‘Life Actually’

Forreset Gump’s mother told him that “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.” This is definitely true I feel. In life we encounter so many different experiences. Some have made us feel happy, some otherwise. But, what has life taught us thus far actually? When one starts to discover life, what actually is one discovering? How can one actually claim that he or she is finally discovering life after years of living on earth? Has he or she not discovered life before this? I have always asked myself “Have I experienced life enough?” every time a person comes to me and shares his or her experiences with me, sometimes asking for my views on certain issues or matters. Life, I feel, is full of surprises. It is always evolving, hence, making it rather difficult for a person to claim that he or she has learned enough and is now an expert about life. It is unfair for a person to declare that he or she is THE GURU about matters concerning life. Can life actually be taught I ask. If life can be taught, then who is the best teacher to actually teach life to others? I am in the opinion that the best teacher to teach us about life is ourselves. It is better to experience it ourselves than to let others ‘experience’ it for us. Like the saying by Forrest Gump’s mother “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.” You can only not know what you are going to get only if you choose the chocolate to be eaten yourself, and not the one chosen for you. It will then be your choice, yours and yours alone. Should you get a bitter one, than you will learn and you will only have yourself to blame for choosing that particular chocolate. Should you encounter the same chocolate again in the future, you will remember the taste and you will then make an informed decision of not eating the chocolate. If you let others to decide and choose which chocolate you should eat, you will then start to blame others if you get the chocolate that does not taste good. If it turns out to be good, still the choice was not made by you. Thus, learn to choose and decide yourself. Take the risk, that’s how you will learn and experience life. Life, I feel, is definitely unique and abstract. Unique, because you can never declare that you have learned enough or have enough knowledge about life. No one, in my view, can ever claim that as life is always teaching us something new every day. That is why life is so abstract. No one will have the same view. Just like an abstract painting. One painting can be viewed in many different ways, depending on the person who is viewing it. A person may say that the painting carries a lot of meaning behind it, thus defining the painter or artist. Another person may look at the same painting and see nothing. A painting is just a painting to some. Similarly, people view life as they view an abstract painting; it’s just that they do not realize it. Some people cherish every single minute of their life as they feel that they are experiencing something new every minute. Some feel that there’s nothing new about their life, they are doing the same routine day in and day out. But, they fail to see that if they actually examine it deeply, they do experience something new every day. It is impossible for one to assert that there’s nothing new in their life. There always is, it is a matter of wanting to see it. Sometimes we are so blind to see what is in front of us. We choose not to embrace life. We choose to say ‘life has nothing to offer’. This view has to be changed. How do we actually learn about life? How can we claim that we are in the verge of discovering life? This, in my opinion, is still a great mystery. Hence, to solve the mystery, let us take an adventure with and in life. Embrace it, appreciate every moment, you live on earth only once.