Realizations:After the cocooned life of childhood

You are all happy in your world. Love of family, friends, joy, pride, fun, passion. Everyone from teachers to parents running behind you giving you a bunch of opportunities to step up; just thinking good for you. Ah! What a perfect life!

                  And then one day, there comes a halt. There opens a door you didn’t even know existed. The door is now unlocked and opened for you. The life on the other side of this door is introduced to you as the “actual world”, from which everyone has protected you so far. And all of a sudden, you are told to step into this world, to come out of your comfort zone and fight for yourself. You are all ready because somewhere you have a faith that if you could survive up to now, you’ll survive here too.

                 “There’s nothing as such the actual world. Everything is going to be the same”, you think. Slowly and certainly, the realization hits you that you have no idea about what the ‘actual world’ is. You now know that it is no bed of roses. Now, no one runs behind you with an opportunity in hand. Instead, you have to run to grab it or lose it to someone who has just got some better skills to survive in the so called ‘real world’.

                 You console yourself with a belief that at least you have your friends by your side; another realization hits over you. Your friends are nowhere to be seen because they too are struggling to fit-in in this newly introduced world. You want to kneel, accept your defeat and give up. And then there is this urge to be part of this world. To leave what you loved and run for what you need. Soon you join this race for success, for opportunities, for survival. You hardly remember how it was to live in that shell woven by your parents and teachers. You are a free bird now. Forget everything and chase your dreams.

             And now when finally you have achieved what you wanted to, people will ask you to ‘get a life’! There you stand bewildered “Isn’t this what you wanted from me? To fight for my survival?” Again, a realization hits- there is much more to life than simply surviving it. Achieving what you wanted is not success. Success is when you have few loved ones by your side to enjoy the smallest moments of your life.

           How good it would be if something as a ‘real world’ didn’t exist! If people were really as good as they show they are. If one didn’t have to run to fight for everything he wanted. If you could always stay in that small cocoon woven by your loved ones. If you didn’t have to leave something smaller to get something so called ‘bigger’. If only some ifs could be answered…!