It was finally Sunday after 6 long work-days and I was glad I finally had a break from work. Having received a list of complaints about not managing to take out time to meet, I finally planned to dedicate my precious week-off to my friend. I couldn’t manage to wake up early and was eventually running late, I was struggling to get an auto-rickshaw. SOON after hundreds of REJECTION, an auto finally stopped and agreed.
The drive wasn’t long but the traffic was. The auto-driver must have seen the tension on my face after multiple calls of “yeah..almost there” and he started talking to me to divert my mind (I guess). He asked me where I am from, what do I do and what have I done and told me about himself. The discussion moved to how happy he feels to see kids being so responsible for their career and family.
Out of nowhere, he shared how a boy from his family got into the “bad habits” and destroyed himself and how our generation is getting into materialism. “At our times, we got married soon after completing studies. It didn’t matter if we have a job or not if we are settled or not,” he said. “But that’s not right na, you need to be responsible to start a family. You need money. How can one marry like that?” I asked.
He laughed and said “stress and competition existed in every generation. You, we, our grandparents and their parents; they all struggled and managed to sail through. It’s just we didn’t have internet so we didn’t know who’s doing what so there was nothing to be jealous about. We could measure our growth and focused only on where we were and where have we reached so far.”
It started making sense when he further said “Today, you all are stressing over where you wish to be and even more concerned about what others are doing. You kids are just adding to your tensions. At our time, we just knew what to do and how to do, not giving a damn to what my friend or neighbor is up to.”
“We married, had kids, made them what they are…all by going with the flow. If only you people can understand that it will all be alright instead of freaking yourselves up and indulging into alcohol, drugs and other things; your lives would be simple too”.
I didn’t say a word all that while. He made sense. I was just silent. Reached my destination, I didn’t know to pay him the fare or thanks. I looked at my face in the rear-view and saw the panic, hassle and trouble I left home with. I realized what he said is practically possible and that life is actually not so complicated as we’ve made it.
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