It’s another everlasting question, but I think like most questions it has something to teach us. Well here goes, SHORT and SWEET or LONG LASTING. On the face of it, short and sweet wins hands down; I mean who in the world can you give you a guarantee? Who can tell you/ assure you that tomorrow things will be the same., so the safest bet would be to say, enjoy the time you’ve got, enjoy this moment… this very second, cause that’s all that one has. But then if it's hands down short and sweet then why is it that we plan for things long lasting… meaning things with durability. Lifelong companion, friends who stand by you, parents who you can let go off, the dream house you want to spend your old age in… why do these things come into picture? Why can’t it be just short and sweet? Why do we have to worry about how long something will last? I mean if the whole crux of life is that “Change is permanent” and that what we have now, might not be there tomorrow, then why do we ever have to think about long lasting things?
Practically speaking it’s pretty simple, we don’t know if it’ll last or not, so no point spending your time on it… might as well be more resourceful. But it’s still a nagging question as to why we want some things to be permanent yet agree that short and sweet is cooler? More practical? More sensible?
Personally I was a hard core long lasting type, I believed that every step needs to be planned and done and that it will all culminate to something big/great/nice things in life. You might have noticed that the previous sentence is in past tense, does that mean that I’ve changed sides now? Well not really(I’ve just starting looking at things in a different light), some things need to be short and sweet, like the pani puri that you eat at your street side guy and it’s so chilly and hot that it burns your tongue, like the ice cream candy you have on a hot summer afternoon, your mom’s meal after months of eating restaurant food, a cool breeze of wind when you are completely drenched in sweat, these things just last a moment, not more than that, they lose their value the moment the moment passes by. You forget your burning tongue as soon as you start walking back home, you forget how tasty your mom’s food is the moment you look at a pizza hut/subway, but then it’s supposed to be that way… I mean you can’t go craving about your mom’s food while all your friends dig into a cheesy pizza. This is how life works, some moments need to short to have that effect on you, and the duration they last creates that effect. But then what about long lasting, what needs to be long lasting? Well the guy beside you? I think I’m supposed to say the person with whom you intend to spend your life? Sounds cheeky, I know but even speaking from a practical point of view, if you kept changing the guy beside you let’s say every month, each month you’d be reiterating your life to this guy, and it’ll be like going over the same things over and over and over again, I mean there would be no progression , you would virtually live the same phase of your life , for your entire life!! Just imagine a 60 yr old you, asking a 63-64 old man, “What’s your favorite color? Mine’s pink… but you let me know what you like and I’ll wear that when we meet next”. I mean it sounds ridiculous, if not preposterous … I think mostly what become long lasting in life are the bonds that you have, your relationships, the bonds that you form in your life… these are usually long lasting… but more than that what last is who you are… who you are as a person. There are something that make up what you are fundamentally… like Gandhi = non violence, like Mother Theresa = benevolent. I wish I could put in my analogy, but I think it takes a life time to figure out this one… so it long lasting + short and sweet for now. Like most things in life, it’s a balance…
Something we can all do it that, be generous with your life and the people in it. Don’t be too harsh on yourself, when you do something wrong, don’t kill yourself, allow yourself to make mistakes – after all it’s Human to Err and when you do something nice, pat yourself on your back, treat yourself, take that break you deserve, after all you really don’t know how many good things you will do in this lifetime, so might as well enjoy the ones that you do do… and when it comes to the people around you, when you feel something just say it. Say I like the way your hair looks today, say nice job guys, you really saved my life! Say what they deserve to hear because that moment that you felt it, might never return, they might never ever do that thing again, to get that complement from you. So give it to them when they deserve it. It’s actually something they deserve to hear and you will be in effect depriving them of that… Just SAY IT!! (It won’t hurt – I promise) (Disclaimer – this promise is supposed to be short and sweet). Sometimes these short and sweet things can lead to a really long lasting things. Who knows what the future holds. You might miss out on the greater things in life, if you ignore these things…
(The part of the blog is dedicated to a friend of mine, who showed me things in a different light).
Maybe mine was the skewed perception, or just my perception (Don’t they mean the same?) Anyway, the new feeling is that both long lasting and short and sweet are a state of mind… long lasting is just wanting the short and sweet moment again and again, and then at one moment you might decide that this is too boring, and name it either long lasting or short and sweet, because that again depends on the relativity of time… what might have seemed like long lasting to you could have just been a moment for me.. So generalizing this is quite out of scope… In a way , never hope for long lasting, if you keep wanting the short and sweet for a long long time… then you have got yourself a long lasting thing… else it was meant to be just short and sweet…(Makes life simpler to live – without much thought)
PS : - Inspired from the telugu movie Oye. I know, me and telugu… but yes – life changes!!
-Irrespective of all of the nonsense I just wrote, we all know what we belong to.
So let me know what type are you?
-short and sweet
-long lasting
-A mix of both (Don't be diplomatic and pick this option! Be truthful for once!!)
-I don't have the slightest clue - Why in the world do you ask such question?!? (Escapists - please make an attempt)
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