*The views expressed in the blog are those of the author.

One of the biggest fears that a lot of people have is the fear of missing out, “I could have done this” or “I wish I would have done that.” Do you know the regret that people have on their death beds is that they wish they’d had the courage to live a life true to themselves? Barring a few, people regret at the last moment of their lives for not living their lives to the fullest. At youth, we spend our days either chasing our dreams to accomplish or complaining against the wishes not being consummated. However, we shut our eyes to the perceptible pleasures that life bestows on each one of us. The pleasure of those magical, mesmerising and transient moments that we ought to share along with our family members and kith and kin but we miss out.

We keep on striving hard to earn happiness: to buy a huge house, to own a luxurious car, to have a pretentious lifestyle, to have sumptuous weekend dinner at the classy restaurants, to skim one of the most expensive venues for holidays or vacations and so on, this list may be endless. However, we do not help ourselves falling into brown studies and escape from the pleasantries that life keeps on offering us. We possess costly watches to put on our wrists
to flaunt our vanity, but we are missing social quotient as we pretend to have almost no time to spend with our closed and beloved ones. We are excessively updated with volatility of stock market but indifferent to our own surroundings. Our accustomed habits compel us to miss out those fleeing moments that are usually created for us in order to feel elated and jubilant.

Exigency of the hour forces us that instead of mastering over these materialistic things, we have to master ourselves. We have to know what exactly makes us glad and keeps us in a state of exuberance. It is very much ironical observation that we don’t take care of our health to earn excessive amount of money, and then we spend same money in hospitals to regain our lost health and to remain hale and hearty. It is not being said that we have to be apathetic
towards our responsibilities or to run away from our liabilities but we must adorn our life with those wee moments that give us a real joy and can be cherished throughout the life. We should never fail to preserve those indelible imprints on our memories that sustain our happiness beyond the timelines. I would love to quote a line from ‘Keeping Quiet’, a poem by Pablo Neruda, “If we were not so single-minded about keeping our lives moving, and for
once could do nothing, perhaps a huge silence might interrupt this sadness of never understanding ourselves………”

Let’s have break from the mundane activities and just look around the abundance of beauty that nature offers us to lap up. Happiness is not a destination to reach but a stage to create and a choice to make. Having a cup of tea or coffee with our bosom friend can add joy to our life, to rejoice the company of our tiny tots can brim us with prodigious jubilation, spending a day with our parents can enrich us with aesthetic pleasure, the endless efforts to bring a difference in others’ lives can make us feel complacent and so on. This state of happiness or satisfaction makes us happier and can help us realizing the true values of life. A little switching and substituting in our living style don’t leave us to remain a bundle of nerves rather begin to focus on humility and develop a novel perspective on our life. Wherever we go and live, there is fun to be done and to be had. There are points to be scored in the games of life. There are games to be won and the magical things we can do with the ball will make us the winningest winner
of all.

To wrap up, I would like to mention that there are some enchanted moments which cannot fix up our problems incessantly, but they can awake our potential for joyful existence and give us stamina to muster up our courage in order to face up the hardships and adversities of life. Paulo Coelho’s views seem to endorse the same when he writes, “I can choose either to be a victim of the world or an adventurer in search of treasure. It’s all a question of how
I view my life.”

By
Pooja Singh

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