Life, books and regrets

Two books in the past couple of weeks have been eye-opening and moving for me: The Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry and Like the Flowing River by Paulo Coelho. Both of them try to provide powerful messages to the reader, and yet they use everyday life as their tools to do so. Without giving too much away I would like to focus at two important messages from the books that have really inspired thought provoking moments for me in reading them.

The first is on hope and the danger of the loss of it. Mistry tries to present the hope of the people even in the most tragic of circumstances and the dire consequences when they lose sight of that hope. Coelho talks about his own loss of hope with regard to the political situation in Brazil and then draws on the story of Pandorra's box and the only evil which did not escape was the 'loss of hope'. As I look around the streets of Dhaka this week and wait with the people of Bangladesh to see if there may be a return to violence at the end of this week - I realise that the only thing we do have is hope: hope that politicians will see reason, hope that calm will persist, hope that human life will be valued, hope that fair elections will be held.

The second is on the issue of regret, an issue that I myself have faced in recent times. In Mistry world, a world that often seems unjust and cruel, regret is addressed in the sense of things not said and done as ordinary people try to struggle and make sense of their everyday world. Coelho gives us a story of an ordinary man who spends his whole life doing what 'convention' may expect of him - he went to work everyday and worked hard, he raised his children well, was kind to his wife, by dictionary definition he had a 'good life'; however, at retirement age he found himself with nothing to do and nothing to look forward to and falls into the trap of depression. The message from both authors is that no matter what walk of life or what difficult circumstance one might find themselves, a person should always grab the bull by the horns - to use a rather graphic idiomatic expression. Today is the day to do and say the things we want to do, not tomorrow because tomorrow we will be faced with new challenges and situations.

Personally, I found myself faced with two situations recently, one in which I dealt with my regret and one in which I am still dealing with. The first instant is an ongoing situation one which I have tackled for many years but have now decided to address the issue and vocalise it, and believe me it helps to do so. The other may seem like a trivial situation to some, but for me it has had an impact: I have always said and tried to live by the idea that everyone should try a thing once (obviously within reason), but I let myself down in Thailand. When we went for our elephant ride we were given the chance to swim with Malai our elephant, and I hesitated for an instant and once the hesitiation had passed it was too late. I think about that moment often now since my return and only wish that I could relive it.

So my thought for you all today is please take these authors words and live by the Pandorra's box ideal that hope still and will always exist and that we must vocalise this everyday. The other, is that one must never let a moment pass when life offers you an oppurtunity that if you don't take it you might regret it later - sieze it and enjoy.