A Special Essay

Well, people, here’s an essay I put up for the school magazine. What’s special for me about it is:

1. It was the last time I wrote an article for anything when I was in school.

2. I bunked school just to write it.

3. I thought a lot on it, and even worried that it would not appear on the school magazine, as it was kinda negative and dark in tone, not really something you would see in a magazine with cheery articles like “I love my school”, “My ambition in life”, “My Grandparents” and what not…

4. My article had nothing to do with smoking, yet the crazy editor person (or whoever it was) added a picture of a burning cigarette and another picture of a depressed man, adding to the dark tone…bummer, ain’t it?

5. It’s special for all these reasons, but I’m also kinda doubtful whether anyone actually read it. Even bigger bummer. So I’m making sure you guys at least read it. So, read it, I say! *commanding tone*

So, anyways, enough of the intro, let’s get on with it!

Mistakes

What went wrong?

Mistakes. We all make them. No human being on this earth is devoid of mistakes. When we know our mistakes and what went wrong, we will know what to do when we are offered a second chance. Or else, we end up in a cycle of repeating the same mistakes, making the same blunders and wondering what exactly went wrong, when, in reality, we have been inflicting our work with the mistakes of our own hands. However, I’ve come to realise that most of our BIGGEST mistakes come not from anything else, but the faults in our mentality. When we commit a mistake thinking that we were right in committing it, we fall, unable to get up, and curse our situations and surroundings for their “incapability” to cope with us when we do the “right thing”. So, what exactly are our mistakes? What makes us do the mistakes we do? Well, let’s find out!

Fighting too hard:

We have a lot of struggles in our life. The next examination, a competition, a relationship to restore with a betrayed friend and so much more to work upon! However, there are times we fight too hard. We are so involved in certain “important” things that we lose perspective of what we should do. When we fret too much for losing just three marks for a centum, instead of thanking God for actually giving so many marks, we re-evaluate, pull our hair, reject ourselves for it, or even cheat by tampering with the paper to get those extra marks. Is that really necessary? When we start “competing” by bickering,challenging and demotivating the other participants, instead of actually focusing on doing a good job and not worrying about what result comes, knowing that you have done your best, WHAT DO YOU GAIN? Nothing! Just a few broken relationships, all in the name of “competition”. Again I ask, is that really necessary? Are we trying too hard to win something, and unfortunately forgetting God’s command to love your neighbour as yourself? Are we living a life full of bitterness and hate just because of a trivial matter? So I implore you, not to lose focus of the goal, by getting too involved in the wrong ideas of putting down the rest of the competition, using imperfect methods to achieve perfection (which is so overrated, when you know that perfection is measured by the attitude of your heart, not the number of centums or first prizes you have achieved) and working too hard for the wrong causes.

Giving up too soon:

All of us have a God-given plan in our life. We have a cause to commit to, a plan to perform and a life to live. But how many of us have given up doing the big things in our life without knowing that we were only inches away from success? Recently, a friend of mine was asked to pass all the exams by a lot of people. In this motivation, he worked hard and actually managed to pass every subject (he actually had all borderline marks! But since he managed to pass…we considered it an achievement). However, he wrote a certain exam thinking he would not pass. In that disappointment, he flunked the next exam. Now, when he got his marks, he managed to pass every subject except the one he purposefully flunked in. Now, he looks back and tells me that if he knew that he would pass every other subject, he would have worked harder for that particular subject. Sad story, isn’t it? When we discontinue from pursuing our God given talents, we give up too soon. When we leave off participating, for fear of losing, we give up too soon. When we get absent for a certain exam for fear of failing, we give up too soon. The saddest part, however, is that we forget the fact that if God has given us this challenge, he is faithful to help us to SUCCEED in this challenge, not even borderline pass it! So, we’d better not give up too soon, and we must not fear any challenge, because we know that God will provide help when we ask him.

Showing off too much:

We all have a need to be accepted, with all our faults and follies and we need to be people who will accept people and show them the love that God has given us. But, we have no need to attract people into believing that we are something what we are not. We may not be that talented, but we move among the talented people and attempt to outshine them. That attitude is so dangerous, that I am lost for words to explain how it is detrimental to the cause. We don’t have to glorify our own selves. We shouldn’t actually. Showing off is for those who are afraid that people will not accept them as they are. We need not be afraid, because God accepts people as they are. What we have to remember is that we must humble ourselves and remain humble. We need to realise that by putting an image of ourselves that is not really who we are, we are at great risk of being exposed and people will consider us as cheats who are insecure and immature enough to appear as “great” people instead of who God really wanted us to be. When God asked us to let our light shine before others, he actually meant the goodness of our soul, not our super-sized egos. So, we need to understand that we need not be the best, but we need to make sure we don’t act like we are the best.

Hating too long:

We have been offended by many things, from the way a teacher shouts at you, to the ugly smelling deodorant your friend was wearing (on investigation, it could have been found out that he didn’t actually use any deodorant). But, how many times have we held on that hurt, that pain and turned it into a sword of hate against that particular person? Hate can destroy many things. It can destroy our good opinions of someone (i.e. your enemy helps a falling kid, then you go ask the kid if his money wasn’t stolen by the enemy. When the kid says it wasn’t stolen, you grumble that your enemy didn’t succeed this time…that’s what I’m talking about), it can destroy all the good that someone has done to you, it can destroy their own conscience, giving them guilt feelings, when actually, YOU should be feeling the guilt because you didn’t forgive that someone for his unintended fault. Do you hate someone for too long? Does the sight of that person cripple your insides with memories of the “grievous” faults that they have committed? Then, go to that person, and apologise for the hurt that YOU are causing him. You may not know how much hurt you are causing him just by your attitude to him. Show that you are also willing to forgive him just as God is ready to forgive your own faults. Don’t harbour pride in your heart and cause him to suffer for that fault. Imagine if God did that to you…now does that keep things in perspective?

“Heart” of the matter:

Now that I’m done (I’m sorry it was long), you might notice a pattern in what I’m saying. It all corresponds to matters of the heart. We live and learn a lot in life. But, some of it remains as head knowledge. We need to “educate” our hearts to be what God wants us to be. We need to remember to keep things in focus, never ever give up, remain humble and love everyone unconditionally. Our heart must be perfect, if we ever wish to be truly perfect. You may wonder why I chose this topic to write about. It is mainly because, every magazine has a big achievements list in it. But are we willing to humbly admit that we have even committed mistakes as well? Just kidding, what I actually meant was that these were common mistakes even I admit to committing, and as I said, remembering our mistakes will help us when God gracefully gives us a second chance. So, that’s it for now, and I hope that we all commit ourselves to doing the right thing and letting our light shine for the glory of God.

So anyways, that’s the essay, and I hope you like it. I’m surely no authority to speak big words of advice and all, but in this essay, I’ve only written what I’ve seen in life, and what I learnt about these situations from my walk with God. Hope this has helped you, and entertained you (at least a bit).