Everyday I travel for 45 minutes to my university by the bus. The buses here in Edinburgh are incredibly different from the PRTCs back in India.

There are two compartments, a main and another above it. In the lower compartment there is space for disabled people, the seating arrangement is such that the first three rows are facing the front, a step up & the fourth row is a pair of back-to-back seats, and again the last row facing front. I love the design, the bus takes around 74 people. I guess this system is one of the reasons the traffic is so controlled here. While traveling I like to look out of the window, the city, the paths, the greenery moves me and my thoughts.

It’s just different. Everyone is busy. Be it the humans or animals. Looking at the whole lifestyle, I once wondered how full of ironies this life is. Both animals and humans are basically just finding ways to survive, for food and water. Animals are travelers by nature because they have to adjust to climate conditions and find their food, etc. They have no trade systems, no currency and no ability to create technology to stay at a place and not be a nomad. They might have territories I guess.

On the other hand, humans have everything, the trade, hundreds of currencies, thousands of languages, infinite work. We are more diverse, some have to find or beg for food and water, some have that and need to provide their families so they work and trade their knowledge by applying it for someone who needs it. Some have both food and comfort, enough for at least ten people so they go out to find more. The human thirst is never ending. The curiosity to go beyond the sky, beyond the galaxy, finding limits within our own body and yet all of this drops at one point. At the end of the day, we work to get the resources for survival- food & water.

So, one day I sat on one of these back-to-back seats in the bus and it was awkward at first. I couldn’t look forward, just saw what came and everything passed by so fast. A dilemma shook my thoughts. Isn’t life almost like this situation?

Around teenage, life starts unfolding, you might fall for someone, now that’s basically where all the problems starts. Loss of innocence as we grow up, battle with feelings, rush hours, etc., etc and it just goes on until we reach the graves. In everyday life, oh no, NO life is Normal. So, in life, there’s a moment when everything is going good, as perfect as Picasso paintings and you can see things coming and are able handle any and almost every situation. If a problem arises, you have a choice, a choice on which most things of future depends. But sometimes things happen to you, hearts are broken, and we suddenly find our self in middle of no where. It feels like the world has come to an end.

At a point in everyone’s life there are questions like ‘Why am I doing this?’ ‘For whom?’ ‘Why Am I Here?’ and the list goes on. We are finding and looking for answers and we are lost. Most of the times alone, upset and hung up on the past. It’s like sitting on that back seat opposite to the bus’ motion. Everything coming and going so fast that sometimes you want the time to just pause. It feels as if it’s slipping, moving too fast, pushing you forward so fast against your will that everything is just going and within no time, a day turns into years and we are still hung up. Because we aren’t looking forward, every problem hits at the back so hard that you fall every time, eventually becoming weaker everyday. There seems no ointment for the bruises or deep wounds which just go on getting deeper and worst.

You see people happy but you also see some people in worst troubles, people who are begging for money to get food for themselves. A limit comes when life makes you realize that being hung up on the past is making you lose the present and eventually the future becoming more complicated because you can’t see it.

Is it because you got blinded by tears or because you shut your eyes?

Then you turn around a little to sit comfortably in the bus and realize, when in life you start being a little less harder on yourself and see the opportunities, you start getting the choices back. You no longer feel being forced by time.

Every blow on the back leaves scars, and those scars become the reason for an aim in life- to never let it happen again. You learn and again look forward and then it’s like you running along with time not missing any view of life…

This thought made this bus ride the best ride I have ever had.

***

It’s forgettable thought though because sometimes we get so lost and caught up in the web of our problems that we forget every ounce of positivity in the heart. The mind tries to get along or escape the situation. It gets into the “survival mode” where it can even blind you with lies. But until you face the fears, the losses, the negatives, until you don’t face the power of destruction they can cause and keep running away, they will eventually run over you.

All every human needs to know is that crying is NOT a weakness, being weak is bad but not accepting that you’re weak will never let one overcome their shortcomings. Facing the mental war imposed by circumstances and negativities of one’s own thoughts or others’ thoughts is far more better than keeping one’s mind in a cocoon of lies.

Also it’s okay to be told that you’re not perfect. We are humans; imperfect humans born to become better.

– Mamta K. Sofat

[Music Lovers:Once in A While– Timeflies

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xDaTazoNLQ )

Ride– Twenty one Pilots

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFRHMl1WN48 )]