Vanity

Easter bunnies and eggs made of chocolate sits welcoming in a decorated basket on the table on an Easter morning. A child runs up to the table and picks up one of the chocolate eggs and takes his biggest bite. Once he eats the piece of chocolate he finds nothing in the egg. Many a time life is like this. Everything thing seems so hollow and vain. You can have all the money yet have no peace of mind. You can have a hundred people on your address book yet you are lonely inside. Everything you see around feels like vanity. Don’t take this as a statement of pessimism. Every one sooner or later introspective will bring to mind a sense of futility. What do we do in times like these?

Here's an important lesson that I learnt. Past negative happenings that cannot be changed are a definite reality that must be squarely faced. These are the might-have-beens and could-have-beens of our lives. We all tend to embrace fantasizing about possibilities that never happened. This type of mythical thinking is an ego defense to loss or perceived loss. We project our defeats onto unfavorable circumstances, acts of nature, or people who we perceived blocked our way on the road to success.

Looking at the big puddle in your driveway you wish it weren't raining. Yet, no matter how much you wish it were gone, it isn't. A wish is no more than a thought. It has no power to bring about a change in reality unless it is acted upon. And even then there are circumstances in which no wish, desire, dream, or faith can change the situation. However, this doesn't mean you should necessarily stop wishing or hoping. Here a balance is needed: wishing, remains a thought unless it is brought into reality.

Change and accept situations or we're bound for a life of unhappiness and regret. Keep changing, keep flowing like the river. The problem is only with those who become ponds. To be a pond is to commit suicide, because there is no growth anymore, no new spaces, no new experiences, no new skies, just the same old pond becoming muddier. Become a seeker changing from this muddy pond to a flowing river. It does not matter when you reach the ocean, but the beginning is the end.