A bittersweet life
In the end, all we remember are good and bad moments which will not return
One late autumn night, a disciple woke up crying. Seeing this, his master asked, “Did you have a bad dream?”
“No, I had a sweet dream,” answered the disciple. “Then why are you crying?” asked the master. “I am crying because the dream I had can never come true,” replied the disciple.
Coming across this conversation between a master and his disciple, one cannot help but respond to it with a helpless sigh. Consciously or subconsciously, we all momentarily slip away, thinking as if we were the disciple. We see our own dreams, which have faded and eroded away with time, in the dream of the disciple, and hence we are able to empathise with him.
It might be harsh to state this, but most of us already know that our dreams won’t come true in our lifetimes. Whether we wish to become authors or world leaders, or want to become travellers like Ibn Battuta, some part of us has a vague idea that our dreams will remain dreams. Reality isn’t always that kind towards our wishes and aspirations.
Still, most people ignore this and opt to strive. They work hard towards achieving their dreams, the best way they can, because they hope that maybe they can turn things around.
However, in this struggle, most of us fail to understand one fundamental truth about life — that it is lived in the moments which dissipate too quickly. And life is exciting because it is full of such temporary moments.
We might think that chasing our dreams will give us a clear direction of what we are working towards, but that is all that it will give us — a sense of direction.
In the end, all we remember are good and bad moments which will not return, and we should be able to at least take some solace from the fact that we lived those moments to the fullest.
So, regardless of our failures and our achievements, it is important to remember to enjoy life each day, because that quite frankly is the only sweet part of it.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 11th, 2016.
“No, I had a sweet dream,” answered the disciple. “Then why are you crying?” asked the master. “I am crying because the dream I had can never come true,” replied the disciple.
Coming across this conversation between a master and his disciple, one cannot help but respond to it with a helpless sigh. Consciously or subconsciously, we all momentarily slip away, thinking as if we were the disciple. We see our own dreams, which have faded and eroded away with time, in the dream of the disciple, and hence we are able to empathise with him.
It might be harsh to state this, but most of us already know that our dreams won’t come true in our lifetimes. Whether we wish to become authors or world leaders, or want to become travellers like Ibn Battuta, some part of us has a vague idea that our dreams will remain dreams. Reality isn’t always that kind towards our wishes and aspirations.
Still, most people ignore this and opt to strive. They work hard towards achieving their dreams, the best way they can, because they hope that maybe they can turn things around.
However, in this struggle, most of us fail to understand one fundamental truth about life — that it is lived in the moments which dissipate too quickly. And life is exciting because it is full of such temporary moments.
We might think that chasing our dreams will give us a clear direction of what we are working towards, but that is all that it will give us — a sense of direction.
In the end, all we remember are good and bad moments which will not return, and we should be able to at least take some solace from the fact that we lived those moments to the fullest.
So, regardless of our failures and our achievements, it is important to remember to enjoy life each day, because that quite frankly is the only sweet part of it.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 11th, 2016.