The Power Of One

One song can spark a moment,
One flower can wake the dream.
One tree can start a forest,
One bird can herald spring.
One smile begins a friendship,
One handclasp lifts a soul.
One star can guide a ship at sea,
One word can frame the goal.
One vote can change a nation,
One sunbeam lights a room.
One candle wipes out darkness,
One laugh will conquer gloom.
One step must start each journey,
One word must start each prayer.
One hope will raise our spirits,
One touch can show you care.
One voice can speak with wisdom,
One heart can know what's true.
One life can make the difference,
You see it's up to YOU!!!
- Anonymous

OFTEN during our lowest moments, we ponder at how insignificant we are in the huge scheme of creation, at how worthless and helpless we feel against the raging tide of hardship and misfortune. Can one so-called life make a difference?


We tell ourselves in periods of philosophical rumination – what am I but a solitary soul, a tiny fragment in a colossal hole, inconsequential and immaterial, passing and fleeting like shadows in the dark?


Indeed, we are, somehow or other. Set amid the vastness of space, we are smaller than a grain of sand. We are lesser than a mote in an eagle’s eye. We come into this world alone, and we go away alone.


But then again, small and alone isn’t really such a lonely place to be. Small and alone, we can do many things. Meaningful things. Priceless things. Momentous things. Things that matter in the greater realm, without which the pieces won’t fit, the picture won’t be complete, the engine won’t move, the music won’t groove.


Because every single being in the universe counts – every single creature has a part to play, every single organism serves a purpose; every single crumb stands for something – a cause, a role, a tag, some value, some meaning. Every single deed happens for a reason; chance or design notwithstanding, instinct or grit aside.


One word can make or break a promise. One promise can fetch a smile. One smile can wipe away a teardrop. One teardrop can soothe a broken heart.


One thing can lead to another. One rainbow can light up a gloomy sky. One love can last forever. One ray of sunshine can do wonders for a slumbering soul.


Not a single bit is useless, rubbish, crap. More so us humans, living and breathing in the likeness and fullness of God.


Every so often, the hackneyed question ‘why am I here’ pummels our consciousness into near dejection and the more confounding conundrum ‘what am I worth’ drives us almost close to the edge. Does anyone care about how I feel, what I’m going through, if I exist at all? The self-putdown can sometimes get to that extreme, admittedly or not, it’s sad.


Yet, one person has the power to do anything and everything that he was meant for, if he believes it and toils at it.


One heroic act can spawn a hero and one hero can make a whole nation proud. One proud nation can spur positive change, if only each person will say to himself that change should start with me.


For in truth, there are no limits to what one pair of hands can do; no boundaries to what one mind can summon; no walls, ceilings and floors to what one burst of inspiration can lead to.


Fairy tales can come true, dreams can get real – soon! Or maybe later – if we treat each morning as the fresh, new day that it is, one day at a time. If we love ourselves, treat us right, remain true to the passion of the moment, yield to the whispers of our soul, and not look at ourselves like the old, worn cliché that we think we have become.

Making It Through The Rain

Rain is grace; rain is the sky condescending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life. - John Updike


INTO each life some rain must fall, some storms must pass through the dreary night, and laughter must give way to tears for a while.

Into each life some sorrow must creep in, and tribulation comes without warning – like heavy clouds weighing our spirit down, drowning us in a chasm of ambiguity and self-doubt. Darkness casts a long shadow in the ebb and flow of our existence, now and then descending to depths untold while grief unfolds, and our world just stops revolving.

Indeed, life’s cruel turns happen when we least expect them, catching us all too suddenly in a maze of hopelessness and misery, at times too deep and too brutal we don’t really know what hit us, and we can’t extricate ourselves from what we’re in no matter how hard we try.

A loved one passes away, material possessions go up in smoke, a relationship falls apart, a friendship disintegrates, a cherished dream crumbles, fortunes shift so swiftly causing us to lose not only our earthly belongings but our dignity as well, our pride and our self-respect, our sanity even, and our worth as individuals – and we struggle to cope with the dreadful reality confronting us in our face.

Surely as seasons change, upheavals beset us like the plague and our emotions become most vulnerable to the specter of loss, failure, defeat.

We suffer a death in the family and our grief is nearly immeasurable. A parent, a partner, a sibling, a relative, a close friend – their demise leaves an emptiness akin to a huge cavern with no discernible way out, and we desperately cling to memories here and there, weeping over things undone and words that would forever remain unsaid.

We endure the embarrassment of failure, of letting success slip away because of our own making, and we drift aimlessly in space for long stretches of wasted time. Chasing victory in vain can be utterly humiliating, mortifying, self-annihilating; and our beaten ego is beyond mending.

We bear the ignominy of defeat, of losing out in the game of love, life, living; and we are flustered beyond reckoning. Why me? Am I not good enough? Don’t I measure up? Someone else is worthier of one’s affection. Someone else deserves the room with a view. Someone else finished first at the race to the top. Someone else has painted the better, bigger picture. Someone else…

And so we stumble and fall into the mire of abject surrender. We flounder in a state of perpetual agony, of acute denial and senseless self-pity, and all for what? Are we any less of a person if we are only second best? Does that make us of inferior species if the one we love has left us for another? Do we label ourselves a loser if we get crushed in one battle when there are still many wars that lie in wait?

Like rain that nourishes a parched earth, so does suffering strengthen a beleaguered soul.

