Yesterday, my wife and I joined Murali, Meera and two other friends (Charan and Krishnakumar) on a bike-trip to Skandagiri. We started from Murali’s house at 5:00 AM. By 7:15 we had reached Nandigrama – a village near Nandi hills. We had breakfast there and from there we continued our journey to Skandagiri. By 8 we had reached the base point of the hill and started our trek – up the hill. We went trekking up the hill, which was about 1.3 kms in altitude; but climbing up and hill and down is about 10 kms – I guess. The trip and the trek thereafter was lots of fun, although very exhausting.
As I was climbing the hill, I was getting very very tired. We were not even 25% into the trek and I was almost down from total exhaustion. Murali looked at me from a distance and after sometime he came to me and said – “it is just about the current step…”. I was making up so many stories about the path ahead and how steep it was that I was making my current step difficult. An integration of current steps would become my trekking experience – which would have appeared hell. Anyways, after Murali told me – “it is about the current step”; I began to enjoy the current step. I got present to an old saying – “Life is NOW!”. I started getting present to the sounds around – sound of the air, sound of birds chirping nearby, sound of frogs, sound of my heart beating, sound of the next step…. Every once in a while, I stopped when I got tired. Enjoyed the break. Took a look at the peak and the path ahead just to make sure that I am heading in the right direction – but then I would get back to enjoying the current step. one step after another, I did reach the peak of the hill. The journey and the destination was highly enjoyable!
Many times in our life we get so stressed – perhaps because of the stories we make up about the “perceived” future. After a while the place where we are in life seems hellish and so would the journey. Life is about the current step. Take a glance at the required destination once in a while, but dont forget to enjoy and ‘be’ in the current step.