Friday, October 2, 2009

The road less travelled

"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you."
[Ezekiel 25:17]

Neither am I an atheist nor an agnostic or even deeply religious for that matter. I am just an average guy who has been brought up with a certain sense of discipline, imbibed into my system. I don’t like being suppressed or suppressing anyone, for any reason whatsoever. I am not virtuous, pious, saintly or anything close to that. I have my vices and all I can say is that I try to keep a check on to them. I try and not harm people as much as I can, so that at the end of the day I can stand in front of the mirror and look into my eyes. As I do believe that one can run away from everyone and everything but one can’t runway from oneself. Simply put, I try and maintain a certain standard whereby I can face myself and be able to answer back to my conscience.

And given the way I am I can’t tell you how difficult it is for me to reach a point where I have to choose between what is right and what is easy.

On one end, the mind keeps telling me to take the easy path- Besides the fact that that is what most of us do, it also, quite obviously, is an easy way out. But on the other end my heart doesn’t allow me to abandon what’s true.

Oh, what a dilemma! I always stand at the crossroad thinking what I should do. I so desperately feel I should take the easy way, for once. As its just about continuing your journey and knowing how way leads to another way, it would perhaps just be a matter of time before I would be able to put everything behind. I would perhaps forget everything and lead a brand new life. So what if that life is built on sacrificial offerings consisting of mine as well as others feelings? Big deal if I turned my back away from things when I should’ve stuck around. Who doesn’t do it? People anyway live on short-term memory. Don’t we like to forget our mistakes and our past? Don’t we prefer dwelling on just good times, even if it comes at a cost of others disappointment.

Ah! Let me do it just this one time. Let me just walk away from everything and turn my back to the people who now need me more than I need them. Let me just look at my happiness. Let me be selfish, weak and ignorant, just this one time. Let me...


I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
-Robert Frost

Perhaps that will make all the difference some day...