DON'T CUT THE TREES WHEN YOU DON'T SEE THE LEAVES






Pic.: Dilip V


Our faith is tested when we are driven to the wall. So, whenever someone tells me “Have faith in yourself,” what I really hear is: “Be a fighter.”

When times are tough, what sees us through is only this fighting spirit in our gut, the faith in ourselves.

In fact, none of us know what we are capable of… how much we take bear, unless we are challenged by our hard times… The fighter in us comes out only when our back is to the wall.

Yes, no one, in his senses, would ask for tough times… Tough times come and challenge us!

A familiar experience inside me, when the road ahead looks like a dead-end, is to give up the fight. It is just like looking at the leafless tree and concluding, “It is all over for the tree… Let me cut it.” I go through this kind of experience so often… I, too, struck with gloom, contemplate on cutting the leafless tree…

Yes, sometimes, I do…

But, most of the times, I don’t.  I hang on with hope… Not with blind hope but with an active effort to overcome my problems, searching for ways out, knocking the unknown doors, meeting the unknown people, working more, praying more, toiling more… and, yes, hoping that the season will change, the leaves will return… the tree will bear fruits,  all over again…

Every time, I am faced with a challenge, I am, also, faced with the same options: to fight or to flight… To cut the tree with panic and fear or to stay on with courage, patience and perseverance…

Mercifully, I choose to fight more often than choose to flight… More often,  I choose to wait, hold on… and let the leaves and fruits return to the tree…

That’s all there is to Life and its tough times… Only two options: to fight or to flight… To wait for the season to change or to cut the leafless tree.


GERALD D’CUNHA

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