A GOLDEN KEY TO LIVING LIFE
What is life all about and what is the best way to live it? This question is a question we have all asked ourselves at some time or the other. Often it is not sage words or religious texts that offer us the golden keys to living life. Very often such wisdom can emerge from ordinary people and events around us.
A few years ago I enjoyed the company of a colleague and friend who often shared his thoughts and experiences with me. He even shared a poem or two because he loved to write. While he and me both taught the same courses, his table would be decorated with cards expressing the love of her students and my table would be empty. He would often tell me that he had been greatly inspired by his brother who said, “ Excess in anything is bad”…balance the key to a happy life.”
I dismissed her words as just another philosophy uttered for the sake of uttering something. Sadly my friend who had a chronic back problem, began to show signs of increasing ill health. It came to the point where she fainted one day. The doctors suggested immediate surgery. He, who had a passion for teaching and had struggled hard to reach where he was, had to negotiate whether he should leave his job, or carry on indecisively. But eventually her illness took its toll and after a complicated surgery he was bedridden and had to give up on the work place. Though he seemed to fade out our university circle and lost touch with our lives, we talked over the phone. He suffered great pain after the surgery.
After a gap of months I called him. His cheerful voice surprised me. Though restricted by the neck collar he still read newspapers by tilting his head up, took care of his child and meant to fulfill his dreams of being a writer. I suppose this is what living really means: love life anyway and you can never be unhappy.
DR. NAVRAJ SINGH SANDHU (PAHS-1)