Reality Checks

Living the smaller moments

Few months back, I was on my regular routine of longish evening stroll on weekends. This time I went deeper into smaller streets in Kolkata. There was a smallish society ground. The place was crammed with people of all ages, friends chatting, parents pampering their toddlers, old people having their share of evening dose of fun and some kids playing football (the only place in India where I don’t see cricket). During the course of the game, kids saw an ice cream vendor coming their side. They just started screaming for ice cream, stopped the play and all of them ran towards that ice cream vendor, started surfing the van and picked their brand. So all the match and scores gone hay wire for just passion for the scrumptious, lip-smacking dessert called ice cream.

Looking at them, I remembered my childhood days how we used to be when we were kids. Small-small things were cherished like a huge affair, no strong reason required to go for a picnic, people were made friends based on their simpler liking (its like kids discussing: who is ur favourite WWF star; Terminator; wow, me too—hey we are the best friends). No special event was required to treat others.

But today, we just wait and wait for one big moment in our life to feel happy rather show happy. The reason should be big enough to throw a party making at least a dozen people zealous.

No longer seeing a new type of flower makes us feel happy.
No longer savouring a special dish from Mom makes us feel cheerful.
No longer has a small appreciation from Boss made us feel elated (only promotion or pay hike will do well)
Only a week long leave will be enjoyed, weekends are only for just rest

So where are we heading to? Why are we becoming so mature to not enjoy and appreciate the smaller things in life, which by themselves may not be big but collectively they may be bigger than the biggest moment in our life till now. Why are we just awaiting one mega moment to come and create magic in our life?

We spent much of my time looking forward to "the next big thing." It seemed like no matter where I was in life; there was always somewhere better to be. We've become so conditioned to strive for the place that we want to be that we've lost the pleasure of basking in the moment and living it to the fullest.

When I was in school I couldn't wait to be in college, when I was in college I wanted to be in the corporate world. When I am in corporate world, I want to do those things which no one else has done. So when I finally "arrived" where I thought I wanted to be there seemed to be this empty feeling that came along with the "hurry up and wait" way that I'd lived my life.

So this time when I went on leave at my home town, with my parents, I ensured I live all the small moments in life. It may be visiting the school where I spent my childhood, eating from the familiar street vendors, meeting all my old friends no matter how close or distant we were during school, exploring all those parks where I used to play in my school days, visiting all those areas where I used to roam and many more which may seem to be more trivial but what I realized after my holidays that collectively they were much bigger than anything else in my recent times.

So I would like to end up with the quote which I just came across few days back.