have you ever played with dominoes? If not, they are these rectangular tiles which are about the size of your thumb. The popular game played with them is to arrange them in various patterns on their edges and to topple the first domino in the series and watch them all fall over.
Life too is like a set of these dominoes. One innocuous incident could lead something else and that to something else and that could pull you right into the eye of a storm! Let me tell you about how I got thinking about this in the first place. It was 6:00am Monday morning and like every other Monday morning, I was up and awake getting ready to catch my bus ride back to Pune. Like every Monday morning I was ready by 6:45am and left my home. Now what 'usually' happens is that I go out and in a matter of 5 minutes or so I catch a rickshaw for the bus stop where the bus arrives and have a smooth 140km ride to Pune. Well, this is where the first domino topples over my otherwise 'usual' Monday. I was stranded in front of my apartment gate for about 15 minutes, waving at passengerless rickshaws as they whizzed past me like they were in a hurry to pick up the Prime Minister for a special ride. Eventually, after being rejected by 10 odd ricks, I finally get one gentleman who was ready to drop me to my desired destination.
When I alight the rick and run to the other side of the flyover, I find my bus driving away from me and I was left high and dry but not for long as it started pouring in a matter of 2 minutes.The umbrella could save me from the rain not from the situation I was in. While I was wondering what I must do next, I found 2 more fellow passengers who frequently travel to Pune joining me and being briefed about how we were deserted by the State Transport.
Was I late? Yes, from my usual timing I was behind by about 5 minutes or so but I was expecting the bus to arrive at its usual time which would mean I would catch the bus with 5 minutes to spare instead of 10. But there toppled another domino from another direction: the bus arrived 10 minutes earlier than usual! So all my calculations went for a toss and was declared late in the final analysis.
If I were to look at this situation from a Domino standpoint, I would find a completely different view of the problem. Many of the seemingly insignificant incidents started way before I got panicky about making it on time: like the bus may have arrived at the starting point 10 minutes earlier than usual, or maybe a change of driver and conductors meant the bus for once left on time from the starting point. Or it could be that school buses were on strike and many of the children were taking rickshaws for travel. Now, these are things I did not anticipate but if I were to sit and anticipate all of these things, I would have to leave an hour before the bus arrives at the bus stop! Where the Domino Effect really kicks in is where the choices you make change the course of the way the Dominoes topple.
Many years back, on a similar Monday morning I had left for school with a friend of mine as a pillion on his cycle and was returning back with him as well. That afternoon however, we encountered a pothole we normally would not have and I lost balance off his cycle and fell to the ground. To my good fortune, the truck whom we were trying to outspeed had a sensible driver and applied the breaks much before I fell off the ride. I was left with a splitting headache and a scraped forehead! Another similar incident was when I was to seek admission for 11th std. Junior College based on my SSC scores and missed most colleges by a narrow margin (in one case as narrow as 1 mark!) and finally decided to, in an emotion of utter despair, go for Diploma Engineering.
In each case what truly changed the course of the Domino Flow was the choice I made. In such situations God may seem like a really mean prankster who plays the most elaborate practical jokes on you. But the truth is that He is like this master-architect of your life whose ways and designs you have no clue about. We always fear those things we are uncertain of. We do not fear death but the its uncertain occurrence. We do not fear future but its uncertainty. But believe it or not it is this uncertainty that keeps us sane and enables us to affect change with the choices we make. Things may not always go the way want we want to but that would be like one of the characters painted on the Sistine Chapel complaining to Michelangelo that his robe should have been a little longer! The fella upstairs knows His job so we should just mind ours! If you feel like you are a victim to a divine practical joke, just laugh along with Him because he is the only one who can turn a joke into a miracle!
In hindsight every factor seems like a reason for the disaster. Of all the things I considered as a reason, the funniest I think is a point when the rickshaw driver asked me if he could relieve himself halfway to the bus stop. Now, I may have been in a hurry but I could not deny a man who came to my rescue in my hour of need his basic right of answering nature's call. It took him a minute or so to be done with it and to get his rickshaw started. It took me just that one minute to go from 'On Board' to 'On Road'! And that's the joke that got me through an otherwise aweful day with a smile on my face!
