The Sunday after

 I sit here today as I try to ponder on the inner workings of my mind on this silent afternoon, the Sunday after my escapades. It is something I often do after a long bout of extroverted-ness, my chronic condition of expanding more energy than I would care to on various musings of life. So much has happened in the past three weeks, but most of it too private to tell-tale on a public blog.  But know this: there's a bitter coffee to my right, just within reach, and then the ever pervasive sound of the ceiling fan running as my mind tries to count its rotations with accuracy. I sit donning a jade shalwar kameez, buttons of the sleeves in place, back straight as it soothes the pain, I am back in the confines of sunny equatorial Lahore, the city of gardens, home to guardrails of the Punjab.  I am reminded, suddenly and somberly of my grandfather, typing as I typed, with both hands on his keyboard, fingers pushing buttons, the learnings of his typewriter days being translated to the memo
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The final takeaway

Having spent years and years in the educational system and memorizing facts and figures that seemingly had no importance in life, the final takeaway has now made itself known, or maybe it was always known and I just chose to not see it.

What I mean to say, is that the schooling that we undergo, from elementary school all the way up to university, it serves to impart in us a technique with which to approach problems and challenges in life. The funny thing is that there is a lot to be learned at every turn, everyday and if we can - from waking up at 6am for 20 years - inculcated the habit of absorbing and using that information, than we will succeed in life


Because that is the difference between those people that are on the path to self determination,  and those that live life through the dictation of others


If I could leave my loved ones with one thing, it is the ability to learn how to learn. Because once they master that skill, all other skills are obtainable, and they will be, in essence, self-sustaining so they can live their lives on their own terms. 


And should not that be the end goal? the final takeaway? to live life according to ones own wishes and desires because it's too short to live it for someone else, and the future, is uncertain. 



- M 

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