In the end, mortality is all that remains!

Once, there existed a king known to be very shrewd and evil. The thought of entering his territory was dreaded by many. The people of his kingdom never dared to interact with him for the plain reason that if they said anything wrong, they would be subjected to harsh punishments. The king's ability to successfully battle threats and obstacles form external sources was the primary reason why he was accepted by the people of his kingdom. Through his reigning years, the king was contained by his pride and ego. After the years of glory faded away into oblivion, all that the king was left with was his own sense of being, which was life in its real form. However, till his death, the king could never really grasp the reality of life after all the power he considered to be permanent was gone.

In our heydays, we often tend to lose touch with the real world. Certainly. Some of us, a little earlier than the others. Because we all have wings that are fully developed in our prime, falling down is almost impossible. When we take off, the thought about touching down upon a destination is certain. But sometimes, we start flying so high that we lose sight of the ground we took off from. In our lives, that ground can mean anything from culture, values, roots among others. It is good to fly high so long as practicality exists in the form of knowing that the flight cannot go on forever. And one fine day we shall have to come down to where we belong. The only difference we find is that, some people choose to fly, keeping their reality intact, while some people refuse to look down. Some of us reach tremendous heights in our lives, sometimes being alone in the firmament. The time when we look to come down is when we realize that we have left our destination far behind. At times, we get so involved in achieving materialistic goals that we overlook the fact that it was happiness and contentment that we had set out to attain in the context of what we did. Joy and satisfaction are not destinations. We all live thinking that after a certain age, when we will have enough money, happiness will follow us eventually.

I'm often told that I'm at an age when all that should matter is meeting new people, working hard enough towards achieving my goals and achieving financial success. But my focus inevitably keeps coming back to the core elements of life that will determine the outcome of my future courses of action. As important as it is to gain social and financial relevance, I'm well aware of the fact that these successes are not permanent. If I'm in a career which gives me umpteen rewards if I succeed, then I should also know that I'm only as good as my last success. I will not be in the reckoning as soon as I quit. So when I clearly know that my successes and failures won't last forever, then it is only beneficial for me to know that I should live a life that allows me to look beyond the periphery of what I do. As I grow older, I increasingly get protective of my real self. Every moment becomes a battle between learning something new and retaining the sensibilities and ideologies I have lived by. As the options of newer ideas float around for my approval, I keep becoming more and more mindful about which ones to buy into. The world keeps giving me different tags depending on the various roles they have seen me embodying. It is only I who will ever know the truth of my life. That my time here is limited is well known and I must juggle various labels with the ultimate one being that of a mortal. My core identity of being a puppet in this universe can never change because of any any self-proclaimed puppeteer.

Abraham Lincoln made a very powerful statement when he said that, ''Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.'' Many greats have successfully passed the test of character only after adversity introduced them to their limitations. Being aware about our limitations makes power seem transient. The only and only way one can ever become powerful is by breathing life into his/her true character. And anything that takes you away from your mortality, is only stealing from you the very purpose of your existence. And that is why the people who are the happiest are the ones who have never owned fame, money and success. They just co-exist with the riches of the mind. Talk about the enlightened souls!