Hope

I watched the movie "12th Fail" yesterday. What a wonderful movie it is. I could relate more to the movie since I have also passed through the pulls and pressures of the civil services examination and though I was privileged enough to have parental support all the time with sufficient monetary and emotional support, the process of civil services examination is itself so rigorous and testing that it changes almost all the serious students for their life irrespective of the result. I would like to congratulate the entire team of the movie and especially the director who has brought it so well. I really liked the "hope" that the hero of the movie had in life despite the worst of the situations right from being exploited by local police to the theft of all the money while traveling in the bus to deferment of the PCS exams to multiple failures in the civil services examination to rejection by the girlfriend to betrayal by a close friend.

This "hope" in life has always been a matter of curiosity to me. Sometimes, the tiniest of the problems put us down and we feel depressed while at times, we have this "hope" even in the worst of the situations. What is the real nature of this "hope" and why is this so fragile?

Probably, there are two wings of the bird called "hope". The first wing is "faith" in the laws of nature. Unless we have faith in the laws of nature, we will get disillusioned by the temporary halts in the journey of life. Probably, this "faith" in the laws of nature can come only when we stop behaving like a stubborn child and start having faith in nature like a devotee. That helps us understand and appreciate the wider plan. We appreciate that each failure has been equally or probably more helpful in our growth than each success. If we look back on our lives, it will not take much time for us to realize that each failure has made our lives richer. I failed in CA examination once and that laid the foundation of my preparation for civil services. We get so many failures in our relationships, family, health, society, and organizations. Each such failure is an indication of some or the other weakness within us and if we trust the divine as we trust our parents, we will soon realize that He is providing us another opportunity to get rid of the weakness so as to prepare us for the greater battle of life. This "faith" fills us with tremendous energy and enthusiasm rather than frustration.

The other wing of "hope" is the understanding that this life is meant to act in this world and not to rest. Life is all about movement. It is all about action. We are alive till the heart is beating and the brain is functioning. The moment vital organs of the body stop working, we are dead. They can not stop even for a moment. Similarly, the moment we are here in this life to act. Each failure provides us with a fresh opportunity to act. If we make rest as the purpose of life, each such failure is a burden. If action remains the center of our lives, each such failure is a new opportunity.

Faith in the laws of nature and the orientation of life around action, put together, fill us with "hope". Famous psychologist Angela Duckworth in her famous book "Grit" has written that success in any field requires around 10 years of grit. Grit has two integral elements: passion and perseverance. I feel that passion comes with that "faith" in life and perseverance comes when "action" and not "rest" is the center of our life.