Why do we fall?

I’m an observer and I love taking long walks. Especially, with myself. Am I saying this because I’m lonely or I don’t have friends to go out with? Well, no that’s not the case. I enjoy my company, but that’s a topic for some other day. Today, I’m going to talk about something very important which the nature taught me, in the most simplistic manner. And yet, it has been one of the most amazing realizations of my life.

I was walking back home from a long tiring metro ride from college immersed in my thoughts of what my journey has been like. I was always top of my class in school. I was a popular face and it pushed me harder to become even better. I wanted to set an example.  After the board exams, I scored well and took admission in one of the most reputed colleges of this country. Great, right? Seemed like that to me too. Whenever someone asked me which college I was studying in, I knew their lips were going to take the shape of an “O” after listening to my answer. The feeling was good, honestly. That was the first week of college. Now that it’s barely a month left of college life, if someone asks me where I am studying and make the shape of an “O” with their mouth at my response, I have only one remark. “Getting in is easy. Surviving it, that’s the real challenge.”

My score in college was decent. But I wasn’t the topper. I was the all-rounder in school and here, I couldn’t crack a single society audition. From a scholar, I turned above average. I failed bitterly (no, not academically). I failed elections, I failed auditions, and I failed interviews. Limelight me rehne ki itni aadat thi, sambhaala hi nahi gaya! I’m sure it has happened to most of us, but it is admitting it that’s the real deal.

It was this journey that I was thinking about on that walk back home. As I turned into the lane to my house, right adjacent to the park, a carpet of ‘fallen’ yellow and brown, dry and lifeless leaves greeted my feet. Kicking like a kid, I walked on. As an afterthought, I had a realization.

Did the leaves choose to fall?

No.

Did they want to fall?

No.

Do they have the ability to ‘get back up’ and become lively again?

No.

I didn’t volunteer to fall. I didn’t want to fall. And yet I did! But unlike those leaves, human beings do have the ability to get back up and be lively again. It is this absolutely magical ability we possess that the leaves don’t. And yet we forget it so easily.

So what did I do to survive?

I invested in myself and expanded my skill set drying up my tears of self pity. When I chose to keep getting back up, eventually I did achieve whatever I wanted to achieve. Had I achieved it all in the first shot itself, I would have never learnt to strengthen my core and not give up.

“Your success may be delayed, but it’s not far away if you keep trying, rest assured!” That’s what my college has taught me to live by and I couldn’t be more grateful.

Picture Courtesy: Batman (Mehul Gupta)