The Human Condition

Rivers have flown in your life. Sometimes crystal clear, sparkling blue water, sometimes muddy, wavering grey water, sometimes still, other times like the backwater of an ocean. You look out the window from where you’re sitting and see the lush green and the yellow sunlight streaking through the trees, feeling happy you’re someone new. Although it’s the sadness that comes gushing in at times, let’s talk about the happy times. Because happiness matters. The new you matters. And the process matters.

You’ve blossomed into something beautiful, like how a flower does. Sometimes the flowers wilt, but most times it becomes a fruit. Fruit. Fruits are all we aim for, even when we change. All the swarms of locusts you’ve fought through, how they chew, throw you and leave you so weak, has just made you stronger. Like the bark of the banyan tree. So old yet mighty. Years of experience engraved in its trunk just to make it stronger. You’re writing your own story. In every page of the story, in every day of your life, you’re not the one who was yesterday.

You’re flowing through all terrains. The brown rocky hills, the slippery plains and the tiring plateau. On your side you have a friend, sometimes who deviates you from your line taking you through another tributary. Sometimes which ends in nothing but a shallow pond. It rains on you. But you persevere to become bigger and those harsh thunderous rain fuel you to become bigger. You fight through. And suddenly you find a path again. You’re flowing again. But this time you know your way. You’re confident because that’s what experience has taught you. You can differentiate between the good and bad. Your path has become still.

Along the way you make small beautiful achievements. These are all the small steps to merge with the ocean. It’s all you’ve ever wanted. And that’s everything you’ll become, if not yet. The happiness of your accomplishments, make your life radiant in colors full of possibilities.

Just like how the autumn sheds its past and springs into something beautifully green and new, you grow. You shed. You learn. But most of all, you become better. The happiness of being better lasts forever, like how the rocks remember the rivers that flow above them. It’s not others that you compare with. It’s you. And it’s you making yourself better than the better.

You make changes. Changes that matter. You’ve learnt to be you. Everyone has different learning levels, hopes, talents, and dreams. And you’ve learnt to identify yours. That is what being a human means. That is what makes you happy. You.

Check out Vishnu from ISTE NITK’s blog here

-Natasha Das and Vishnu Radhakrishnan