Lesson in Life

Lesson in Life by: M. K. Ramakrishnan

Oscar Wilde, master of sparkling prose and ever lasting witty poems and ever lasting witty poems once said that Experience is the name we give to our mistakes. The man who boasts of having the richest experience might be the one who has made the largest number of mistakes.

There are times when a small crisis appears terrible but then by the same time next day, it has lost its dimension and a little later, it has faded into memory. How much would it help us to take life’s problems with equanimity, if only we could remember the words of an old song; “What would it matter, a ten years from now?”

I have learnt that human life is a difficult riddle to solve. Good people suffer the evil ones thrive. A long time ago in Israel, an old man sat writing a book into which he poured out all his wisdom. In lines of memorable prose he wrote: “The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong”.

What does this mean? As I understand it, it means that things happen to each one of us, which have no relationship to our birth or intelligence or any other qualities. So we see the not infrequent instances of very bright young men under-employed or sometimes unemployed, the not-so-bright ones in positions of power and prestige. I have therefore learnt that in the interests of our own health we should not compare ourselves with those who are better off than us but count our own blessings and be grateful to God.

Think of this famous Arabian Proverb which can restore sanity to the troubled world: “I had no shoes and I murmured until I met a man who had no feet.”