Life too is like a set of these dominoes. One innocuous incident could lead something else and that to something else and that could pull you right into the eye of a storm! Let me tell you about how I got thinking about this in the first place. It was 6:00am Monday morning and like every other Monday morning, I was up and awake getting ready to catch my bus ride back to Pune. Like every Monday morning I was ready by 6:45am and left my home. Now what 'usually' happens is that I go out and in a matter of 5 minutes or so I catch a rickshaw for the bus stop where the bus arrives and have a smooth 140km ride to Pune. Well, this is where the first domino topples over my otherwise 'usual' Monday. I was stranded in front of my apartment gate for about 15 minutes, waving at passengerless rickshaws as they whizzed past me like they were in a hurry to pick up the Prime Minister for a special ride. Eventually, after being rejected by 10 odd ricks, I finally get one gentleman who was ready to drop me to my desired destination.
When I alight the rick and run to the other side of the flyover, I find my bus driving away from me and I was left high and dry but not for long as it started pouring in a matter of 2 minutes.The umbrella could save me from the rain not from the situation I was in. While I was wondering what I must do next, I found 2 more fellow passengers who frequently travel to Pune joining me and being briefed about how we were deserted by the State Transport.
Was I late? Yes, from my usual timing I was behind by about 5 minutes or so but I was expecting the bus to arrive at its usual time which would mean I would catch the bus with 5 minutes to spare instead of 10. But there toppled another domino from another direction: the bus arrived 10 minutes earlier than usual! So all my calculations went for a toss and was declared late in the final analysis.
If I were to look at this situation from a Domino standpoint, I would find a completely different view of the problem. Many of the seemingly insignificant incidents started way before I got panicky about making it on time: like the bus may have arrived at the starting point 10 minutes earlier than usual, or maybe a change of driver and conductors meant the bus for once left on time from the starting point. Or it could be that school buses were on strike and many of the children were taking rickshaws for travel. Now, these are things I did not anticipate but if I were to sit and anticipate all of these things, I would have to leave an hour before the bus arrives at the bus stop! Where the Domino Effect really kicks in is where the choices you make change the course of the way the Dominoes topple.
Many years back, on a similar Monday morning I had left for school with a friend of mine as a pillion on his cycle and was returning back with him as well. That afternoon however, we encountered a pothole we normally would not have and I lost balance off his cycle and fell to the ground. To my good fortune, the truck whom we were trying to outspeed had a sensible driver and applied the breaks much before I fell off the ride. I was left with a splitting headache and a scraped forehead! Another similar incident was when I was to seek admission for 11th std. Junior College based on my SSC scores and missed most colleges by a narrow margin (in one case as narrow as 1 mark!) and finally decided to, in an emotion of utter despair, go for Diploma Engineering.
In each case what truly changed the course of the Domino Flow was the choice I made. In such situations God may seem like a really mean prankster who plays the most elaborate practical jokes on you. But the truth is that He is like this master-architect of your life whose ways and designs you have no clue about. We always fear those things we are uncertain of. We do not fear death but the its uncertain occurrence. We do not fear future but its uncertainty. But believe it or not it is this uncertainty that keeps us sane and enables us to affect change with the choices we make. Things may not always go the way want we want to but that would be like one of the characters painted on the Sistine Chapel complaining to Michelangelo that his robe should have been a little longer! The fella upstairs knows His job so we should just mind ours! If you feel like you are a victim to a divine practical joke, just laugh along with Him because he is the only one who can turn a joke into a miracle!
In hindsight every factor seems like a reason for the disaster. Of all the things I considered as a reason, the funniest I think is a point when the rickshaw driver asked me if he could relieve himself halfway to the bus stop. Now, I may have been in a hurry but I could not deny a man who came to my rescue in my hour of need his basic right of answering nature's call. It took him a minute or so to be done with it and to get his rickshaw started. It took me just that one minute to go from 'On Board' to 'On Road'! And that's the joke that got me through an otherwise aweful day with a smile on my face!
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