mind as a good human being.

Human values are beyond brands. We need to realise that we have to first build our brand by living human values of gratitude, humility, respect and trust. This may be a difficult lesson to learn in life. It may be easier to acquire materialistic brands in life but more challenging to live human values.

At a young age, we all believe that the best brands we possess reflects our personality. We tend to believe that people admire us for the car we drive, the suits we wear or the watch we possess. This may be an illusory belief. It is natural and all of us have gone through this stage in life. However, the earlier we realise that human values are more valuable in building our brand in life than all the best materialistic brands we possess, it is better for us.

Life is a journey of continual learning. We all make mistakes and learn from them. This learning journey is no different. There may be nothing wrong to aspire for the best brands in life the day we have earned them through our own sweat and blood. But it is important to realise that the best brands we possess do not reflect our true personality as a person.

As in the photo above, this young girl is looking pretty in a simple white dress, which may not even be branded.  So is life.  You are not valued by the brands you wear or possess in life but the values you live and the way you treat people around you.

Let us learn to first build our own unique brand in life by living our values and then we may realise that all other brands in life fade away in the background.

Life is learning journey.

S Ramesh Shankar

23rd June 2021