LIFE IS A STORY

It is very interesting to trace the origin of our ancestors. It is very rare to have a written history for ancestors. The message about them are passed on verbally from one generation to another. The life of every person is recorded by the history, but the story of few of them only are passed on to posterior generations. In the words of Henry Kissinger, 'The history of what did not happen has never been written down. Well fortunately for the world the history of the actor, I did not become was never recorded.'

In the book 'Roots' written by Alex Haley, the author would narrate the root of a person, detailing the life of that person for about nine generations. He would have been violently captured like an animal, while cutting tree in a remote village in Africa by some mysterious people with an ulterior motive. The captured person was transported in a ship chained in an inhuman way along with many other captives like him. After a month's sea travel, they landed in a port in America. All these people were sold as slaves through traders for manual labour. Our man was bought by a rich American and he settled there along with other slaves. He developed acquaintance and married a slave black woman and blessed with a daughter. He made it a practice to teach his daughter in his leisure time, some words in his African native dialect. His daughter learned those words and passed them on the same to her children. Over the years, the slaves were sold on auctions to different areas, forcibly making them to depart from their respective families and separated from their family bond and settled in various places. This particular dynasty, despite their settlement in different places, they used the African native words as part of their rituals for all occasions. When Abraham Lincoln become President of America, he abolished the slavery and liberated the slaves. By that time, nine generations passed away and a young educated man of that dynasty was approached by New York Times and assigned him a project to find his family root and wanted to publish. The young man researched and his search landed him in a remote village in Africa and met the people of his clan. The prevalence of continuous usage of few words in native African dialect for many generations was the only source with which he could find his roots and enabled the publication of a book 'Roots'.

'The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want and if they can't find them, make them' - George Bernard Shaw.

Randy Pausch, Computer science professor, Carnegie Mellon University was asked to give 'The Last Lecture' for that year. The Last Lecture is one that a person will give it as if it is his last one before his demise. If he had to vanish tomorrow, what would he want as his legacy? Unfortunately, subsequent to his acceptance of delivering such lecture, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. It did not deter him. He recorded all his preparations and delivered his speech. The lecture he gave 'Really achieving your childhood dreams' was not about dying, but about overcoming the obstacles. The recordings were available to his children to know the story of the life lived by their father. There are more people like Randy Pausch, whose life stories are motivational.

Everyone of us will die, but so few of us really live.
Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, that is why we call it the present.
Let our life be a story of positives.