There's always a brighter flipside to miseries

The caption on a wall poster that captivated my attention years ago is still ineffaceable on my mind.

It was an impressive analogy comparing ‘life’ to a massive tree and ‘happiness’ to a solitary branch forking from its trunk. The poster was kind of emblematic of the gritty, unvarnished reality that human life was indeed replete with miseries.

Incidentally, I also remember an edifying philosophical discourse with the message: “Never run away from your personal problems and miseries. After all, life is cobbled with challenges, fraught with difficulties, rife with problems, and riddled with miseries. Have the spunk to counter the life’s variegated problems. And, you’d indubitably emerge a victor, if you have in you that aggressive fighting spirit. In fact, the more intimidating/challenging your problem appears, the more the joy on successfully tackling it. So, once a way it’s good to take a dose of miseries, which aid in making us realise the essence and quintessence of happiness and all other good things in life!”

Miseries – physical, mental or financial — at times do tend to undermine our mental strength.  But there is flipside to miseries. Each time you encounter a problem/misery, you keep growing stronger mentally to face fresh challenges. And a problem that would have once disintegrated your soul, now stops disconcerting you; rather it won’t even cause a flutter in you. Besides being plucky and self-assured, we also become self-reliant by trying to instantly chalk out solution plans the moment we are assailed by miseries.

This apart, every time we are blitzed by miseries, we learn about various aspects of life.

In the ‘process of learning’, we develop a sanguine attitude, too, in thinking these miseries are just a passing phase.

Just as however long a dark night may appear, it has to make way for shafts of refulgent, morning sunrays. 

We also resign ourselves to the fact that we ought to face life willy-nilly, and that our fate is sealed. 

Besides, we also start believing that whatever happens, there is strong reason behind it, and it’s all the irrevocable ‘will’ of the Almighty.

Apparently, the mild assaults from miseries make us mighty spiritual, too. Since we have this implicit trust in the Divine Power that, if there is someone who can alter the terrifying situations, it’s only Him. (Remember the Kannada aphorism “Sankata Bandaga Venkata Ramana”?) So, having our thoughts, always hovering around the Lord, obviously imbues us with high hope and new assurance that “All’s well. And, whatever has happened would all be for our own good.”