Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Ramadan 17, 1445 H
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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

We should know path is full of twists, turns

lakshmi
lakshmi
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What do you think is important? To know the world or the self?


While we are in a race to figure out how we can contribute to the world as well as make some gains for ourselves, the question might not come across as important as attaining the right qualifications to find a strong footing in society.


That footing, of course, is finding the status via job and earnings. So we think. The invisible scale is always present in people’s mind and it might be fun if we could try to count how often we take the scale out of mind’s pocket to measure the persons we come across and slip it back after being content with our analysis.


We are guilty of judging often thinking it is for own good. After all, one of the first defensive mechanisms is to know whether we should trust someone or not. When one hopes for the best in others, there are situations when expectations are never met. Some get devastated, while others walk away. While many recover, some never learn.


While we pile up education on the little ones, how often do we prepare them to face disappointments in life? What if parents themselves are the problem?


In the past when societies had extended families or joint families, there was a support system. Today, parents themselves wade through unclear water while children of today are not exactly living in the days of the parents’ childhood. Technology has changed many aspects of our lives. Peer pressure is at a different level all together.


While parents struggle to find their own footing, they often realise it is the self that has often been neglected for too long. It is this lacking that has been the cause of many misses in life.


We ought to learn from our mistakes, but we fail to correct ourselves. We often like to prolong our failures and at the same time fail to nurture the child’s mind.


Of course, there is no one right way. But with the rate of depression seen in children to teenagers (to the point where they reach a stage of self-harm), it is time to sit up and think what needs to be done.


There are counsellors in schools and psychiatrists for adults, indicating how professions to understand the mind is ever-growing. Yet, we are losing the art of understanding each other and respecting each other’s feelings.


Defining happiness is difficult. It can be momentary or long-term satisfaction. The reality is no one’s life is perfect. However, we all need an element of hope. The earth has the hope the sun will rise again the next day when the moon sets, the rains will come again because soils hold onto seeds until rains arrive to let the vegetation thrive again. The land waits for high tide and little creatures on the beach wait for low tide. It seems the world is full of dualism.


There is a ‘you’ who thinks you know me and then there is an ‘I’ who is trying to understand me. We think it is the qualifications and habits that define us but those are only some of our traits.


We cannot be stuck to a definition because the river continues to flow and so do we. We continue to evolve. And the journey is never meant to be easy because even a river has to reach the ocean, but on the way it has its own share of ordeals — face thunderstorm and react causing a flood, evaporate and come back as rain, face winds, causing it to churn currents of opposing directions. And worse, put up with pollution.


But the river does not stagnate. If it did, it would soon be called dirty. Instead, it continues its path, taking it all in its stride. All along, the river gives hope and fulfilment.


lakshmiobserver@gmail.com


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