Awkward Questions...Unwanted Answers...

Well, for starters, apologies to all those whom I have recently had these endless conversations with in the recent past about this topic because I shall be plagiarizing some of your views herein and secondly, a big thank you to all those who have been kind enough and patient enough to bear through my endless ramblings on the topic and help me understand the subject better. A big thanks to TL for stirring up the hive with a thoughtful status message! (who would've thunk a one line status message would stir up a hornets nest!) And a very big thank you to ST for bringing things in perspective and giving my random thoughts direction…

Getting down to business. (funny, first time that a post begins the way a good article should… with the acknowledgments and disclaimers! I sure hope this is an interesting read!) Have you ever shirked away from facing a situation for the fear of the unknown? Or maybe not the unknown but just a fear of what might become known? It’s like a horror movie when you are so scared, you either not watch the movie or if for the simple fear of being called chicken you do, you close your eyes through the scary scenes! Life sometimes can be a horror movie and it does put in front of us the occasional scary scene that we simply shut our eyes and avoid. Although unlike the movies, the scary scenes do not resolve themselves and loom around in the background where we choose to ignore them wishing they would dissolve and disappear. I am talking about those few questions in life that we refuse to ask ourselves for the fear of the results they may uncover.

I was talking to a few friends of mine about this in one of those phases of being an advisor that I sometimes do face and I realized that a lot of us do not face up to many a significant challenges in life not because we are incapable of understanding the situation but because we are capable of understanding it but not of accepting the implications. Many questions that we need ask ourselves but we choose not to because they are awkward…awkward not because the questions might seem untoward but because the questions lead to answers that are not acceptable and completely unwanted for us. Many questions that we choose not to ask because we are afraid our asking them would lead to a dilution of our present situation and that what we have might prove to be something that we either shouldn’t be having or something that we ought to give up. And we do not seem to hold the courage or the gumption to accept either.

People believe (and not just one or two of them…a whole bunch!) that not knowing the answer to awkward questions is a whole lot better than knowing unwanted answers, after all, you would know one answer and then ten others would pop up! Then your whole life is a session of seeking unwanted answers to awkward questions! Not bothering about all of it will help you live in peace, not care about the future, not know about the past and simply enjoy the present! Then again there is the other factor to consider that nothing in life is ever permanent. What might seem right today will turn out to be wrong tomorrow! Answers that seem perfectly justifiable today will seem absolutely absurd tomorrow and vice-versa. Why then should you bother with the fruitless questions and answers and beat about the mulberry bush? Why not simply live the moment?

It’s our perception that makes a right or a wrong. Living in the moment only means you have no idea of where you are going next and yes that is a fun way of living but only if you think life is about parties and killing time and just getting through the day. Remember in the end all of us are gonna be dead. It’s not where we will end up that is the question, it’s how we get there! Ever asked yourself that question? Like I have said before, it’s not the destination, it’s the journey.

If you keep avoiding it all, one day you will know all of it was wrong and no matter how much you convince yourself that what you are doing is without regrets and remorse because it is with your will at that point in time, it never does work out that way because sooner or later, the over-active human conscience starts kicking into gear (rather unnecessarily too might I add!) And yes, destiny ain’t taking you anywhere you don’t wanna go. It is upto you to decide which path you take at every cross-road in life. Do not be quaint enough to blame anything on destiny. Fate has nothing to do with how you lived your life…

One of the best things to do is to set standards for yourself, idealistic and unreal and yet try and achieve them. Do not compromise. Life just comes once as a freak accident of nature. Tomorrow, you and me will be disintegrated into one of the several little elements that make up for the unrealistic universe that someone else will be living in. Try not to waste this opportunity of life and strive to live it fruitfully. Live it in a way that is justified to both you and the others around you. If you have the right to do everything to keep yourself happy, you also are bound by duty to not do anything that might harm the happiness of another in anyway intentionally or unintentionally.

To put it in my own words in a conversation I had - “I have made mistakes but I have also promised myself that I shall not be repeating those same mistakes again, especially when there are so many new ones to be made! My standards are ones that are a result of my own thoughts my own soul-searching. They are the answers to my own questions and I believe that I am the happiest person alive because I can still laugh without the burden of the world on my shoulders or the fear of being judged. Sure like everyone else, I too have not been able to achieve everything I would have liked to but that doesn’t make me unhappy. It is like you said, a part of destiny… maybe there is a better future ahead… maybe it wasn’t time. Whatever the reasons, I know if and when the time is right I will get it, if I don’t, maybe I wasn’t meant to get it. But whatever it is you can be sure I am not gonna die wondering "what if" because I did not ask the questions.”

And to summarize, some indepth advice : everyone needs to live in the present, you can’t live in the future, nor can you mull over the past… but you learn from your past and plan for your future... and you can never stop living in the present… there is difference between this and living in the moment. Understand this fact of life well and you might understand what I have tried to say. Or maybe you might understand things better to tell me that my quest for thought and reasoning is unreasonable and vain. But even to begin the quest to disprove my arguments, you must ask yourself some awkward questions and be prepared for some unwanted answers…