Being the change !

                       

                                 A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step                                                               – Chinese philosopher Laozi (c 604 bc – c 531 bc)

Well, the most irksome of my problems has been boredom.My mind is kind of a fluttering butterfly,relentlessly turbulent.The kind of a drunk monkey that hardly knows what to do with the things i have.Yes that’s a confession.All goals are quasi-permanent.The next moment it turns into a journey.Well,its not so bad.It definitely has some advantages like meeting a quiet stranger one moment who turns into your best friend the next,the kindness you see in the heart of an old woman who offers you food and shelter or the rejuvenated joy of childhood one feels by flying kites with kids in strange neighborhoods.

Well i guess it started when one day ,when i was 26 and i decided to take off.Break free from my shelter and fly.I knew i would fall.So does every bird who attempts to fly for the first time but that does not stop a bird from making attempts to fly.So why should i be afraid ? Yet,afraid i was.It was not all that romantic.Sleeping on bus stops and railway stations.On cold floors in chilly winters.One does miss the coziness of home and warm cloaks.One misses that very very much.But the very moment i wanted to give us and head back home,something would change inside me.I guess it was my inertia versus my will and my will won somehow,everytime.Each one of those million times i thought of heading back home.Because deep down i knew that i had to make this journey.I had to know the rest of the world.

It was likely that the hardship of the journey would kill me.I knew i was somehow fragile inside.Unprepared.But if i knew something else too.If i head back home,my curiosity would definitely kill me.So there i was ,choosing likely death versus definite death and i gladly chose the former.What i can i say.I always had a thing for mathematics 😉

So i did what i do best.I stopped worrying and focused on the present.The only thing i could live in and control.My journey took me places.From snowy mountains of Ladakh to the dusty roads of Madras.I saw the world from the hawk eye at Bhutan and through the eyes of a stranger who offered me water at The Great Rann of Kutch and very likely saved my life.I lived with the strangest of mystics who practiced the dark arts and felt serenity probably for the first time in a Zen Monastery.

Most importantly i now knew Life on a broader scale than i knew before. Like every great journey begins with a small step,so does every change.Change is most likely the only constant in this every dynamic world.And that is probably the greatest open secret of the world but we ,being humans only believe it when we have experienced it ourselves.And that is the way it should be.We all should be our own Buddha !

Note : The following entry is submitted motivated by Housing.com(https://housing.com/.) #StartANewLife

The picture used is shared from my friend Aswin Pai’s flick collection with his permission.  (https://www.flickr.com/photos/21238292@N07/15663723336/in/photostream/)