As a student at Uni, , my reading collection included titles from J. Krishnamurthi, Swami Vivekanand, Jeffrey Archer, Simon De Beauvoir; but one author that I kept going back to was Richard Bach. A friend had asked then: what does he write about? Others may agree or not, but for me Bach’s content was about feelings and reflections on the act of living (alone or with someone). From ‘One’ to ‘A Bridge Across Forever’, the ease with which these reflection flew and the stories he told, mesmerised me. He writes in a Bridge Across Forever “There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they are necessary to reach the place we have chosen to go”.
A broken promise, a toxic relationship, a job that someone just lost or a depression being battled by someone happens, as life happens. Life threatening disease happens, betrayals happen, and broken relationships happen too. How about taking a deep breath, and hearing yourself repeat: Nothing really is the end of the world. Beauty of life is its ability to go on, uninterrupted in daily segments of 24 hours passing us by; slowly or very fast (based on our perception). Ironically most of us live till our last breath (oh yes we do, trust me); and at least once in our lifetime felt an incident was the end of the world.
Social media and highly aggressive content in cinema, and OTT shows somehow place the responsibility of making the loss good ASAP on the victim. Fetch the next weapon available, go fix it. Just recounting incidents of past few months: an educator stabbed by her student, many injured and fatally assaulted by their partners, close family, rejected in love persons. Dispensing justice by unauthorised individuals is a social threat. What is going wrong? Does rejecting someone, losing in life, being rejected by close family and failing at relationships ;sound like the incidents Bach suggests we can learn from? Dealing with unpleasantness, undesirable outcomes and big blows: who trains us for these? Which curriculum makes space for resilience and optimism in the face of devastation? Parents as role models can help. Most of us just wish to be reminded intermittently that no matter what, no single happening, loss, or person can bring the end of the world for us. Learning our lessons, and remembering to use them in the future, is all there is to it. Nothing ever is the end of the world; it could be the end of the world as we have always known. That’s actually all there is to it!