The COIN of LIFE

just check out this one published in The Focus Global Reporter, December 2010 issue!
comments are most welcome.//mg

The Coin of Life
Manisha Gupta

This beautiful concept called life is an interesting mix of opposites. The best part is that one’s thinking or perception depends on one’s own set of experiences. Two different people come up with two opposing views on life and its handling of living beings simply due to their opposite set of experiences. But all the same, both views and opinions are logical from each one’s point of view. It is their entirely different happenings in life that make them think and conclude the way they do. The individuality of their thinking arises from the individuality of their perceptions which are a consequence of their previous exposures to life’s circumstances. When looking at the entirety of life, these opposing perceptions are what together constitute life.

And I guess life would have been very dull and boring had we not had exact opposites sewn in every part of it. Moreover, we would not be able to understand life at all if there were no opposing views, experiences or perceptions. Because, unless and until we know the other side of this coin we cannot even understand the first side. For, how would one know what good is without ever having come across bad or evil? How would one realize the importance of light without knowing darkness? What meaning does positive have if one hasn’t come across a negative? One wouldn’t know the joy of happiness if one never experienced sadness. What meaning would success hold without having suffered failures? What meaning would pleasure have if one hasn’t experienced pain? Gain is gain because one knows what loss is.

So it is all these opposites that come together to form a whole, a complete whole called life. And one who experiences only one set of this whole, either the good or the bad, needs to go through the other set of experiences to make his learning of life complete. To open one’s vision of life, it is extremely necessary to have gone through the entire turmoil of having lost and won, laughed and cried, lost and gained.

This way the coin of life keeps rolling, stopping every now and then, with either positive side up or the negative one. The intelligence on one’s part is to keep it on the move always, after every stop, whether good or bad. Whatever pleasant and unpleasant themes are uncovered on the way during the course of this journey of life, one needs to absorb the positives and reject the negatives, yet learning more from the latter. Because it is loss that teaches us much more than any gain, it is pain that gives us more strength than any pleasure and it is sadness that toughens us many more times than any happiness. Though we neither understand nor realize, but it is most of the negatives in life that do us good, if we channelize them properly. For instance it is anger, frustration and dissatisfaction at times that prod us on to achieve such great heights that we wouldn’t even have thought of had we had only good experiences.

So the catch to live life lies in realizing the power of negatives combined with the energy of the positives. This is the only way to make the coin of life valuable and sparkling and shining right till the end. Because, to embrace death gracefully we need to have lived life completely, learning every moment and more importantly living it lovingly!