The weight of all our fears brings us to our knees in meek supplication, and we look up to the heavens for a reprieve, a respite, an unloading. We realize that we can after all seek solace from a Greater Power; that we can reach out, open our heart and cast our burdens upon The One who walks through life with us, if we only make the effort. That we can emerge from it scarred but unbroken, vanquished but unbowed, wiser but not sorry, emotionally toughened and spiritually enriched and physically ready to face the world again, through our own resolve.

Adversity teaches us a thing or two about the stuff we are made of that we didn’t know existed, and our capacity to overcome the odds that we didn’t know we possessed. It allows us to look within ourselves, deep down inside our often superficial selves, and by so doing, recognize where to draw strength and when to draw the line, where to find comfort and when to stop searching for answers, where to give vent and when to say enough is enough, life must go on…

For, indeed, life goes on whether we get back on our feet or stay stuck in our own cradle of nails and thorns. Sooner or later, another storm will pass our way anew and when it happens, are we prepared to steer our ship to safer waters? Do we set sail or do we take cover? Do we drop anchor or do we move on? Do we give in, back down, pull out – or do we hold on, stand firm, push through?

No matter, no one is to blame for the turmoil that we go through every so often in this cycle that we call life. There are no excuses, no alibis. No guarantees they won’t happen again, no reasons why. For as the poet Longfellow famously intoned a long time ago – thy fate is the common fate of all; into each life some rain must fall.

When Love Is Gone

Ah, when to the heart of man was it ever less than a treason to go with the drift of things to yield with a grace to reason and bow and accept at the end of a love or a season. - Robert Frost

WHAT happens when love dies? When love fades away and leaves the heart torn to shreds? When it runs out of steam and furtively flies out the window?

The world ends. The sun stops shining. The sea stops rushing to shore. Sleep won’t come. The tears won’t dry up. Breathing is difficult. Life sucks. Totally.

When love dies, nothing else matters but the pain we feel inside, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Our whole being is tattered into a million bits and pieces, like glass shards piercing malleable flesh or sticks and stones breaking brittle bones. And we die a million deaths, as well.

We wrap ourselves in a jarring web of excruciating emotions – anger, despair, self-pity, denial, hatred, jealousy, misery, resentment, bitterness – name it, nothing but the darkest thoughts and feelings inhabit the innermost sanctum of our hopelessly broken existence. We stumble into long spells of weeping and gnashing, and take to the pill or the bottle to make us fall into liberating slumber.

Why did it happen? How could it happen? What went wrong? Where did it all go? Who’s to blame? The questions come like heavy lashes to the psyche, inflicting more soreness to a bleeding gash, heaping more cruelty to a badly battered wound. And the answers never come; they just lay there rooted at the core of our humanity – festering, blistering, burning our fragile egos at the stake.

We sink deeper and deeper into an abyss of our own making. We float in limbo made horrible by our own irrational creation. Logic deserts us, and reason takes a wrong turn. Sanity goes over the edge, and levity becomes a strange word. What if everything spins completely out of control? What if the spirit succumbs, and the only option that dwells in the feeble mind is the painless, spineless way out…

Would it be worth it? Would one person be worth all the aggravation? Why… are they cast in precious, irreplaceable stone? Do they ride on golden chariots and walk the earth in purple robes? So what if they are, if they do?

The trouble with loving someone is that we put them on a pedestal. We make them the be-all of our days and nights that they shouldn’t be. We treat them like the ruler of our lives that they aren’t supposed to be. We take them into our world unconditionally; and when it ends all too suddenly, everything around us crumbles. We fall apart, we drift away, we go astray, we refuse to go on living.

Worse, we blame other people for the madness that we ourselves commit. We point accusing fingers at those whom we perceive to have aggrieved us. We plant the seeds of rancor in our utterly vengeful hearts. We can’t deal with the fact that, if it was a game, we lost it – deservedly or not. And even if others will commiserate with us, they will never be able to fill the enormous void within. Not in a million years.

But then again, maybe it was bound to happen. Maybe it was written in the stars that they were not the right person for us. Maybe someone out there waits somewhere – someone more engaging, still flawed but definitely less aggravating and worthier of our trust. Who knows?

So one fine day, common sense returns and we snap out of it. The rain has stopped. The storm has passed. Look at all the colors now, the sun is out at last. A new song plays in our head. The dark bubble shrouding us has burst. The load is off our chest. We can breathe again.

We forgive, and ask for forgiveness, one way or another. Then we try hard to forget, and to move on. Because love does not keep a record of wrongs. It is patient and kind and is happy with the truth. It does not forever reside in achy, breaky, thorny places. It seeks a new expression in its own unhurried moment; an altogether different level, however one looks at it, this time freer and more meaningful. A tad less vexing and tiresome, a bit more spirited and at ease, gradually nurturing and enriching the soul.

Pain, though, is a necessary evil. It inures us to the possibility of being messed up anew, of committing the same mistakes over and over. Love’s labors make us learn a thing or two about facing up to aggression and hurt, of coping and surviving and emerging out of it in one piece; about thinking while feeling, and not letting pride get in the way of emancipating all the heaviness and spite stifled deep inside.

When love goes, it comes back again and again to turn our lives upside down, inside out – like a fierce cycle of hits and misses, trials and errors, twists and turns, comings and goings, to and fro, hither and thither, yonder and further away. It may take years, or a lifetime, to get over one hump after another – but does it matter? Sooner or later, we might find what we’re looking for – or we might not – but in the final analysis, we are definitely better off for having loved and lost than never having loved at all.