Looking Up

There are times when life seems to be unusually hard on us. Times,when existence itself seems like a brutal process of reaching nowhere. These are times when the urge to give up is the greatest. When you feel like surrendering just so that the suffering would end. You are tired of facing the failures and bearing the crazy stress. Nothing seems to fall into place. You feel like you have reached the threshold and it is impossible to go on anymore.  Disillusion and hopelessness seem to be the order of the day.  But it is this very threshold the crossing of which is capable of turning things around. It is the darkest hour before the sunrise.  As Thomas Edison had said, “Many of life’s failures are people  who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up!” And here is a small incident that taught me this great lesson.

I was sitting with a group of friends on a bench and we were casually chatting. While we were having an idle conversation and honey bee came hovering and sat on my leg. Even though I have a lot of respect for these very hard working and amazing insects, I dread their sting. So as soon as it sat on my leg, I started making funny scared noises. One of my friends then promptly tried to shoo away the honeybee with a rolled newspaper. Unfortunately, the bee got hit in the process and fell to the ground. It wasn't dead but seemed pretty injured and unable to move about. Since both me and my friend had no intention of killing the bee, we felt very bad and guilty about it. He then said, “Let us just end its suffering and kill it.” Although it seemed like a humane thing to do at the time and kill the bee, something felt wrong about it. The bee was struggling hard. I agreed with him that we shouldn't let the creature suffer but I had a feeling that something might just come out of that. So I stopped him.  He looked at me and wondered what was wrong with me.

“Why do you want it go through this ordeal? Let us just end it.”

“Wait for moment. Not just yet.”

And before we could say another word, the bee got on its feet and rose into the air steadily on its wings. It seem like she waited half a moment in mid-air to say farewell and then flew away. It will be difficult to explain the happiness and optimism this little insect left us with. Just when we thought that there is no hope and it is going to die, she proved us wrong.  When an insect refused to give up and returned from the brink of death, then why not us conscious human beings?

That day I realized how much there is to be thankful for. That giving up is surely easy and staying on very tough. But one must never quit. The dawn is just around the corner, and those who stay through the night will get to see the light. J

(Since we are talking about looking up, you might want to check this out- https://housing.com/lookup  :) )