Jun 20, 2005 05:11 PM
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(Updated Jun 20, 2005 05:11 PM)
It is not “I love you”, though I admit that the phrase has a power, a charm and beauty beyond description. Perhaps more number of poets have eulogized love than the world has lovers. No, what I have in mind is something unromantic, mundane, drab looking in comparison, nevertheless as important to Life as the more romantic one.
It is “IT DOESN’T MATTER”.
Anne( name changed to protect identity) was a young girl, very pretty, twenty five years old, very much in love with Ricky(not the real name), a young man of thirty years, the very epitome of the he-man, athletic, muscular, handsome in a rugged way. When he smiled, he took Anne’s breath away. They planned to get married; they had been seeing each other for two years. Anne visualized how they would live in a lovely cottage quite close to the lake and watch the setting sun sinking into the lake and the birds as they flew across on their way home. They would have two children – Rick, junior and Kathy gamboling about on the lawn and shouting to each other and their parents in excitement when they spied the jumping fish in the lake.
As they approached their wedding date, Anne was dizzy with excitement. Love filled her face with radiance and there was a spring in her steps and friends said that she didn’t walk, but danced. Every one was happy for her. She was very popular with her friends. All knew that she would be very happy and keep Ricky very happy too.
Then the bomb fell.
One afternoon, Ricky telephoned from another town two thousand miles away that he had left town for good and was getting married to another girl in a day or two. He did not love Anne and he was sorry.
Anne fell to the ground with a cry. Her entire world collapsed before her and her mind would not function. Her fiancé had proved treacherous; she was blighted in love. She would never love again. Thoughts of suicide crowded her mind. She packed a bag and was rummaging thru her knick knacks in a drawer she had loaded with her childhood things. Her eyes fell on a placard long discarded, yellow with time. It had belonged to her father. It said IT DOESN’T MATTER.
Her father had always had it on his desk when he was alive and told Anne that almost 90% of things and happenings in Life belonged to this category of IT DOESN’T MATTER. But what about LOVE? No, surely not? LOVE was …….Anne’s mind was now racing. She sat at her desk for a few hours thinking about LOVE, all the things that she and her fiancé did. She wept bitter tears for hours. Slowly she came to herself and realized that a new perspective was dawning in her consciousness – all on account of that placard with those three words. LOVE MATTERED, but her sad affair with Ricky came under the category IT DOESN’T MATTER because Ricky proved to be unworthy. Just because he was false it didn’t mean she should not love again.
She took hold of herself. In a few days she left for another town where she settled down with a new job. She met another man Tim, totally unlike Ricky; very mature- minded, handsome in an intellectual manner. Above all, he was very loving and understanding and knew what had happened to Anne. They got married after a few months of courtship. It was not a tempestuous affair; but both knew they were never going to part.
Three years later, from the newspapers Anne learnt that Ricky was arrested for embezzlement and sentenced to 7 years in prison. His wife had divorced him earlier for infidelity.
Now Anne was able to fathom the wisdom of the placard IT DOESN”T MATTER. Now she has a new polished metal strip with the same words inscribed prominently on her wall in front of her desk. She looks at it often and weighs every event in her life including day to day ones against these words.
Well, friends, don’t you think that you and I could learn an object lesson from this real life story of this woman who is now a prominent counselor. Most of the things that happen with us everyday belong to this category. We fret and fume daily over things we think are vital, but might actually be trivial. We rouse up our blood pressure to dangerous levels because of our manner of considering things, rather than the actual events themselves.
Events cannot be controlled by us; however how they are going to affect us is in our hands. Whether to lift up Mount Olympus in our fury or calmly ponder whether something falls in the Category of IT DOESN’T MATTER is a choice vested in us. All that we need is a calm mind to ponder deeply, keeping our perspectives very clear before us. Pondering then becomes a way of life with us and we are not needlessly troubled by things happening around. We become stithapragnas able to take on things thrown to us by “the arrows of outrageous fortune”.
Are there not things, then that really matter? Yes, there are. But they are very few. For example, your honor, your good name, your faith and values are very important. Fight for these when they are threatened. Otherwise don’t fight needless battles over unimportant matters. Train your mind to detect things which are unimportant and consign to the category of IT DOES NOT MATTER. Once you are in training, you are automatically doing this exercise unconsciously, categorizing and compartmentalizing events at no danger to your health and well being. Psychologists and counselors use this technique with themselves and their clients with great profit. Most of our ailments stem from our inability to analyze happenings and occurrences. We have to consciously cultivate this habit of sifting things till we are able to do it unconsciously. We have nothing to lose, but everything to gain by this practice. We might even prolong our longevity and promote happiness.
