LSD: Life, Success and Desires

You want tons of things in life, probably everything that you see around or ever dreamed off. But, what you want and what you get is rarely in sync, the happy case would be to get what you want or get more than that; sadly for most of us this does not happen often and even in the happy case we eventually get over it and in a while something else catches attention. Thus, life keeps on moving and we are almost always running after something. Also, all things come in packaged deals, you see benefit in something but overlooked the side-effects of it. So, first you struggle to achieve something and at times after getting what you want, you struggle with the unwanted features you got.

But, do people really attain Nirvana and move out from this rat-race (is it a rat-race??), ofcourse I have heard such people exist but not really met anyone in person, a person who has grown over all his desires, all the beautiful things life has to offer. I have seen many people who have been defeated by the pressures of pursuits and stopped going after what they want or some be afraid of failures, don't strive to achieve their wishes.

This brings me to think how to be happy? Does happiness has a relationship with success? In that case, how do you define success?

Clearly, by abjecting your desires, you leave less complicated life but that is not happy life. The path to happiness goes through fulfilling your desires. But, of-course when I say desires, I find it foolish to include desires that could be anti-social or for that matter which could be harmful to you in the long run, like the habit of excessive alcohol consumption or smoking. Most of us have heard success is a journey and not a destination but few mis-interpret it and think success is all about the fun along the ride without caring for the destination. Those people would be surprised by the destination they reach. But, it also does not mean that you just keep on running from one achievment to other. I intentionally changed the word to achievement in last sentence because success for me is not one journey to some destination, it is the amalgamation of all the desires and journeys along them. So, success for me would be, you dream for something and you put efforts to achieve it, did you enjoy pushing yourself and finally did you end up where you wanted to be? After which, the cycle completes and you move on to the next level in life.

Growing Up

When I was seven, I used to think what a wonderful place this earth is; every time I pass by all these new people appear and big buses come around filling this space up. It further used to get me into thinking what happens to all those people, buses and bridges when I am not in that frame, how do they survive? I somehow had the notion that I am the center of the world and everything else just moves around me. I just did not fathom the fact that life equal to me, other than me and in parallel to me can exist. Well, am glad all that was really long time back.
Time passed by I was eleven, I had grown out of earlier kiddish thoughts and started to believe that I am the last hope this world has. I am omnipotent, a re-incarnation of noble soul, I am the one (so to speak Neo). I even had a belief that if I concentrate enough I can lit up and turn off a candle. I even tried that but that candle was not smart enough to understand my prowess and I had more important things to do than proving it to stupid candles.
At sixteen, I looked around and thought well so sad for the world, it lost its last chance recognizing me as the One. But, still there is hope, with all the wisdom in me I could probably bring all the conflicts in the world to end and give a fair deal even to the last person on the planet. I just need to go to UN, become its president and that's it I will save the world, pretty neat huh. ;-)
Afterwords, engineering happened to me and at twenty one it occurred to me that "Thoda locha ho gaya mere sochne me" There are sets of problems, I won't be able to solve. Not all things are as easily achievable as I used to thought. But, I still found the comfort in the fact that I am more knowledgeable and wise than most blokes around me.
More time passed by, I spent some time in professional life, getting all round view of world in general, I realized I am too insignificant a person. I have achieved too little compared to people from my time or history. Forget about the world problems, if I could fix my problems and get things in order, it would be a significant achievement.
Now, I wonder if all along I was growing up in age or growing low in my expectations or may be I was getting matured, who knows how long I have to go. :-)