Doubt sees the obstacles

Faith sees the way.

Doubt sees the darkest night

Faith sees the day.

Doubt dreads to take a step

Faith soars on high.

Doubt questions ‘who believes?’

Faith answers, ‘I.’

—- Author Unknown

It's a rhyme we learn and recite as little children in school, without understanding the meaning of the words. In the process of growing up we forget it too. Yet, years down the lane of life we realize the real value of  these words dramatically opposite in meaning yet so very intertwined in existence! Kahlil Gibran had rightly described doubt and faith as twins

I met Mona again after a gap of almost 5 years. She seemed very happy and flushed with excitement for the future. Five years back when I last met her she was a young girl in her early teens who seemed very despondent and hesitant to talk to people. I left for my further studies abroad & we did not meet again till the dinner yesterday.

Mona had lost her father when she was still a child. Her mother was struck with severe arthritis (leaving her movements severely restricted ) when Mona was in high school. This left Mona's morale really low. To her, her dream of becoming a doctor seemed to be fast eroding and left her questioning the ways and the very existence of God. And the same question kept repeating itself in her mind, "why always me?"

Yet, something within her did not let her give up hope. She held on to her faith that her dream could not die and she continued with her preparations, all the while praying that a miracle should happen and she should somehow get a scholarship. Help arrived from a most unexpected source. An ex-teacher, who was now heading a trust funding higher education for meritorious students low on funds, arranged for the finances. Today she is a 2^nd year student in a well known medical college of our country.

She is aware that her battle is far from over there are still many obstacles to overcome. But, she firmly believes that the sudden meeting with her ex-class teacher was God's way of telling her to push ahead with her dreams & that HE is with her ..

Faith is the bubble that keeps us afloat on the turbulent sea of life. Doubts are the testing beds of our faith . Each time life engulfs us with doubts; it ends up strengthening our faiths and beliefs without doubts we would never learn to gauge the depths of our faith.

Wisdom does not lie in smothering our doubts or running away from them, but in facing them head on and conquering them. Where faith is true and deep, doubts disappear like dewdrops in the sun.

"Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced."    

-Soren Kierkegaard

This is my vision of life & various experiences have only reinforced it. The layouts & blueprints of our lives are drawn up by someone who we have never met; will probably meet after our final race has been run, whom Tennyson had describes as "the pilot" of the ship called life. So we might as well stop worrying about the balancing the equations of life. Each one of us has a list of what we wanted, but didn't get & what we got but we didn't want. No one ever had only happiness in his kitty.

Yet, many among us keep trying to change the inevitable.  A lot of people who succeed in their endeavors boast that they are the masters of their destiny the ones who are unable to win blame their bad luck for their loss the even-weaker ones blame others for preventing them from winning .

Is winning really so important? There is always just 1 winner, participants are many do these people mean nothing?  Why do we let social acceptance/ standards define our own self worth? The winner of one game may not win the next does it take away the glory of his earlier victory?

Have u noticed how Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore is cold shouldered by the same press which once used to go all gaga over him above & beyond his recognition as  a sportsman is another identity an  AVSM winning soldier  who has risked his life to fight terrorists in J&K .

Of course Abhinav Bindra's win is a momentous event in our country's history his name will be written forever in gold. What I like even better about him is his matter of fact attitude he doesn't exhibit any "been there, done that" smugness . Nor does he play to the gallery, he has battled the demon called injury to reach where he is today, yet his simple comment on winning was "today was my day "

In the midst of chasing victory & coping with defeats, we somewhere lose sight of the beauty that surrounds us .the beautiful world which god created for us the beautiful world for which god created us

Winning & losing, pain & pleasure, happiness & sorrow touch everyone's life no one is exempt from it—- each emotion ,each experience only enhances our lives & the negatives increase our appreciation of the positives even more.

What ultimately matters is that we survived the storm because the unseen hand of God lead us to safety He is always with us in the form of our families, our friends & everyone who cares about us. He is the one who solves or rather dissolves the problems that we face but without the problems we would never learn to count out blessings.

Let us savor the gift of life & love that we have been given, let us enjoy the beauty of the world & the relationships created specially for us .And in the process  we will enrich our souls.