When I was very young, I had a teacher who taught me not to be impulsive. Decisions, he said, should be taken with utmost care and after a lot of introspection. Well, so many years down the line, with enough instances of introspection and plenty of care taken, I have to say- Sir, you were wrong.
See, I am sick of all those SRK films that keep telling you to listen to your heart, and your brain. Frankly, when I think of something, that thought doesn’t exactly come with the postmark of my heart. Therefore, it is quite difficult for me to decide whether the swamp where the thought bloomed was my heart or my mind. Thus, I am never sure whether to listen to myself or not.
Over the years, though, I have realized that the heart and the brain are like two trains that start off at the same station, but while one is going to Ahmedabad, the other goes to Patna. In simpler words, with time, they are bound to increasingly diverge from each other. Hence, if you need to make a decision without any doubts or second thoughts- make it quickly!
Many decisions I spent ages pondering over have proven themselves to be not only incorrect, but also clearly undeserving of the time allocated to them. Hey- when you are at an airport, and have barely a few minutes before somebody very close leaves for months, do the 15 minutes you spent deciding what to have for breakfast make any sense?
Admittedly, I have found that there have been several decisions I made on the spur of the moment which have turned out to be questionable- and extremely troublesome. For instance- in hindsight- the decision to do MBA perhaps warranted more than the cursory 20 seconds I gave it. However, at the end of the road, I am glad that I didn’t allow further thought to interfere with my decision: imagine all the friends, fun and growing up I would have missed out on. Not to mention the suffering- and, as Steve Carrell says in ‘Little Miss Sunshine”, suffering is what makes you who you are.
Whatever a person is at any point of time, is ultimately a result of his or her decisions- and not abilities, to paraphrase J.K.Rowling. In that case, then, I am pretty glad I took some of those decisions.
Decisions I will always live by and hold close to my heart- and my mind…
Decisions taken in an instant, with one vision of somebody on a stage…
Decisions taken at the IHC, sitting and looking into somebody’s eyes…
Decisions taken walking in the dark, aimlessly, cluelessly…
Decisions taken while sitting alone, staring into the distance, seeing nothing.,..
Decisions taken outside someone’s house, with a thumping heart, and a sudden moment of clarity…
Decisions taken at the seaside, holding somebody’s hand, walking with feet flirting with the tide…
Decisions taken in love, with alarming calmness and total knowledge of the storms coming…
Decisions.
Taken in the spur of a moment. Sometimes looming over your entire life.
Moments where your heart and mind meld into one and in one, blinding flash, illuminate your entire being.
I am talking of those decisions. And Sir, they don’t need care or introspection.
1 comment:
I may have thought again abt many of my decisions, mostly the ones which take a long time to....well be decided.....but the 1 i took without much thought, sittin on the steps of IHC, that 1, i've ever even needed to re-think.
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