Life is a flow

The countdown has begun as the current  year has begun winding down to a close and a new one is ready to roll out (if one goes by the English calendar that is). At a juncture like this, it is quite natural to look at the coming year as a fresh unit or span of time as opposed to viewing it as part of a seamless, continuing stretch in the canvas of life.

If we go into flashback mode as most of us are tempted to, at such points in time, we tend to look at life in compartments — childhood years, adolescent, adult years, etc. or year of this or year of that or quite simply as good or bad years. As a result, the New Year is sometimes looked forward to with hope and sometimes with a little trepidation and fear depending on what the previous year was like and largely in a relative sense.

The reason there is an element of fear at the cusp of a New Year is because it is human nature to want only the good things in life and for things to go well. That very expectation is flawed because life is a grand tapestry of a  variety of experiences and events, an interconnected chain so to speak with lean and fallow vs. bumper crop years alternating or events often dovetailing into one another or leading to another. Which is why no experience or event can be looked at in isolation or removed from the past or future. The chapters and scenes have already been written and they unfold as per plan — only we don’t know it.

It is wise to remember that  not one experience is unnecessary or unfair as each experience strengthens, paves the ground and prepares us for the next. Going through the stages of life is an inevitable process, we can’t skip the pages or fast forward the action. Therefore we need to face, accept and live all of life with total faith and a winning attitude secure in the belief that it will all  play out just the way it was meant to be and shape us for the roles we were hand- picked for by the Creator.

Our job is to put in the effort, do all the good we can and live our life according to the rules. As for the outcomes — they happen in  myriad, mysterious ways. Whether it is the precise moment in which you get to do something — maybe as trivial as visiting a place you have always wanted to go to  or buying a book that you had on your mental shopping cart for a long time or completing a task that refused to go off your to-do list despite your sincere efforts or life-altering events like marriage, childbirth, landing a dream job or a legal matter getting resolved, you simply have to trust in the Universe’s timing after you have done your bit.

What happens in one year may be a prelude followed by the real action in the following years and bliss thereafter. The road map is already laid out and the guiding hand is eternally there. As Psalm 32.8 of The Bible says: “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will guide you with my eye.” Therefore embrace each year with not an iota of doubt or fear but total and implicit trust and ready to welcome whatever it may bring.

The writer is a Reiki channel, yoga practitioner and a spiritual seeker