You’re about to set out and you look out of the window to check if it’s raining, and the rain seems to have cleared away. Your gaze shifts to a little puddle, you still see ripples appearing, and you realise it’s still actually raining! Now that might just seem like just another ordinary or even inconsequential observation, but there’s something to be learnt from almost everything we witness around ourselves in nature.
We generally gravitate towards finding fault with everything that’s lacking in our lives, miserly in our gratitude for our blessings. Blessings such as an able mind and body, a roof over our heads, and food to eat can be easily dismissed and taken for granted. And it’s not until we witness the plight of those less fortunate, that we realise how much we have to be grateful for.
And it’s not just about material prosperity, it’s also peace of mind and emotional support, which are almost more, if not as important. A family to call your own and a group of friends you can lean on can perhaps help get you through most challenges. Scores of people, especially children, lose their loved ones to unfortunate happenings, often leaving them socially isolated and destitute.
We design most things assuming resilience, both in physical and mental terms, spending scant time thinking through how those with lesser than average reserves would navigate them. Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the realisation of this is the beginning of wisdom, as someone famously said. So whilst we are a nation of billions, and we need to design both processes and places for the majority, let’s also spend some time thinking about how we can better cater to those with special needs, be they physical, emotional or material.
This also applies to how we treat people, there is no place for arrogance in society. Mutual respect is the very least that we owe to each other as human beings, after all Mother Nature has put us at the top of the pyramid of evolution, and based on how we’re treating not just each other, but the planet, we aren’t doing very well!
In metaphorical terms, whilst ambition may fix our myopic focus on the skies, also take a minute to turn our gaze downwards to the ground that holds us up. From the vantage point of our cushy sofas in our cosy living rooms, the rain seems magical and almost rhythmic, but for the pavement dweller, with a footpath for a seat, every raindrop is a storm in a puddle!
