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I'm experiencing a contented glow around me for I just finished reading a lovely book. While the book will appeal to all ages, it is essentially directed at younglings on the threshold of adulthood. Nevertheless, it contained a world of wisdom that is just as well needed for some grown-ups.
I'm referring to 'Anne of the Green Gables'. In a providential turn of events, I managed to land up with an extra copy while intending to gift one to a young girl. I gladly kept it at home for the time when R would be old enough to read it. In the meantime, it beckoned to me. I had missed reading some classics as I grew up and I'm glad that this book came my way.
This is not a book review in any way. I simply want to share some of the many thoughts the story led me to mull over; in a manner that was part humorous, part tear-jerking and for the most part meditative.
As little kids, our minds jostle with so many beliefs; the imagination, the curiosity, the yearnings for little joys, and great aspirations! The world reaches out to us with so many possibilities and each of those seem achievable in our impressionable minds. Alas, we grow up to shed all of these to don a cloak of so-called seriousness, rationality, practicality, and sensibility. The mind is shorn of all the wishful thinking one might ever indulge in for the fear of being laughed at in society. "Surely, that's not possible! It's time you grow up" is what we admonish our minds with, on those rare occasions when we do let ourselves run away with a little imagination.
Who is to say what is wishful and what is not? What may be perceived as removed from reality could be as much a possible dream if we only dare to give it wings.
I remember reading an article about how we surrender to destiny at some points in our life and begin to use less and less of our free will. Especially, when the going gets tough, which it does for all of us, we succumb to the rule of not having any expectations because we fear the disappointments that come along. I'm sure we all have endured circumstances when we sigh and wonder, "What use is free will when we only get what is already predetermined?" We avoid aiming for the skies for we are terrified of falling; we stop ourselves from wishing the best for us, lest we jinx our own destinies. In short, we do stop living life to the fullest because we are mortally scared of being let down.
Destiny keeps changing as we take the different bends on the road. Goals might change but the zest to achieve them should remain unchanged. Imagination needs to be held onto or cultivated even as we grow in age or especially so because that keeps our world colorful and full of hope. Wishful thinking need not be shooed away. For, there are instances where destiny has said, "as you wish".
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Have you read this book? What are your thoughts? If you haven't yet read the book, I'd surely recommend it.
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Linking this to day 6 of BarAThon
Theme prompt: Wishful thinking
