-: A Trait to be sometimes Alone :-
It is always good to have good friends around us. Man is social animal; maybe because he knows he alone cannot be perfect in all senses, or he alone cannot achieve everything that he wishes for. Sometimes, though we feel that we should have left things on our own; because in some critical points of life; only you would understand yourself completely.
In our life, we try to keep ourselves busy with others, we may have come to know that we committed a mistake, but we try to hide it and if it keeps following us in our conscience, we become wise enough to always keep ourselves busy with others, till the time we find an excuse to justify that false action, or till the time the memory of that false act gets washed-off to a remote place in our senses.
One day I was watching my 8 months old niece, Harshi, playing with some toy. She was loosing interest in it and I had to make sure that she does not start crying because she now wanted another one. So I gave her a steel torch; that was with me handy at that time.
As soon as I introduced it to her; with the light ON, she looked at it in wonder. She was thinking what this shiny thing was coming from it. She saw it fall on all the things around her, the sofas, the cupboard, even the TV screen. I think she did not like it, because she started finding the source of it, she started throwing the torch around, then tried to lick it, tried to swallow it, and what not. Suddenly she gave up and threw it as if it had something wrong in it. When I tried to put it in front of her, she just avoided the instrument.
I forgot the incident as I had an important phone call to attend. But after the call, I suddenly saw a surprising change.
In the meantime my niece had accidentally discovered how the switch could be used to turn the light ON and OFF. Immediately a sparkle of amazement crossed her eyes. She now wanted it from me, by hook or by crook. She knew that it had something in it; that she could control on. I put the torch on a high table and she crawled all the way across to reach it. Her excitement was overwhelming, she was ready to risk crawling and climbing through a sofa to reach the new toy.
When she was finally able to switch it on, she cried in sheer excitement. She again tried to switch it OFF, and again turned it ON. She was now paying more attention to the source of the light. She now stared at it, and then when the light hit her eye-lids she immediately switched it off. She had learnt a new thing, a new game, and a new lesson. Little did she know that there is a lesson to learn in it for me too....a lesson she taught me.
I realized that when the first time I gave her the toy, with the light ON, she did not know that the light could be switched off.
She had just to look at the light of the torch and nothing new from it. She lost interest immediately. Similarly when I have people around me who give me advices, who give me suggestions and who try to tell me what is right and wrong; have switched the light ON and given the torch to me. From their side, they have been nice to me, just like I had been nice to my niece since I wanted to entertain her by giving the lit torch.
But by looking from their perspective, I had come to wrong conclusions. Just like my niece tried to throw the torch, lick it and do everything that was utter nonsense with the torch – in a similar manner I may decide for actions which are incorrect for my perspective.
But when she did not give up and on her own learnt that the light can be switched ON and OFF, she handled it better. On the same lines - when I accept all that others had to say; but kept to my own logics and reasoning, I would be better judge.
That’s when we need to be alone sometimes. Sometimes we need to understand such small happening around us on our own. We observe them, but just ignore them. Sometimes on being alone, I am able to think more rationally. It’s easier for me to find out, accept and pledge and avoid mistakes that I may have committed in the past experiences - maybe just because I have nobody around to be ashamed from. So I would digest a hard truth about myself, more easily.
Since my niece discovered it herself, she remembered her findings very well. She tried to show me how it could be done. And when she looked at me and I made an expression of awe. She felt so happy that she started moving her hands up and down in acknowledgement, and I immediately took her in a tight embrace.
I told her, “Thanks dear for teaching this lesson, let me practice this method which you just taught me.”
