A Gift called Life

A Gift called Life

Have you ever considered the true ownership of your life and all it entails? You always claim it is your life, you claim credits to all your physical features and mental abilities. You take credits for all you know and the education you claim to have. In fact you take even your name too seriously.

Here, then is the contradiction, something that you always knew, but you never allow yourself to realize. You are, in simple words, not the maker of your life. It was a gift handed to you by your parents. As a new born, you never even understand who you are. YOU did not matter to you – who you are, what others think of you, what abilities or look you have. The attention you got never mattered to you as you were only bothered about being hungry, sleepy or comfortable. Someone cared for you, fed you, cleaned you and put you to sleep. Never did you take any pride in yourself.

The name you so pride yourself in – was it you who took it upon? No! It was bestowed upon you by your parents. It was not based on what you are, your abilities, your achievements or looks. It was based largely on the beliefs and likes of those who named you, in most cases your parents. If they had given you a name that is not suitable for the times you’d still have carried it through your life. Your name was just a gift given to you, nay stamped on you for life.

Did you go to the school of your choice? No, it was chosen for you by someone else. Someone who thought that the school was the ideal one for you. It was chosen, based on various factors like location, expenses, repute and finally convenience. It had nothing whatsoever to do with you. You went there to be taught, not acquire knowledge on your own. You were given a standard education as others were, not based on what you wished to learn. It was a version of education that was decided by people unknown and accepted as the norm.

Here you may claim that you did well in studies through hard work. Which is perhaps one of the worst assumptions you possible can have. Has it ever struck you that even your habits, your tendencies and your behaviour, are a hand down of your parents genetics, upbringing that they gave you, how your teachers taught you and even your friends. No you did not become you. You were made.

As you grew older, the height, posture and complexion were all gifted to you. You did not choose to be tall or short, fair or dark, erect or stooped. All the features on your face were given to you, not sculpted by you. You did not become handsome by your skills or abilities, not did you turn ugly by your misdeeds. It came down to you. The tenor and the throw of your voice came with heredity.

As you start earning, your sense of ownership turns even stronger. Simply because you get back something for something you give. This make you feel the deep sense of ownership. The money and returns are the source of pride and you hang on to it. However has it ever occurred to you that the very opportunity, that you call your job was largely a fortune that came your way? Very few can claim that they planned and worked towards the job they hold. And even those cases have been achieved not all by themselves but with the help and support of someone else.

The day to day life, where everything you use, is not of your making. The public utilities that you use are not of your making but that of a collective society. You do not own it and in reality have very little contribution in its creation. Yet you claim ownership of these, and wantonly misuse them.

Have we ever wondered what if, we were not given all these favours by the countless people around us? What if we were not given this life and upbringing by our parents, taught well by our teachers, encouraged by our friends and supported by our colleagues at work? What if the society did not provide us with protection and safety? What if the nation’s economy did not give us the opportunity to work and earn, or give us the roads and facilities to travel? Come to think of it every day of our lives, we fall deeper and deeper into indebtedness to so many. And we finally even choose to forget the Divine Reality that takes care of you every moment of your life.

No, life is not of your making. It will always be a Gift from someone else. How apt it is that when we finally make our way to the grave, someone else does it for you. You do not walk your way to your grave. You pride in things you have no reason to take pride in.