More often, the best of joy in my life has derived from the many little moments that are so warm and worthy; they didn’t unfold under the crystal chandeliers and breathtaking designs of lazer beams in the grandeur of a ball-room or with a guard-of-honour, but were the simple moments carved out of the simple events of normal days and nights.
They are the moments when I kneel down to hug my little girl as she come with her little complaints of her sister; there is an inexpressible joy in listening to her broken sentences attempting to express the series of events that apparently made her little life miserable!
They are moments like when I watch my daughters sleep… Huh! Have you experienced the feeling as you watch your little ones go through a dream in their sleep! Watch them sleep; looking at their face that you may have not looked so close for weeks or months! Often times I wish to enter their minds to see why they smiled, or to see who they are playing with, the gestures of their eyebrows or fingers indicating some conversation!
These are the simple inexpensive but priceless moments through which I often felt the ultimate joy of living, and often feel nostalgic when I look back..through the path travelled.
I regret the nights when I stayed back in the office or remained busy with trivia’s that then appeared as significant– the one or two additional hours that didn’t change the world - and missed the chance of reading them a story, or putting them to sleep…or simply to be beside them and run my fingers on their forehead while listening to them tell me their stories of the day, as they slowly slip to the warm embrace of sleep…
Simple joy, I realize, is in the presence of, and our contribution to, an unabridged life of the living beings around us, whether it is about tending the plants in the garden or spending a moment to mend a broken care; it’s closer than we thought we can reach, and nearer than the distance we readied ourselves to travel!
Attaining simple joy, I realize, often doesn’t require crossing continents, or digesting libraries of Cambridge or Alexandria; it may just be at an arm’s length, standing disguised, for us to notice, and the language it requires is one that most of us are born with – the language of empathy.
Shahir.
