Moments of Clarity

Moments of clarity come rarely enough in life. You could think the same way about a situation or person for years before one fine day you realize that you have simply not been looking at it right. Oftentimes this is a painful realization because no one likes to be told that they have been wrong or foolish or indeed foolishly wrong for such a length of time. Sometimes the clarity comes as a relief. You understand that you need not feel bad over a situation because that situation is unimportant in the larger scheme of things. It immediately ceases to have a hold over you and you are liberated. Sometimes the scales fall from our eyes so abruptly that we wonder how we have missed the obvious all this while – it is akin to understanding a deep truth and feeling blessed.

Clarity of vision cannot occur when you strive too hard for then you are too attached to the situation to see anything clearly. Neither is it achieved when you surround yourself with people, music and endless distractions because the truth is best experienced in silence. The ability to be silent and be comfortable with one’s thoughts is a great one indeed. There are too many people out there who will do anything to avoid being alone with their thoughts. So for a moment of clarity to be arrived at, you need to be at peace at least for a short span of time.

For years I had been striving with the thought that there were more things I needed to experience in order to be a complete person. I thought I lacked some vital thread in the fabric of my existence that made me restless and prone to think and look outward for solutions. It is but recently that I realized that all the elements of the happiness and contentment I sought were within me ready for me to but notice them. I could be as happy as I wanted and nothing in the world could stop that from happening. If I stopped being influenced by outside factors and being dependent on another for happiness, then I would succeed on my path to reach the goals I had set for myself. We each of us are born alone and die alone and are solely in control of our life and our joy. We only need to remind ourselves of our ability to be joyous because that simple message is often lost in the cacophony of our daily routines.

Writing has always helped me arrive at important decisions and choices in life. Setting things out in black and white is a way of making things clearer. But the best way to achieve total clarity is to let go of even the words and experience that vision. For words, after the initial stretch, often serve as distractions. We get lost in the words and forget to open our eyes to the truth. Its a real joy to be able to see clearly even if it is just for a moment for in that one moment you get a glimpse of that beautiful pattern that is your life if you but want it to be.