Well, people, here’s an essay I put up for
the school magazine. What’s special for me about it is:
2. I bunked school just to write it.
3. I thought a lot on it, and even worried
that it would not appear on the school magazine, as it was kinda negative and
dark in tone, not really something you would see in a magazine with cheery
articles like “I love my school”, “My ambition in life”, “My Grandparents” and
what not…
4. My article had nothing to do with
smoking, yet the crazy editor person (or whoever it was) added a picture of a
burning cigarette and another picture of a depressed man, adding to the dark
tone…bummer, ain’t it?
5. It’s special for all these reasons, but
I’m also kinda doubtful whether anyone actually read it. Even bigger bummer. So
I’m making sure you guys at least read it. So, read it, I say! *commanding
tone*
So, anyways, enough of the intro, let’s get
on with it!
Mistakes
What went wrong?
Mistakes. We all make them. No human being
on this earth is devoid of mistakes. When we know our mistakes and what went
wrong, we will know what to do when we are offered a second chance. Or else, we
end up in a cycle of repeating the same mistakes, making the same blunders and
wondering what exactly went wrong, when, in reality, we have been inflicting
our work with the mistakes of our own hands. However, I’ve come to realise that
most of our BIGGEST mistakes come not from anything else, but the faults in our
mentality. When we commit a mistake thinking that we were right in committing
it, we fall, unable to get up, and curse our situations and surroundings for
their “incapability” to cope with us when we do the “right thing”. So, what
exactly are our mistakes? What makes us do the mistakes we do? Well, let’s find
out!
Fighting too hard:
We have a lot of struggles in our life. The
next examination, a competition, a relationship to restore with a betrayed
friend and so much more to work upon! However, there are times we fight too
hard. We are so involved in certain “important” things that we lose perspective
of what we should do. When we fret too much for losing just three marks for a
centum, instead of thanking God for actually giving so many marks, we
re-evaluate, pull our hair, reject ourselves for it, or even cheat by tampering
with the paper to get those extra marks. Is that really necessary? When we
start “competing” by bickering,challenging and demotivating the other
participants, instead of actually focusing on doing a good job and not worrying
about what result comes, knowing that you have done your best, WHAT DO YOU
GAIN? Nothing! Just a few broken relationships, all in the name of
“competition”. Again I ask, is that really necessary? Are we trying too hard to
win something, and unfortunately forgetting God’s command to love your
neighbour as yourself? Are we living a life full of bitterness and hate just
because of a trivial matter? So I implore you, not to lose focus of the goal,
by getting too involved in the wrong ideas of putting down the rest of the
competition, using imperfect methods to achieve perfection (which is so
overrated, when you know that perfection is measured by the attitude of your
heart, not the number of centums or first prizes you have achieved) and working
too hard for the wrong causes.
Giving up too soon:
All of us have a God-given plan in our
life. We have a cause to commit to, a plan to perform and a life to live. But
how many of us have given up doing the big things in our life without knowing
that we were only inches away from success? Recently, a friend of mine was
asked to pass all the exams by a lot of people. In this motivation, he worked
hard and actually managed to pass every subject (he actually had all borderline
marks! But since he managed to pass…we considered it an achievement). However,
he wrote a certain exam thinking he would not pass. In that disappointment, he
flunked the next exam. Now, when he got his marks, he managed to pass every
subject except the one he purposefully flunked in. Now, he looks back and tells
me that if he knew that he would pass every other subject, he would have worked
harder for that particular subject. Sad story, isn’t it? When we discontinue
from pursuing our God given talents, we give up too soon. When we leave off
participating, for fear of losing, we give up too soon. When we get absent for
a certain exam for fear of failing, we give up too soon. The saddest part,
however, is that we forget the fact that if God has given us this challenge, he
is faithful to help us to SUCCEED in this challenge, not even borderline pass
it! So, we’d better not give up too soon, and we must not fear any challenge,
because we know that God will provide help when we ask him.
Showing off too much:
We all have a need to be accepted, with all
our faults and follies and we need to be people who will accept people and show
them the love that God has given us. But, we have no need to attract people
into believing that we are something what we are not. We may not be that talented,
but we move among the talented people and attempt to outshine them. That
attitude is so dangerous, that I am lost for words to explain how it is
detrimental to the cause. We don’t have to glorify our own selves. We shouldn’t
actually. Showing off is for those who are afraid that people will not accept
them as they are. We need not be afraid, because God accepts people as they
are. What we have to remember is that we must humble ourselves and remain
humble. We need to realise that by putting an image of ourselves that is not
really who we are, we are at great risk of being exposed and people will
consider us as cheats who are insecure and immature enough to appear as “great”
people instead of who God really wanted us to be. When God asked us to let our
light shine before others, he actually meant the goodness of our soul, not our
super-sized egos. So, we need to understand that we need not be the best, but
we need to make sure we don’t act like we are the best.
Hating too long:
We have been offended by many things, from
the way a teacher shouts at you, to the ugly smelling deodorant your friend was
wearing (on investigation, it could have been found out that he didn’t actually
use any deodorant). But, how many times have we held on that hurt, that pain
and turned it into a sword of hate against that particular person? Hate can
destroy many things. It can destroy our good opinions of someone (i.e. your
enemy helps a falling kid, then you go ask the kid if his money wasn’t stolen
by the enemy. When the kid says it wasn’t stolen, you grumble that your enemy
didn’t succeed this time…that’s what I’m talking about), it can destroy all the
good that someone has done to you, it can destroy their own conscience, giving
them guilt feelings, when actually, YOU should be feeling the guilt because you
didn’t forgive that someone for his unintended fault. Do you hate someone for
too long? Does the sight of that person cripple your insides with memories of
the “grievous” faults that they have committed? Then, go to that person, and
apologise for the hurt that YOU are causing him. You may not know how much hurt
you are causing him just by your attitude to him. Show that you are also
willing to forgive him just as God is ready to forgive your own faults. Don’t
harbour pride in your heart and cause him to suffer for that fault. Imagine if
God did that to you…now does that keep things in perspective?
“Heart” of the matter:
Now that I’m done (I’m sorry it was long),
you might notice a pattern in what I’m saying. It all corresponds to matters of
the heart. We live and learn a lot in life. But, some of it remains as head
knowledge. We need to “educate” our hearts to be what God wants us to be. We
need to remember to keep things in focus, never ever give up, remain humble and
love everyone unconditionally. Our heart must be perfect, if we ever wish to be
truly perfect. You may wonder why I chose this topic to write about. It is
mainly because, every magazine has a big achievements list in it. But are we
willing to humbly admit that we have even committed mistakes as well? Just
kidding, what I actually meant was that these were common mistakes even I admit
to committing, and as I said, remembering our mistakes will help us when God
gracefully gives us a second chance. So, that’s it for now, and I hope that we
all commit ourselves to doing the right thing and letting our light shine for
the glory of God.
So anyways, that’s the essay, and I hope
you like it. I’m surely no authority to speak big words of advice and all, but
in this essay, I’ve only written what I’ve seen in life, and what I learnt
about these situations from my walk with God. Hope this has helped you, and
entertained you (at least a bit).
I do not know how i missed this one...but it was really thought-provoking. I am sort of speechless and i agree with what you have to say. Thank you for this amazing article :)
ReplyDeletehey! Thanks :) but maybe you missed reading it because of the cigarette picture? :P
ReplyDelete