1/10

Every single day of our tiny life starts with a rule and ends with a rule. And if not, it runs on a rule. Most of us who are uncomfortable with that word, try calling it convention. But the truth is, we let ourselves be governed by rules, forgetting, that someone JUST like us, must have made those rules.

Rules. It’s important to live by them no doubt, but sometimes, its even more important to break them. Not every day obviously. And not as a rebellion. But just to look at life and the World from another standpoint. We have our whole life to look at things from where we are standing. Why not look at the same things from another perspective? I have an exam in a day. I have innumerable number of pages to read. A tough paper to crack. My annual percentage depends on this. I study and give myself adequate revision time before every paper. I discipline my routine. I spend most of my time studying. Even when I don’t feel like it. Because “I don’t have a choice”. But what if there’s this ONE time that I am not able to? I try again. But I don’t feel like it. Why am I being governed by what I generally do otherwise? Its okay not to follow the same routine and meet the same deadlines. Its okay to score a percentage lower, especially when it’s not a matter of life and death, and it’s just internals we are talking about. We all are constantly sprinting in this race. We run by so fast, determined to beat everyone else, that eventually, we forget that in this race, nothing is constant. Not our opponents, not the audience, not the track or the finish line. We, alone, are the consistency. The race, by the end of the day, is with no one but ourselves. We outlive ourselves in order to beat others. Who are the others? It is us. You alone are your own competitor. Not me, not anyone else. So, in the end, when you look back, you ll see how far you have come. At that point, you won’t see how far you have come in comparison to some one else. It is not possible for anyone else in this planet to go through a carbon copy of what you go through. Good or bad. It is yours. And only yours. So who are we trying to trick or beat? Who are we hiding from? And more importantly, who are we running away from? At the end of the day,we are answerable to ourselves. No one else has that right otherwise.

Everything that we do, is governed by what is likely to be its outcome. And eventually, the estimation of the outcome holds more importance than our purpose to do what we choose to do. A possible reason behind that is, that we are so unsure of the choices we are about to make, that we want to be sure of it to be a win- win situation, before we even make an attempt. We are not ready to take no for an answer. We are not ready to lose. This vicious circle makes us forget how nothing in this World is invincible. If there is one thing that really is, it is our ability to overcome. We humans, are extra ordinary, not because we are intellectually superior. The truth is, we are rather naive and are constantly making mistakes to learn from them. It is not even because we are selfish. It is because we have this power, which cannot be taken away from us. It is the power to overcome. We can over come any situation we go through. We can over come any amount of loss and pain before we perish. And the most astonishing part about this power is, that we ourselves don’t know the extent to which we can overcome. Because that extent is limitless. It stretches till we can see the horizon, and further. It is our secret weapon, and we learn more about it as we age.

Coming back to rules. No rule is invincible. The world won’t come to its definite end if that rule isn’t followed. We follow it 9/10 times. We won’t remember those 9 times individually, because they’re all the same. They are those 9 times that we followed a rule. Its close to being any day in those 365 days of the year. We don’t remember each clearly. But that 1 time that we break it, it remains with us for the rest of our lives. It is most probable that it would. We don’t break it because we are afraid of the outcome. It’s important to have change. Life can easily get monotonous. It takes a great deal of effort to spare its monotony. Driving by the same route to work everyday puts us into this uniform path. Even if we are pre occupied, we can follow that rule, because it is registered deep within our conscience. Most of the time, we are pre occupied with stress, worries, apprehensions, anxiety, hurriedness, and so much more. That is the reason we follow the same route. Because we don’t want to take a chance. Sometimes, its nice to take chances. Follow a different route if you have some extra time. You’ll discover it for yourself. You’ll see something you might have not before.

Since all this is quite a lot to think about, I’ll sign off here. Before doing so, here’s a suggestion. Eat out today. Take someone you like spending time with along. Make someone smile. There’s so much to be happy about. Why be so lost in your own inhibitions, that you’re blinded from what’s happening around you? There is plenty to work upon, and even more to reach out to, by breaking the rules. If I hadn’t broken my rules, if I had chosen to push my head into my books rather than breathing for a bit, and a little more, I wouldn’t have sat here to blog. I wouldn’t have learnt what I have just written. Maybe, I wouldn’t have thought about it at all. So isn’t it worth thinking about? Isn’t it worth going through one chapter Comparative Government Politics slightly later, which I would anyway be reading for the other 364 days of the year?

You bet it is!