Our children – Anay and Aavya go to a Waldorf School. The idea of this kind of teaching is to allow children to enjoy their childhood. They are allowed a lot of free play. All the learning happens through games, songs, and activities. They are not piled on with syllabus and books to complete. The idea is to have them learn stress free. The thought process is – once they enjoy ‘learning’, the capacity to absorb and assimilate things increases drastically. Everything the school does, is to – enhance creativity within them and encourage them to be curious!

As their academic year got over, we immediately went for a family vacation. As we were driving to the airport, our kids had some interesting curious questions – why do we breathe through the nose and not by eyes? Why are babies born only to girls and not to boys? How did we change from monkeys to humans? How do babies come inside the stomach? Why do we only stay on ground and not fly like birds? And so on ….

Some questions definitely had some answers, while others did not have any logical responses. It was then I told them – “Kiddos, not every question has an answer. Some things are like that just because they are like that. Instead of searching for a reason, we should just – wonder!” And a few examples followed to make them understand what I meant.

I don’t know how much they understood what I meant. But it was an interesting realization for me. I fathomed that – in today’s fast paced world, we human beings are searching for logic everywhere and in everything. It seems we want to find out the reason behind every happening. We seem to want to answer all of those questions with the help of science, logic, theories, mathematics, experiences, etc.

I realized that there are two facets to the world we are living in – The obvious and the not-so-obvious!

The OBVIOUS things are the ones, which can be explained by logic, theories, and research. These obvious things can also have logical solutions. Eg: ways to improve a  depleting business; taking steps to enhance intimacy in marriage; doing a retreat for peace of mind; inventing machines/ tests to find diseases in the body; replacing robots for everyday routine work; take up job for increasing confidence; etc.

The NOT-SO-OBVIOUS are things, which have no explanation or reasoning. But they occur, which is a reality! Things, which will have no answers, like – why am I born in this family; why am I having a small nose, why am I born as a girl; why did this person come into my life; why did my best friend pass away so soon; why am I not clearing my CA whereas my friends cleared in first attempt; why is it that my colleague has had a better spiritual experience than me; when will I find a Guru in my life; what is the purpose of my life; and so on

I am sure all of us understand the OBVIOUS and the NOT-SO-OBVIOUS. But what most of us forget is that it is only the obvious things that I can control. The other happenings are beyond my understanding and my control. Infact it is a futile exercise to even try to understand the logic behind the not-so-obvious.

Yes, some things might not justify the happenings. They might be extremely hard to absorb. But do we really have a say? Will crying over it improve the situation? Is complaining going to help? Is staying isolated and depressed benefit us in anyway?

We would save ourselves a lot of time and energy if we stop grudging about the happenings in our lives, which we have no control over.

The Existence/ God/ Force (or whatever you may call it) already has plans for each one of us. We are too miniscule in this Universe to decide and control anything. Whatever the Existence has offered, we need to accept gleefully. The sooner we accept, more peaceful we shall become. The more we resist, the harder it will be.

In conclusion, I would like to say that – what happens to and with us, is not in our control. How we accept and respond to it is in our control. Let’s control what we can control, to stay happy and peaceful!

Let’s GO WITH THE FLOW ……