All the Stars
My mom started a nursery.Right at the centre of our small hall. My brothers and I never saw this coming. I mean, it was safer to imagine her fixing loose buttons or mixing flour. But as a teacher? We didn't come so close. So now we not only have to change diapers but have to live through the shock of opening a book and finding crayon marks every where. The good thing about having kids at home? You learn a lot and I am not talking about rhymes or how to spell xylophone.Once a child saw a shoe that another child had and demanded that his mother got him those same pair of shoes. And here's the sweet part: he cried for the shoes not because he didn't have a pair but simply because these ones came in a different colour.And I couldn't help but wonder how many people out there are like this kid in my mom's school: people who are chasing after dreams they barely understand, buying things they hardly need, and losing their selves in the process because quite frankly, there is never any stage in our lives that we would be fully, wholly, and completely satisfied- if, all we ever do is look over our shoulder to see what we missed along the way.The very things my mind struggles to understand are balancing of equations, coding, and the plain truth that we are all not the same.
We are not the same.
And so we may not eat the same foods or wear the same shoes or drive the same cars or live in the same apartments. We won't always have the same jobs or the same kinds of friends, skills, opportunity.And honestly, that is just fine. Because in the end, we still fill our stomachs with food and get to our destinations whether we are in boots or chucks; whether we are driving in convertibles or riding bikes. I think contentment should be a course studied in schools. It could have different titles like The Art of 'Enoughness' or You Are Not Your Neighbour. Whatever scholars think will sell. I just strongly believe that people need to be constantly reminded that they are enough.
We are enough just where we are and with just what we have.
Of course having more cannot be put on the dark list. We don't lose our limbs for working extra time to buy that one dress. We reach absolutely no level of insanity when we admire anyone a step or a thousand steps ahead of us.
We only begin to lose out on it all when we allow their accomplishments to breed jealousy and steal our joy; when we permit their riches to make us forget what we are worth.
A brilliant friend of mine wrote a beautiful poem, Polygamy in the Skies, of how one moon marries all the stars at night. So yes, perhaps all the stars can fill our wardrobes with expensive cloths and all the stars can take us on dates in fancy restaurants. And that too, is just fine. But spending all our time chasing after stars, piling them up in boxes and trunks, will still, in a million years, not be enough.
Because this art of 'enoughness', this incredible atmosphere of balance and contentment, lies very little on how bright we shine on the outside but rather, settles ever so gently within us and what we do with the seemingly little that we have.
So if we have a little table, let's learn to dance in circles around it. If we have a little room, let's learn to paint the walls and light it up. Because no matter the stars we have or lack, our hearts will always find a song to sing to.
