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You Only Live Once

The tragedy of life is not that we get only one life to live but that we don't know how to live that one life. For the purpose of understanding, we can divide the purpose of our life into three sections- learning, earning & yearning. If we understand these three, and try to live accordingly, one life is more than enough.

The first step is learning; but the big question is what & how to learn. We learn what we are taught-by our parents, our peer group, our teachers & by other varied sources. Initially, we adopt this learning only as an idea but when we are taught the same thing again & again & we don't question these ideas, they are converted into beliefs. And once they are converted into beliefs, they are difficult to be removed. So, if we are taught a particular religion, we accept it &, by & by, it becomes an integral part of our existence. But if we are also taught that our religion is the best one & all other religions are sham, we would accept this too as a belief & would start practising the same.

The vital aspect of any learning is questioning, reasoning & then establishing your own beliefs. If we are taught to question our set beliefs & find the answers ourselves we would have learned in every sense of the word.

The second step of living truly is earning & we are not good at that. We learn what to earn from our needs. A child wants to earn knowledge, love, compassion & freedom. But as we grow up, we learn to earn everything that fulfills our basic needs & then earn to become financially independent.

But our wants don't stop there; we crave for more- if I have a house, I need a bigger one & if I get that, I need one more & won't mind if it keeps adding. We have the same desire for our car, for bank balance & for other materialistic pursuits. And this greed engulfs us so much that we forget we are buying these at the cost of living. Richard Bach expressed it succinctly when he said,

"Shop for security over happiness, and you buy it at that price."

Earn financial independence but never at the cost of happiness, love & compassion for self & for all the people connected to you.

The third aspect is yearning- yearning for a quality life, for a peaceful coexistence, for living every moment of this life. But ironically, either we desire for the life we have lived or for another life, forgetting that while we were wishing so, another moment of this 'only one life' flitted by. We would live truly if we learn to live in 'now' not in 'years', to count moments not months.

"Butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough."
- Rabindra Nath Tagore.

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