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In life what is the difference between ‘B’ and ‘D’ .
We need to live our life with conviction if we want to be remembered.
What is the difference between ‘B’ and ‘D’? If I were to ask an elementary school teacher, he/she would answer: “In the upper case, ‘B’ has got two bellies while ‘D’ has got only one belly. And in the lowercase ‘b’ has got a belly on the left while ‘d’ has got a belly on the right.”
They are not wrong in what they have answered since that is the way, they explain it to the kids.
But at the same time, I would like to take it a little further to assert that the difference between ‘B’ and ‘D’ is ‘C’.
It may cause a smile to come to your face, but the meaning is much deeper: the difference between ‘B’irth and ‘D’eath is ‘C’onviction.
The difference or distant between one’s birth and death is the conviction with which one lives his/her life. In other words, the difference between birth and death is marked with conviction.
It is because of conviction that people make us speak about them ever after their death.
We have umpteen examples starting from Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation, to Antony, my Father.
Before enumerating on ‘C’onviction, which marks the difference, I would like to deal with other Cs that helps us to form convictions: Chance or Choice, Change or Consistency and Convenience or Conviction.
Chance or Choice
Between one’s birth and death there are plenty of chances and choices.
Either things happen by chance or by choice, which none of us can deny.
Let us take the example of a baby.
As soon as it is born it makes a choice to latch on to its mother or some may even prefer a feeding bottle.
As the child grows, he/she makes a choice to smile or cry at people when they lift him or her up.
When the child goes to school, he/she makes a choice to study and excel or not to study and skip classes; in today’s world, to a certain extent, it is only them, who choose the type of school that they want to study in.
When they become teenagers, they make their own choice to graduate in order to pursue a career.
Once they reach adulthood, they choose their life partner, or some even live as a celibate as per their choice.
As a consequence, all that happens in life is only by choice – either explicitly or implicitly.
Even whatever happens by chance happens because we make a choice to accept that; otherwise we only grumble about what has happened in life.
If you want to be responsible for your life, then you have to make a choice.
Therefore, to make a difference between birth and death, first and foremost, we need is to make a choice.
All those who lived by their convenience are not in the history books; it is all those who lived with conviction that are part of today’s history and we read His-story or Her-story (HISTORY).
If you want to make it into history or be a part of history, then start living with your convictions.
Change or Consistency
Once the choice is made, we should consistently proceed with it and should not keep changing.
One can change one’s decision only when one feels or thinks that it is not an appropriate choice; otherwise, just keep going even if the going gets tough.
When one keeps changing one’s choices then it is not actually a choice; it is, instead, a change.
Therefore, only what is consistently practiced becomes a conviction.
For instance, if one wants to become a musician, one must stick to one instrument to master it and not spend one day trying the harmonium, the next day on the keyboard, another day on the guitar and some other day playing tabla.
If one does that, one would never become a musician.
Consistency is the path to conviction for the vehicle of choice.
Convenience or Conviction
Once a choice is made and practiced consistently then it turns into a conviction.
People of convenience cling on to what happens by chance and keep changing it from time to time as per their convenience, which can never be called a conviction, nor does it make a difference.
All those who lived by their convenience are not in the history books.
It is all those who lived with conviction that are part of today’s history and we read His-story or Her-story (HISTORY).
If you want to make it into history or be a part of history, then start living with your convictions.
Therefore, dear friends –
Let us not live by chance but rather by choice.
Let us not live by changing our choices but rather by consistently practicing them.
Live by our convenience but rather by our convictions.
And let us not just be a number in the history but rather a member of history.
For that we should make a difference between our ‘B’irth and ‘D’eath with our ‘C’onviciton.
