So What?!

I needed to write this as a sort of release for myself more than anything else....
I am now ready to write this as I have learned to love beyond all these outward things....however, these did plague me earlier and I was torn between my beliefs, needs and those of others close to me....but not anymore.

I have had very little material needs ever since I was little. I hardly cared so much about dressing up, buying the latest stuff, being with the crowd, keeping up with others and so on. I don't remember demanding anything from my parents, except having pets that ranged from dogs to rabbits to injured baby squirrels and a one-day pet  - a baby donkey that was walking along our road that I wanted to be with closely for a day!

My sister and I used to detest going to the Rotary Club parties that were so much a part of my parents' lives....they still have such an active social life even at the age of eighty! I remember how we used to go to those get-togethers complaining, grumbling, but looking forward to some good food :)....we were never given the choice of staying home. We hated sitting together in a corner like 'wallpaper' (that was our nickname given by one of our family friends!) with plastic smiles on our faces, not knowing what to talk or say to the people around us. I don't know if these could have been  reasons for both of us being sort of reclusive, even now sometimes, in huge gatherings.

For a very long time, I had very strong beliefs about these things and many others. I felt that people who were like that were hypocritical, superficial and not 'real'. I had very strong notions of what was right and wrong. I looked at everything with my beliefs and philosophies. It has taken me all these years of parenting and unschooling to look at everything, including myself differently. It has been a slow, painful and yet deeply spiritual journey.

Today, these things don't matter to me anymore. And I can tell you that it is so much relief to think and be this way. Because you stop judging yourself and other people then, and accept everything that flows into your life with equanimity. I am not quite there yet, but I know I am getting there. I know and am very aware of how I have changed.

I have a husband who loves gadgets and the latest cars and bikes and good clothes and....I have a son who loves most of those things too. While earlier, I used to feel caught between two people with needs that were 'extravagant' according to me, and try hard to make them see the other side of things, today I rest in peace with myself and them.....for today, I think that those things don't matter as much as what is beyond that outer facade.

So what if they like to drive around in the latest SUV and add to the carbon print, while I think about and cry for the environment? I still love them!
So what if they love their different hi-tech gadgets and cannot do without them, while I don't quite like or need those? I still love them!
So what if they want to go to splurge once in a while and I like to live within my means? I still love them!

So what?! .....because I think everyone of us is here to make our own unique inner journeys.....a journey with our own self where others are like signposts.....and every one of us is at a different point in that journey....one cannot hurry that process nor can that be controlled from outside. So  then why should we try to change mindsets at all? Why can't we rather focus all energies inward and try and understand ourselves first? Why can't we let people just BE?!

After all, even a rogue has a soul and is on the very same journey that we are all in....so what if he is a rogue? So what if he is inhuman sometimes? Can we look beyond all that and say to ourselves : "So what?!"