Morose ponderings on a rainy day

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It was a Sunday morning as different as it can ever be. I was awoken by the tragic news over the telephone, of the passing away of one of my old friends who I was given to understand had given up his long struggle with cancer. He had obviously not wanted to mention this to me when we had spoken a few weeks back. Not that we were very close, but that was typical of the person he was, self-effacing and modest. However, he was the type of person who always took the effort to make a call once in a while when he was in town just to enquire about my well being and catch up on old times and how our friends were doing. Something far more than most of us, including yours truly does. He was an affable guy and always had something good to say about everyone.

We met a few days later, on a rather gloomy rainy afternoon, at an informal sort of prayer meet for him. As per the norm, a few of those who knew him well, spoke about him. Post the ceremony, a few of us gathered together and inevitably given the somber occasion and the pall of gloom surrounding us, the discussion veered towards whether our friend had a successful life. I was not an active participant in this discussion as I had to leave for a personal engagement. However, on my drive back , I could not get this topic off my mind.

As I mulled over this, I posed to myself the question. How do you define success in life terms? Does a successful career count? Well if it does, then how do you define a successful career? Does it entail reaching the top of your organization? If so, are Managing Directors of organizations more successful than say Vice President’s or even CEO’s? What about the size of the organization? Is the MD of a 500 crore company more successful than the MD of a 300 crore company?

What about his personal life? How do you define success in personal life? He lived a happy married life they say? Does any one, apart from the persons concerned, really ever know, if it was in reality a happy married life or otherwise? Does the fact that one remained in holy matrimony, happy or otherwise, till one’s death, count for points in the success ladder. Or on the contrary do you get a strike against you if you decide to part and separate from your partner, even if it means happily ever after for both parties concerned? More often than not, in our part of the world, I have seen that it is not necessary if you are happily married but special mention must be made of children. If you have actively contributed to the procreation of a male offspring, it seems to somehow count for more than say if you have partaken in the conception of a female progeny. A few enterprising folks would go a step further and also hold the annual compensation that your children make either in your favour or against you in this” Successful Life” competition.

What then does a successful life mean? For a moment lets digress to a far simpler or on the contrary complicated question. What do people really mean when they say he led a happy life? Are the afore mentioned points regarding a successful life relevant here in totality, partially, or not at all? When you are in the twilight of your life does a very few “If only’s “to ponder over despondently, mean a happier life relatively speaking as compared to a bucketful of regrets over decisions made, or not made, in the past? Does the corner office and an eight digit annual income count for anything in the happiness index? Or is it a cumulative of all these factors in some proportion?

I think that all of us have an important role to play in planet earth and in other’s lives including immediate family. However, in the long term everyone has to depart. It is in the nature of things, that life must go on with or without us. Yes, in our absence, people will grieve, some more than others, some for a longer period till memory fades and it will. Flashes of memory will become few and far between, until they cease completely. Did a person lead a happy successful life? Hard to say! Few of the parameters discussed above may assist in the decision, or just may not. What I think defines a person’s inhabitance in planet earth, is the number of people who on hearing about his demise, pause for a moment, step aside from whatever they were doing, and reminisce fondly over some incident involving the person in the past with a smile and wish they had been able to spend more time with him. However, I am just a cynic with a morose view of life as a whole and on many occasions, words fail me and do little justice to my thoughts. I therefore seek refuge in these couple of quotes which may just be more apt :

Its better to look back on life and say I can’t believe I did that, than to look back and say” I wish I did that” - Unknown

Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you will look back and realize they were the big things.  – Robert Brault

A huge monster of a truck suddenly emerged from the blinding rain, veering madly  across me, and rudely interrupted this train of morbid thoughts, as I slammed on my brakes in a desperate bid to survive and spare someone else, the onerous task of judging the happiness and success quotient in my life.