MISTAKES !

"History tends to repeat itself  

if you don't learn from it."

One of my strongest memories from school days is wondering why do we have to study history. The logic I often applied to it was, the people in our history textbooks have done great work, agreed, but they are dead now, and it is all past, so why should we study about what people did back in those days? Why cant we study about people who are still alive and doing something worth-while? And my teachers often told me that we study history so that we don't repeat the mistakes our fore-fathers committed. But I remember arguing that we live in a completely different world altogether, neither are we going to construct temples like the Cholas did, or are we going to have another war like the mughals did, nor are we living in a colonial world now so as to learn how to get rid of the Britishers, so we wont be needing the satyagrahas anymore too! That was me when I was in school...I was naive, just like everyone in school days is. We are too naive to understand the realities of life. We tend to take everything on the face value. But that was forgivable as we were still kids!

Now when I am growing up, I understand the importance of history. Not just the history text books but also our own history. Now I understand how powerful history can actually be ! It can teach you so many lessons. They say, life is the biggest teacher, but I'd say time is the biggest teacher. Our past can teach us way more than we can readily grasp. Our past can show us those hidden mysterious paths and lead us to the other end of the tunnel. It is so strange in itself, the fact that your past can make your future, such a paradox!

Off recently, life has been testing me. Many incidents from my past started reappearing in my present, and it was my decision whether I wanted to carry them to my future or not. It is always our decision whether to carry our past into our future, we just don't realize it most of the times.

When we see anything from our past, we run towards it either due to nostalgia or to find answer to some unanswered questions. Either of the case, we are drawn to it, without realizing that we are actually unknowingly letting or past enter our future. Unknowingly we make the same mistakes again, and thus the entire complex cycle of past-events-ruining-my-present-and-my-future begins! And once it begins, it is very difficult to put an end to it, trust me !

To know that building our future is in own hands, and we are the one who shapes it, irrespective of what shape it takes eventually, is the biggest hurdle crossed. Once you know that everything is in our hands, that you are the master of your own destiny, you have the master key that will fit any lock you want. Of course, it takes great courage to take the responsibility of your life on yourself. To be able to say that my life is like this because of my own deeds is not a joke. You need a heart of steel and courage as much as the air on this planet. Its not going to be easy, but who said life was going to be easy anyway!

I do not wish to complicate it at all. The conclusion is very simple, you wish to move ahead in life, you wish to make your life better than you had till now, you want to make your life a success? Then there is just one mantra, learn from your past mistakes, and more importantly, do no repeat them ever again. Temptations will always try to divert you from your goal. There will be many temptations. your past may tempt you to look back once again...just once, but that once may be the end of all story! 

By this, I don't mean to say, don't make mistakes...hell no! make mistakes, make as many mistakes as you want, but there is just one condition, make those mistakes just once. Never repeat them. Always remember, If you don't have margin for your errors, your errors will kill you.