Now I’m supposed to act like my senior peers and professional people capable of handling responsibility. [break]
I have to earn respect from the society so that I’m acknowledged by my teachers, seniors, parents and relatives.
I’m supposed work hard, earn my reputation for myself and carve a niche for myself with my abilities.
I’m supposed to withstand the harsh cruelty of the world and push myself through every hard reality of life on my own.
I’m supposed to live alone far away from my parents and my friends so that I’ll know the way to find success in my life without their help.
I’m supposed to inculcate the abilities to fight for my own ideals. I’ll have to fight the dirty politics of the country and the office politics present at work, all without damaging my ideals.
Yet, I still feel like a child who always wants to learn more. I’m always amazed with sheer joy when Nature overwhelms me with its pristine beauty everyday. Every dewdrop is a majestic painting, with Nature being its canvas. Still, there are so many things to do.
There are so many things to learn. I still haven’t found out why ants stroke their heads with each other when they are heading to each other on a common trail.
Soon I’m expected to and will join the league of people who are serious about their future and their life.
Then maybe I won’t find the same dewdrop as majestic as I do now. Maybe I’ll be consumed by fears and trepidation to my work and family. I’ll live like a robot, forgetting everything that I wished to do when I was a teenager.
I’m scared. A certain kind of fear creeps in when such realization dawns on me. At such moments, I feel I can live as if there is no tomorrow so that I wouldn’t have to face the problems.
But this isn’t true. Everyone is bound to think about tomorrow.
But this was not what I knew as a child. I think I learnt it when I saw the world, through the experiences of my brother and uncles have shared with me.
I wouldn’t know otherwise, as I haven’t experienced it myself. I don’t know if I miss the innocence of my childhood.
This makes me think of a story that was in my English book. It was the story of the Hope fairy which was released the last after Pandora opened the box of troubles.
Maybe there is hope for me and for everybody else to live with childlike innocence when they are mature.
There is hope that we’ll encounter each problem that we face with childlike simplicity minus the convoluted way of thinking of an adult.
But will that solve the problems? I really hope it will. I’m optimistic about it.
The writer is a student of Biotechnology in India.
Related story
Expectations a heavy burden
_20191222200001.jpg)
