Of late, learning about the stock market had piqued my interest. One rainy evening, sipping hot chai while breathing in the fresh, petrichor-rich air, I found myself looking at the stock market chart of a company, as one often does when trying to determine its progress over the years. I first checked the graph for that day, then for that week, month, and year, until I zoomed out to the five-year graph. As someone merely dabbling in the arena, no amount of squinting at the laptop screen, head cupped in hands, miraculously gave me “the answers” to the relevant questions. Nevertheless, I did go on a tangent and make an interesting observation.
As I gazed at the rugged lines on the chart, ravenously rushing up and then dejectedly dipping down, fluctuating at a phenomenal pace, it occurred to me that if we were to have our lives analyzed and depicted in a similar manner, it wouldn’t be dramatically different from what was in front of me. Curious to explore the analogy, I drew some parallels; imagining a person’s life being split into numerous little shares, the price of each, quantified in terms of happiness and meaning.
Some days we’re better off, and the prices shoot through the roof. Then there are days when the prices – or happiness levels – stoop and fall, and we feel low, literally and figuratively. And then there are times when the societal market itself crashes. We all find ourselves in the same boat, feeling blue, surrounded by the morbid sea of death and sickness, looking for the smallest branch of hope to hang on to.
But if we’re willing to pardon the untimely fall in the price of a company’s share for a week, month, or even a year, trusting that the company is a good one and has the potential to sky-rocket – I asked myself – why don’t we give ourselves a similar benefit of the doubt? Why do we beat ourselves up for every small slip, every little thing that doesn’t go according to plan, and overthink our way into an abyss of unpleasant thoughts?
True, in that moment, on that day, things could have left a bitter taste in the mouth, which no amount of forced positivity can rinse off. But one good or bad day does not decide whether we choose to invest in a company, and analogously would not determine the quality of our entire life. As Matt Haig writes in his book, The Midnight Library, “Sometimes the only way to learn, is to live.” And what is life, if not stewed in a pot of mixed experiences, generously garnished with mistakes, peppered with a pinch of regret here, a dash of embarrassment there, and topped with wholesome love?
It is the five and ten-year graphs that speak volumes about us. If they are on a decline, maybe it’s time to take a step back and rethink our lifestyle. But if the curve is steadily trudging upwards – albeit at snail’s pace – then that’s an assurance that we are headed in the right direction. Life seems a lot like an uneven road riddled with puddles and potholes, and we need not read too much into every pitfall we find ourselves in. (Of course, we could pay a wee bit more attention to the intuitive signposts at every corner that we often conveniently turn a blind eye to!)
Zooming out and looking at the big picture would work wonders for most of us. We make so much progress over the years, only to sweep it under a rug of self-doubt, when we most need to hold it close to the heart. Perhaps if we had as much faith in ourselves and our potential, as we have in stocks and shares, we would be much, much happier. If we could only take a bird’s-eye view of the present the way we look at our past, as a part of the whole, we would treat it quite differently, wouldn’t we? And the next time we face a set-back, even if that means multiple points in a year of being caged in our own houses, perhaps the picture of an imaginary graph will come to our mind, with a tiny dent at its right end. And here’s hoping it soon arches upward in full blossom, like a bent rose curving up to smile at the sun anew.
Moonlit Musings 