An Everyday Good Samaritan in our Lives
The new age i.e., our generation is often labelled as “multi-talented”. Of course we are without a doubt, multi-talented, and out of all our talents, one is that of “scepticism”. We have the “easing-out but awful” tendency to blame others for our own miseries. The present lifestyle of ours is so complicated that we forget the main essence of our existence; we fail to be humane, we forget to recognise, try, act and inspire from the good Samaritans around us. Due to our constant race towards attaining “diamonds and rubies” at all the aspects of our life, mainly our age group misses out on the littlest of the things that forms the foundation of our lives. We become so much emerged deep in our own lives that we forget to “look around” literally. But then, the kind of sceptics that we are, when we do look around, by a freak chance, we notice only the shortcomings of the things happening around us. Then we lay out the list of complaints against life, missing out on more of the good things. We act like intellectuals, preaching about good Samaritans, how there’s a scarcity of such people in the society and how we fail to be such people, we need a change in all of us for that and blah blah.. This cycle continues throughout our lives until the day we pass on to the afterlife. I am not saying that all these are bogus, because they are correct logically, but the point here is we, as human beings fail to appreciate the fact that we have been bestowed with a good Samaritan in almost all of our lives – a parent, a mother.
Admit it, we all have blamed her at least once for our own miseries! We have become so much self-obsessed that we fail to appreciate what a mother does for us. We forget to care about the fact that a mother gives up her everything so that she can help us attain the individuality to survive the odds of the world. Yeah, She is no Mother Teresa and some would argue here that calling her a “Good Samaritan” would be a violation to the true gospel meaning of the word, but look at what a woman does and deals with when she enters motherhood- be it physically (as in actual childbirth), mentally (as in the case of adoption) or socially (like Mother Teresa).
When at school, she helps us out with our studies, with our tuitions and homeworks, she dresses us up in whichever best affordable outfit she lays her hands on, gives us all the love and care that one could ever imagine, spends sleepless nights if we fall sick or have exams, handles all our tantrums and teaches us almost every single possible thing. While at college, she falls asleep on the couch waiting for her child to return while he/she is busy working or partying, helps her child get back on his/her feet when life pulls down, helps her child come out of the first breakup by being a source of strength, advices correctly when we are confused about what to do and what not to do. She is the one who’s always there to get your back when you are in need. She keeps waiting for a single phone call from her child just to hear the voice and know whether he/she is okay. She is the one you can share your work problems with; the one that convinces your father when he rejects permission or funds to go on a holiday trip with friends; sometimes she adopts an unknown child and gives it her name, upbringing, nourishes it with values and teaches the customs, she gives up so much just to make us a better person in life! She is the one whose smile makes your day no matter in however deep crappy of a situation you are in. She is a good Samaritan whom we see everyday but fail to appreciate.
She is just so much. It is interesting how a woman, at the motherhood stage, plays so many roles not for herself but for others. She sacrifices so much, her wishes, aspirations and expectations from life and her freedom, most importantly just for the sake of others around her who need her. I’m not undermining the role of men as fathers or as a parent here, because men are as equally important in their role as women. But what I’m trying to say is that we as a child or as children to our parents fail to appreciate what they have done for us, we fail to make them feel wanted, to let them know that we appreciate whatever they do for us and that we love them for being there in our lives. How many times has been it been since any of us “really” made a genuine effort to make our parents feel loved….Apart from the whole satire called “scoring-highest-marks-in-the-exam”? When was the last time we went out on a “shopping date” with our parents or danced to a little tune being played on the radio with them? Obviously, just celebrating a single day and buying them some costly gift or taking them out for a lavish dinner isn’t a sign of real gratitude. Ofcourse, one can do that if it is their wish but waiting a whole year just for a day named parents’ day/ mothers’ day/ fathers’ day to show them that we love them back is actually nothing short of a joke. It’s plain showing off because love does not need a particular day to be expressed to someone. Gratitude doesn’t have a fixed time. Accompanying your mom on a shopping spree or making dinner, watching her bake cookies and cakes with her, or giving your dad a hand with fixing his car/bike, running small errands for them and atleast spending a little time with them, maybe just an afternoon or an evening on a holiday is all that takes to make them happy, to make them feel loved and wanted. As for the sceptics who complain that meeting a Good Samaritan is a rare sight these days, well there’s a good Samaritan at every home, at every person’s life. All that we gotta do is look around and acknowledge whatever they have done for us and get atleast some inspiration from them to try and make other people’s life a little better!