The oxford dictionary defines ‘life’ as the ability to breathe, grow, produce young. The best of the sites on the web defines it as the ‘state of living’. Though the definitions and meanings are available on various sources but it takes an entire lifetime to truly experience ‘life’. Humans may live the test of time, may survive 100 years but in totality, we just experience life and never truly understand it. We live to understand it as an ‘unfinished consciousness’. We may have crores in our bank accounts, we may have traveled every nook and corner of the world, we may have read a hundred books and may have met several people in the span of our survival, but all these are just experiences that make up our lives! We never truly understand it. We just experience the unfinished! It is what existed before our birth, it is what we experienced during our time on earth and it is what we leave behind unanswered and unfinished forever.
‘Unfinished’ is what I believe is synonymous with the word ‘life’. This is because we live to search for answers, we live to make conclusions, we live to plan, we live to resolve but life has its own way of showing that it is ‘unfinished’. We don’t find answers to the thousands of emotions that have merrily etched themselves into our hearts and minds. We look through the catatonia called life and try to resolve it with our might only to realize that this is the greatest puzzle of all times!
We live a life unfinished to leave behind more questions that keeps the wheel of time moving. We live a life unfinished for creation to understand that life is what we seek and look within. We search for answers to our what, why, how? Each person has his/ her own set of questions and clarifications waiting to be answered. But to seek the answers we baffle and ponder upon our own thoughts. We look back in time, rewind the scenarios, play them on loop and think over the ‘what ifs’. We try negotiating and try understanding opinions, judgments, and mindsets. We try to put ourselves in others’ shoes to understand. But all efforts in vain! Sometimes some things and incidents are meant to be unanswered and unfinished.
As I complete the 387 words of this essay, I am sure the words have echoed in the readers’ minds for them to begin and reminiscence their own questions! As you go through this article, embrace your questions and accept the perpetuity of the questions and the oblivion of the answers. These questions and the zest to run after them are what keeps us alive. The doggedness of the unanswered questions is the quality of life and mankind that separates it from the rest of the living world.
We wish for the cornucopia of happiness and cling to the glimpse of hope of finding serendipity amid the restlessness of life. The melancholy which is a part and parcel of life is never welcomed but it is what forms the complete life. Our scriptures have reiterated time and again the significance of balance. It is what is the aspect that brings balance in lives. This balance between right and wrong, good and evil, sadness and joy form the premise of life. To maintain this balance, answered and unanswered questions co-exist.
Sleepless nights, several flashbacks, stacks of self-help books, repeated spiritual videos form the journey to the answers! But the journey leads to the path of eternal consciousness of acceptance of reality.
These questions will continue to exist and have been there since time immemorial. No matter how much we try we can never live a life with utmost clarity. That being said, self-growth, the self -development, calmness of the mind, zest for success, understanding and acceptance, learning from mistakes, forgiveness, and letting go can make lives easier and give direction to our lives.
The unfinished life has memories-both good and bad. While we keep rejoicing in our happy moments, we fail to remove the bad ones from the inner eye. We can live a life hating and complaining about a person/ experience/ instance only to regret it when it’s over. An appropriate example of this is we remember the people who have left us forever and secured their place in life beyond. We miss them and the heart yearns for their one touch. We wish for having things sorted well in time, we wish for the reversal of time and actions. We wish for one last chance to make things better but all that is gone is gone forever. This is just one example of unfinished life and unanswered questions. Why couldn’t things be better? Why couldn’t we have lived in peace? Why do we now remember them? While there are other examples to substantiate the point, this is the most powerful example of life’s way of showing us ‘Regret is stronger than gratitude’.
As you have come to the end of this article, reading it so far, I hope I have conveyed my point. I hope that you and I continue to live life by appreciating the journey and the companions. I hope we look within to get close to the answers. I hope we never have to regret. I hope we acknowledge the unfinished life and ultimately, I hope we continue to let go and move on for the betterment of the life ahead. I hope that you and I spend our tenure in this world accepting the past, living the present, and hopeful of a blissful future. I hope we look within and accept that the search for answers is never-ending and not in our hands but to live a peaceful life ahead, the ball is in our court!