When the circular intimating that the  National Sports Day activity would be held on the upcoming Thursday  came on Monday, the 31st of July,  my 5 year old son Soham was very excited. He is very dramatic in his reactions as well so all his act began of running around the house in the name of, “I am practicing for the race!”, of asking for eggs and chicken only as,”I need strength to improve my running capacity!”, of “I need to sleep on time as I need to rest properly for the sports day!” etc etc kept all of us in the house pleasantly amused and entertained for the next three days.

On the actual day of the event today morning, he ate his chocos with milk before leaving for school, like every morning prayed to Krishna Bhagwan to bless his day and be with him always and was all enthusiastic for the day at school to begin. I too silently prayed within to God to be with him and help him achieve one of the 3 positions this time so that all of this  anticipation on his end would be worth while.

When he reached home I asked,” So how was you day Soham?” With his big smile he quickly responded, “Bohot accha!!” (Very nice)  I felt relieved thinking that maybe he has finally managed to win. The next question I asked was about his performance in the race. Maintaining his big smile he said,” main 4th position par aya”( I came 4th).

I got confused as his performance and mood didn’t match. I mean if he had lost wasn’t he supposed to sulk, cry, complain or being a kid of 5 years atleast find faults or create some excuse ??  Now isn’t all this humanly expected of him? I presumed that probably he didn’t know that he had lost. In a soft tone I asked, ” Soham, tujhe pata hai na ki winner 1,2 and 3 hi hote hai ? “(  you are aware that only the ones who score the first 3 positions are winners?). He said yes!!. I couldn’t suppress my curiosity anymore and ended up blurting, ” fir tu khus kyun hai?” (Then how come you are happy?) He said, ” mere aage 3 bacche the aur mere piche bhi 4 bacche the”(there were 3 kids ahead of me and there were 4 kids behind me)  On asking him to clarify  how that made him happy he added, ” I wasn’t last, I could run better than a few others in my class”.

Now there it was, right from the mouth of a 5 year old! The truth that mocked at me as an adult. We have read stories about it, we have heard elders and wellwishers guide and preach on it, we have seen videos of motivational speakers on social media based on it and have even learnt it in school days that ” Life is 1% of what happens to us and 99% of how we choose to react to it” Between becoming a looser on coming 4th and realising that he was doing better than a few others and thereby being a winner in his own eyes, this 5 year old child had chosen the later!

If only we as adults could also keep this in mind while comparing our journeys to that of others of whom we really don’t know much other than what meets the eye and could focus and appreciate with realisation and gratitude that God has blessed us in his own way, we all could probably avoid a few wrinkles from appearing sooner, could probably have a lighter approach to life with a little less of stress and complaints, could remember that its not always important to only compete and win but at times it is also about enjoying the journey, the moment we are in, if only we could change the perspective from focusing on what’s missing from what we think we should have and start being content and thankful for this journey of life.

– Sonali Bakshi

03/08/2023