Life's Puzzle

By: Zahoor Ul Islam

Yesterday while coming back home it was late, so we decided to pick the food on the way. We also didn’t want to get out of the car so we opted for the drive thru KFC and ordered the meal. Hasan enjoys kid’s meal. The meal is more fun as it comes with a toy and the meal box has puzzles on the outer side.

We reached home and finished our dinner. Hasan started playing with the toy and the puzzle on the box. The puzzle is usually about finding the right path to reach the desired end. There are four options at start and only one leads to the desired location.

I noticed, after playing with such puzzles he became smart enough and instead of starting from the start, he started from the end and reached the start. So he knew precisely what the right solution is without much effort!

I found it wonderful to solve problems. However there is a flip side to this. He didn’t get to discover what other paths lead to.

He started with a goal and traced a path from where he could start to reach that goal! And that is something very normal that we do in our lives. The first of few strategies we learn while we are young like Hasan, we start with a goal, such as a goal to become a doctor, an engineer, a player, a business man, make lots of money and then set a path.

But who gives these goals? Who has set these goals? What is the idea behind it? We act like trained monkeys; even when we understand the problem in the path, we just turn blind to it because we are selfish do not want our happiness to be ruined by such stupid thoughts.

Life is more than a goal; it is our reality. One path is not the ONLY path in the entire universe. We may know what our path is but we never try to discover what alternate paths can lead to, what is the total solution space of life, what are other people up to. Such strategies in life create a very dangerous diversion in society where everybody knows what he or she is doing but don’t know or understand what the other is up to.

Is life a project or struggle to reach a goal? What will you do once you achieve your goal? You will be victorious, triumphant, joyous; but then what? Will you ever know WHY you have reached there, and who pushed you to be there, and what the real purpose for you to be there is?

Life is not a path leading towards your goal. It about people, it is about you and me, it about us, it about 6 billion people on this planet earth. It is about people you meet on your path to reach your self-defined goals. There is no bigger victory than saving one starving person, or help one person to have freedom of speech in order to spread the truth, hug a person to give him confidence to tread his path towards his goal, pat one person to tell him you are there if anything goes wrong, smile even if an expensive vase just fell and broke by the cluminess of your child or maid. Life’s basic motto: “I would be happy because you are happy and I know you would be happy when I will be happy”.

If we lose our context, then we end up being surrounded with people having power trips, extortion, corruptions, killing of people in the name of defense and rights, fear, enforcing one’s understanding and solution in the name of religion or better system.

Such thinking starts when people establish philosophies and perceptions having a goal in mind, which they never tried, tested or understood. Such biased thinking destroys the entire society. Misuse of goal oriented thinking without proper context has destroyed the societies in past and we are the present victims.

All what is required is to have a stable society based on ethical values, understanding the life as whole, understanding people as main object not a subject for experiments, so that everyone has a chance to stand at the “Day of Judgment” to justify his or her deeds.

Advancements, modernization, technology, economy, philosophies are drivers of the life beyond our control but then these drivers need to be adopted and understood based on the life's motto.