Saba Waqas |
We are familiar with these common clichés; life’s not fair to us, injustice have been served, why I’ve to go through this, why me, so on and so forth. First and foremost, life is no bed of roses. Accepting the fact of life that it can sometimes appear burdensome, sad, cruel, a prolonged struggle in certain aspects will certainly help. It’s YOU who can survive the hard times by not letting negative thoughts overwhelm your ability to navigate towards peace and fulfillment.
What is life? Life is an opportunity but not for those who have stereotypical perspective, they’ll painstakingly stick to their orthodox convictions. Life is callous, and it will get worse with new technologies, pressures of social media, population increases, competition among peers and numerous other catastrophes. Most of us humans at some point or other seem to believe that life has meted out unjust treatment to us.
We have a distorted image of a perfect life, accept it that there’s no such thing as perfection, learn to take things in stride and own output from your actions. Afterall, we have no part in how we come into this world, but as we grow, choices and opportunities proliferate. We adapt to surroundings and start shaping our destiny. There is no point in blaming our elders, society or government, each individual needs to take the initiative and own the results.
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We exist in ever competitive times. Fortunately, we don’t live in a world where people need to kill each other to prosper. Its rather our perceived value towards society that determines success. Our idea of fairness is thus often based on self-interest. If it’s smooth sailing, you are content but as soon as things go south you go glum. So often people wish to become someone else, someone that appears more attractive, successful or powerful.
Try to live your own reality, it’s in your hand to remain positive amidst highs and lows of life. A healthy state of mind finds a solution to complex problems. Learn from your mistakes to never repeat it again. The greatest misery life can throw at you, simply affords you an opportunity to make changes, improve and ameliorate. The trick of the trade is stop comparing yourself with those who are superior, rather think of the less affluent.
Then you’ll realize how fortunate you are in so many ways. There are many examples where people have overcome the odds of disease, physical/mental disabilities, lack of education, war-torn hometowns and poverty-stricken backgrounds, and realized their goals and dreams. Regardless of the challenges they faced, they had the audacity to choose contribution over the complaint. Take life as a game, play by the rules, you win sometimes, you lose sometimes.
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“The War Prayer,” a short story by Mark Twain, tells us a bitter truth of life; sometimes what you are praying for yourself might turn out to be a disaster for another person, therefore, choose your narrative of life wisely. Here, I quote a famous idiom; “one man’s loss is another man’s gain.” For instance, Jack Ma is a co-founder of the Alibaba Group, a multinational technology conglomerate. Ma applied for 30 different jobs and got rejected by all. He even went to KFC when it came to his city. Twenty-four people went for the job.
Twenty-three were accepted and he was the only guy who was rejected. In addition, he got multiple rejections by Harvard Business School. This all encouraged him to change course and ultimately become one of the pioneers in his field. He never believed in this theory that life is not fair to him rather he made sure through perseverance that life becomes fairer to him. Take another example of Stephen Hawking, an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist and author.
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Hawking had a rare early-onset slow-progressing form of motor neuron disease that gradually paralyzed him over the decades. Even after the loss of his speech, he was still able to communicate through a speech-generating device, initially through use of a hand-held switch, and eventually by using a single cheek muscle. He never deviated from his path and kept on achieving success after success fighting all the odds. He could have chosen to descend into oblivion rather he used positive emotions to achieve much acclaim and respect.
Oprah Winfrey is another example of grit that fought against inequality and abuse to become a glowing tribute for women. Such ladies and gents need to be role models. Whatever the situation, make that present of yours from better to best, life will feel fairer to you in dark or light. Oprah Winfrey has rightly said, “turn your wounds into wisdom”. Life is always fair to you, it’s you who need to see opportunities in misery as well.
Saba Waqas lives in Islamabad her interests are cooking, travelling, and exploring various cultures, additionally, she writes articles regarding social matters. The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Global Village Space.