Man proposes and God disposes – a well known verbatim and seemingly true. Life doesn’t fail to surprise us every now and then.
Hypothetically, if one fine day, all this life, the energy, the data gets sucked into a Black Hole, considering the relative size of dear old Mother Earth to the entire cast universe, there’s hardly anything you can do about it other than naming it the ‘Apocalypse’ or ‘Doomsday’. In a nutshell, life can be unexpectedly short. How do you try to lead it? Do you try to be the perfect human being, who makes the right choices always, or should it be okay for you to make mistakes, to be selfish and self reliant with readiness to face the consequences?
It’s all about making your life meaningful, with experiences of both kinds, some that make you smile in reminiscence, and some that make you want to forget the incidents altogether; make lemonade out of those lemons life throws at you. In between battling your personal demons, what can be more meaningful and satisfying than doing something for someone else? In making at least one person smile, creating hope in one such aggrieved soul, making him/her feel special and loved?
You don’t always need in the correct state of mind, on the correct path, be fanatic about a certain cause to do some good; you can do something as simple as starting charity at home by helping out your stressed sibling with their peer pressure, cooking up a breakfast in bed for your parents to cope with the exhaustion of the past week, reading out the newspapers to your beloved Granny or assisting the house help with the chores.
The spark of happiness that you will have on getting a genuine smile and joyful twinkling eyes from the person will be worth all the efforts and, Voilà – you have helped someone other than yourself and this good deed of yours won’t go wasted. Now imagine yourself trying to do the same for that mass of people who are unknown to you yet in need of your help, your support due to being lesser privileged. That one act of goodness and kindness gives a completely different feeling of fulfillment and pure selfless joy, one that can’t be described or compared. That, my friend, is a spirit of a volunteer.
Responding to the needs of a community, addressing the societal issues and coming up with solutions creates a deep pool of the good deeds, which won’t ever dry up long after you have left the place, because you won’t be doing that for any personal benefit or perk; the desire to do something good for the society can transform it in ways that bring happiness and prosperity in your wake, so much so, that you will forever be captured in the hearts of the people involved.
Now I ask my previous question again – how would you love your life? With caution and measure or with fun and frolic? If you ask me, just try to get to a middle ground, inculcate the desire to create a smile and faith, with the correct balance of the good and bad and leave a trail of your actions to create the beautiful recipe that’s your life.
Your good deeds may be invisible. But they leave a trail that is imprinted on the hearts of others.
Soumee Sengupta | Manipal College of Dental Sciences, Manipal (2012-2017)
Volunteers at Manipal 