Murmurs from many sources woke me up. I was wondering whether it is a new alarm set by kids or there is really somebody speaking in my neighbours house.
I started searching for my specs. I know specs have no relationship with hearing, but I can’t activate any of my senses unless I wear my specs. You are allowed to call me crazy.
When I patted with my palm on the side table, my specs stood up. I wore it and it truly activated my brain to search for the source of the murmur.
Loudness of the murmurs reduced as I woke up. I went around the house to search for the source, but the source seemed close to me as the volume did neither increase or decrease as I walked to different rooms.
I scanned by body, specifically around the neck to ensure no bluetooth headphone connected. As expected there were none.
Puzzled, I sat on my sofa to think through this. I could hear the sound getting louder as I focused. It got clearer as I paid attention to and finally I could hear, “I am the Hero.” It is my mind which is reverberating this statement again and again. The thought that scared me is, “Have I gone mad?”. I closed my eyes to pay little more attention, and I could see and hear clearly, I am trying to prove my identity in many places and forums. I am holding my best profile photo in my hand and shouting to let everybody know that I am the most important person in that scene. I am trying to be loud, but my voice is not helping me get any louder, and others are busy in their world, so nobody is actually paying attention. A close observation made me realize each one of them in each of the scenes is doing the same as I am. Everybody is holding the best profile picture of themselves and trying to shout at the top of their voice to convince that they are the hero of that scene.
Noticing that I am not doing anything different nor the way I am doing will truly draw attention towards me, I stopped. Folded my profile picture and kept it in my back pocket and stopped jumping and shouting.
Started observing all around me. There were many known as well as not so known faces. I asked one of them, “Hi!”
Immediately the person stopped shouting and turned towards me and said “Hi”.
“Who are you?”, I asked.
“I am Sachin! I did a wonderful job today by cracking the complex logic that was behind an important feature. I am very proud of myself.”, He said.
“That is wonderful! How did you do that?”, I asked.
“Paid little more focus and spend some extra time so that my focus doesn’t break.”, he paused.
“Also, Ritesh gave me a clue”, He said.
“That is great! Nice! I am feeling happy for you.”, I responded.
“Hey, Ritesh is also in this room. Let me go thank him”, He said.
We went to Ritesh, he was also jumping with his profile picture in his hand and shouting, “I am the best, I am a Hero”.
We stood infront of him and waited till he notices us. In few seconds he noticed us and greeted us with a smile. “Hi!”, he said.
“Hello, Hey Sachin wanted to thank you for the clue that you gave him.”, I said on behalf of Sachin.
“Oh! Thanks. Glad that it worked. You know I also came up with an idea to help reduce the time we are spending on this project by half.”, Ritesh said in a single breath.
“Wonderful!”, We said
“Can you share your idea to the team?”, I said.
“Yes, ofCourse! I would love to”, He acknowledged.
“But you know it would have been impossible for me to come with this idea if Raj would not have given me the extra time by taking over my work. I feel he taking up my work was the key for me to think through.”, Ritesh said.
We all went to Raj to thank him, and this chain continued. After a few minutes, the room was silent, and everyone looked satisfied. No profile picture on anybody’s hand, and nobody was shouting ‘I”. Slowly people vacated the room to focus on their work and showed respect to each other while leaving the room.
I was feeling complete silence. But what really happened?
“Baba, wake up! You have to drop me at the bus stop”, I woke up to see my daughter ready for school, and I was sleeping on the sofa. I immediately got up and got ready to drop my daughter. I could feel a beautiful calmness throughout the day.
There is no doubt that, ‘I am the hero’ of my story but just limited to mine. The desire to become a hero in other’s story is an egotistic and selfish attempt, which usually ends with disappointment and frustration. Like you do not want anybody to become the permanent hero of your life. Similarly, nobody can accept you as their permanent hero. But the good news is, you can continue to be your own hero for an entire lifetime. Just have to ensure you are the best version of yourself in front of you and help others continue to become the hero of their story. You do that with no expectation from others.
The Hero
Life as Sakti 