Life is not a race, but a journey to be savored each step of the way, I've read this and heard this a million times over, as I am sure many others have. But now at 25 i'm coming to realise the force of this statement. What made me think about it now??
Well, it begun with some simple experiences, which I chose to pay attention to and make it a part of my memory.I would say that these little moments of joy have always been a part of my life, the only difference is now I'm aware of them and as I look around I'm surrounded by it every goddamn second. To give an example,when I was preparing for my CAT entrance exam for MBA I was voraciously building my vocabulary. Some of these words seemed familiar but I wasn't aware of their meaning nor did I care to find out...so I passed them without much thought. The day I knew their meaning, suddenly I started noticing them in many of the articles that I read. I realised that these words have been part of my daily consumption and despite that it never occured to me as to what they were doing there and how they gave a new meaning to the entire sentence. I was stunned by my own ignorace.
Well thats exactly how life has been unfolding for me in the past few days. Everything that I claim to make me really happy today has been expereinced by me before. Not once or twice but several times. The only and very BIG difference between then and now- is my realisation and happy acknowledgement of these experiences.
I've been a dancer all my life. I've learnt the Indian classical dance, Bharatnatyam for close to 10 years. I enjoyed doing it and yet somewhere down the line I gave it up.I was about 15 then. It didn't occur to me as to what it is that I was really giving up then. Now, after another 10 years, I've joined Kuchipudi, a faster version of Bharatnatyam and I realise that I didn't just give up my dance then, I had given up my source of creative expression. The plain joy of breaking away from the verbal communication to using my eyes and hands to talk and express makes me feel closer to silence that is so not part of our urban lifestyle. It is almost like meditating. The flicker of smile and enthusiasm in my gurus eyes, while I dance to her instructions, it gives me a high that cannot be matched to all those times when I've had vodka to give me a kick.
The mindless decision to stop dancing then had quitely shut out the one thing that made really really happy. But, now i've re-opened this door and the world beyond it is calling me . The more I'm going deeper into it, the more I'm loving it and the more I want to explore. I've discovered my happiness quotient and I know it's only just the tip of the iceberg.
