Ervin Yellow leaves all spread around, 

Painting autumn colour on the ground, 

The winter arrives whitewashing away,

Frozen and still everything lay,

New day and hope get in to the spring, 

Life back to life it does bring,

And turns out in to brightness again,

Summer takes away all our pain, 

The seasons repeat, there goes the life, 

Experiences repeat in the circle of life!

On her way home after a busy working day, Lucy passed a very old man on the subway. The man’s face was unusually wrinkled, he had a white beard and was wearing clothes that were bit soiled and with stitches. The intriguing, seasoned face revealed a lot about his life, which seemed to be full of hardship. Probably he was homeless, or surviving with minimum possessions. 

“He must have seen and been through so much!” She thought to herself.

She offered him some food and greeted him with good words. The man smiled and blessed her, saying that he had no complaints about life and that he accepted everything with gratitude. 

“Be good to all, for what goes around comes around, that’s the circle of life!” he said as he walked away. 

It is rare that you come across someone vulnerable yet deep, and strange that you still remember the face long after you saw it. Even after she got home, she was still thinking about him. In all her efforts to make a better living, she never had time to think about people around her who were unprivileged. Life survives in the humblest of beings, so it will do even with her, with all she had. 

In the daily hustle of life, when the entire city headed towards work every morning, and returned home every evening… stuck in the traffic she often wondered: where were we really going!? What was life all about, and what was the ‘circle of life’?! She could see that it had many aspects. 

It seemed that life had a circular motion, where she came to similar spaces every time after completing one goal. The clock arm makes a circle to complete an hour, the earth’s full rotation completes a day, the earth’s revolution around the sun completes a year… all of this brings us back to a new start! A new hour, a new day and a new year, every end as a new beginning.   

From a larger perspective the circle of life even embodied the cycle of life and death, the processes of birth, reproduction, and death, and the continual regeneration of life. At its core, the circle of life illustrated the natural cycles that govern ecosystems. In nature, every organism plays a vital role within its habitat, forming a complex web of interactions. 

Thinking of it beyond biological systems, she saw it extending into human culture and spirituality too. Many indigenous cultures often portrayed life as a circle, with an emphasis on respect for all living beings where each element had intrinsic value. 

Lucy got inspired by this larger perspective of life that would enable her to manage herself better. Acceptance of certain facts freed her from self-imposed restrictions and limiting beliefs. Life’s trials, be they personal loss, setbacks, or unexpected changes, can lead to personal growth and transformation when obstacles are viewed as opportunities to learn and develop.

All the more reason to stay humble and grateful, seeming to be the best way forward… whether her life would become like a roller coaster or a giant wheel, she knew it had a start point and an end.

The mistakes and failures and wrong doings, 

Sorrows, pains and sufferings, 

Make us a better person, make us fine, 

They are not waste, they are not bad, 

For life, when we see it, wouldn’t happen at all, 

I wouldn’t be me, if life hadn’t been so!

*********

Andre De Shields, after winning his award, shared three rules of his success and longevity: “One, surround yourself with people who light up when they see you coming, two, slowly is the fastest way to get you where you want to be, and three, the top of one mountain is the bottom of the next, so keep climbing.”

MFN Trainer and Head of Operations of Daksha: rishabh.shah@daksha.net