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| Source: Wilkinson |
Board topper. Best outgoing student of the year. School leader. Everybody had a similar story to tell. And yet here we were with blank heads in the exam hall.
First thing in college; our thoughts had evolved from 'How could one possibly fail?' to 'How on earth did everybody pass?!' Frightening as it was, we wondered if we were the same ones who prospered in school.
First month, first test. Sleepy mornings and busy nights; despair was in the air. Every now and then we squeezed in some time to brood over our gone days of glory, and sigh over the lost company of our kindred spirits in school. Our position today and that of the past were beyond comparison, and yet we compared them only to feel worse about ourselves.
We sat reminiscing over the days we watched TV instead of drawing tilted shapes on drawing sheets, the days when sleep had its rightful time at night rather than the short naps during the day, and the time when studies and homework were a breeze unlike the mess it had become now.
Our Facebook posts boasted of our good old days as our minds still refused to wring away from them. Yes, we hadn't yet gotten over our past. We hadn't yet gotten over our school days. It is all a matter of time before we blend in they say, and indeed it is. But that assurance did little to soothe our souls.
With every passing day we figured that most of us were sailing in the same boat. Together we shared our woes, cursed our foes and dreamt of better days ahead as we floated in nostalgia. Try as we might, we just couldn't get over our pasts. And much as we pretended that it's all fine from without, our hearts yearned for the gone days from within.
It was our transition. The time when we're in a new phase and yet have a part of us in the old. We were the semi colon rather than the full stop, ready to march ahead but not without what was behind us. And so we remained.
But it was only the most natural thing, the reluctance to comply with the changes we're all bound to confront. Even science had explained the concept of inertia. The tendency to remain unchanged, or rather, to remain with the familiar. With every passing week however, we saw for ourselves our foreign routine turn into a habit. Spouts of laughter, long conversations, and togetherness made our days. Not that yesterdays were forgotten, just that our focus was shifted to the 'now'. A new beginning after all, had no room for the used-to-be's.
And so it is best, we figured, to keep in mind Master Oogway's words, "Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is mystery. But today is a gift, that is why it is called the present."
Carpe Diem, my friend.
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