Coming from the Hindu/Indian background the above headline seems to be naturally occuring without much of effort for many people. A person who would have said “I pray to god but not that much” in his 20s would say “Everything is a phase in life” in his late 30s while he enjoys lot of religious activities everyday. Following is the short analysis of mine in this world. In the following narration i am using “MANY” to denote my friends, relatives and strangers whom i have observed including myself.
Till the age of 10 MANY of us are in the fairy tale wonderland probably like Lord Of the Rings settings. We love all sorts of Toys, like to have more toys than your friend. We consider “Dad” as a hero and no one can beat him. With the little Karate or Kung Fu that we learn from teacher (who does not know what he is teaching), we always believe that we could win over this world. My 6 year old nephew always tells me when he is angry that “I will throw you in the Hawaiian Lava (volcano) with his power ranger’s kick”. MANY would go to temples and may even learn some religious songs, but “who cares about god”.
Now things change from 10-20 where most of Indian origin kids are fighting to do their 10th grade, Engineering/Medical/Law and struggling to get into a college. Friends, Movies, Theme Parks, Electronic Gadgets, Driving a Motor Bike or Car are the most preferred thing to do. This age we would go to Temples or pray god because we want to get good grades, want to get into a cool college and father should send us to that Goa trip. But still you would not really care What do you exactly pray or what do those some of “Mantras” means “Who Cares…”.
A lot of us would probably want to get into a nice multinational (now-a-days everything is a MNC) company draw a 6 digit salary, spend the salary in pubs, music, discos, travel with friends, buy a car, bike etc… This is the time that MANY spend maximum amount of money on one self. Because all the things that you would do are probably reflexions of the childhood fantasies. You want to “live every moment (in a pub)” and you see sky as the limits. MANY forget the existence of “Religion/God” at this age because You have a nice Job, You earn lot of Money, with lot of money you could get whatever you want. It looks like you have everything in life and there is not need to have a religion which asks you to do certain rituals. You may even forget some of the festivals as you “don’t care”. If someone tells you, “It is Dewali tomorrow”. You might say “Oh really!!! I didn’t know”.
Between the age of 30-40 the real accomplishments in life begins. I guess MOST of the readers would agree!. If you typically look at a person in age 30-40 he probably have following things. Each point that is “underlined” is the “Event/Characteristic” and the one following it is “anything can go wrong” (most commonly).
- Just bought a house(s); Need to pay monthly EMIs.
- Just got Married; Need to spend some money to settle after marriage (as we rarely see joint families).
- Looking forward to have kids; There’s a medical condition that prevents them from kids.
- Have elderly parents (of age 60-70); They always have medical problem that you need to look after.
- Highly rewarding job; Too much of struggle to move up the ladder.
- Wife works; Perhaps she has her job in a different city or country.
- Have 2 nice kids; Sleepless nights + hospital visits + mental tension.
- Got married; Did not marry whom you love.
- Nice Job; Boss does not recognize you.
- …
- …
Now once you get all of the above things + some more which i did not mention keep going in life, you tend to slow down in your brain. You see the world as more of “Uncertainties” rather than “CanDo” attitude. There are some issues that you may not share with your spouse/friends/parents/relatives… now you need someone who just listens to you. You need some one who listens to you and does not “preach”. Preaching is what you would get everywhere right. So you would want to avoid it as far as possible. Also this is the time that you realize that you need people to get some of the things done. See… to accomplish all of the above you would join some religious activities, starts praying more frequently and when people wink at you, you would say…”It’s the matter maturity, you would not understand it now” :). Hope for many of you, it may sound as though you heard it somewhere.
Of course there are other category of people who are totally confident of them selves, luckily (or by god’s grace) everything goes good for them. So they don’t even think about God. They call them selves god and they may even say “Aham Bramhasmi”.
It it not pretty interesting to see all these different kinds of people. Do you have any other experiences…. ?
