The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Ever since I read this book by Mitch Albom, my brain was in a tizzy. I wondered who my five people would be ? 

I thought I would do this exercise for fun, but what seemed simple turned out to be a very difficult task. You might think it is easy to identify the five people you will meet in heaven, but try it....it is an uphill task. 

I made a list of people I thought should be on my list. My list comprised of  family, friends, colleagues , enemies, and random people even. And I wrote against each name what they had done to impact my life.I set myself a simple benchmark as I tackled the list- did this person do anything that changed me as a human being , or make me take decisions that have shaped  the person I am today? 

An important bewildering lesson - I realised that the people who have influenced my life the most, are not necessarily the ones who have impacted it. 

For instance-my parents. They have shaped and moulded me - and given me the tools to go out into the world and be independent and do my own thing. But have they changed my life? No. Parents shape our lives and make us what we are - there is no point in thinking what we might have been if we had another set of parents!! Or a different set of circumstances - because these are givens. 

Likewise for Praneet - my life changed when I married him - but has he changed my life? Not necessarily. Even Linda Goodman - we all grew up reading what she had to say about sun-signs and relationships - and like all young girls I also swore by her. But there was no change in my life because of that influence!! 

Ofcourse there are small changes that happen to us because of social interaction. Friends influence us and we take on some of their characteristics . We behave differently with various groups of friends. Family members also influence behaviours and we mould ourselves to make them happy. For instance, my mom-in-law likes me in suits - so I will please her by dressing up in indian attire when I meet her . But those are not life changing events. 

The names I finally ended up with on my list shocked me initially! I had not thought of some of these people in years  - but yet, when I did the exercise, the whole experience came in sharp focus for me. And I realised that they had impacted me the most in my journey till now!

I wrote letters to each one of them - telling them how my interaction with them had been life changing for me. It connected my dots for me....

Fortunately for me, my journey has been a happy one. So when my boss, whose blue eyed girl I was, refused to take me back after my child, he set the course for change for me. I was angry and determined that I would not go back to work in a chauvinistic environment. That led to my indulgence in content , writing and education and I have not looked back since. When I screwed up an assignment and made my company lose a prestigious client, I was terribly ashamed of my laxity. That has given me huge insecurity about my work.Even today, I constantly ask my self -Is this good enough? Or can I do more? What can I add to make this worth the while? So when I take on any task today, I know I push myself till I am sure that I have done the best.

While including family members in the list sounded terribly cliched, one person has impacted my life and changed it. That has to be my first born - and I have learnt to be patient and less selfish, learnt to be politically correct and to befriend the devil and tried to become a better human being so she could look upto me! 

I also realised that all the stories are interconnected. And there are many people who touch our lives - whether we are aware of them or not. All these people bring richness to the experience and help you perform the tasks you are meant to perform on earth.

I would recommend that everyone try doing this exercise. It has huge positives. This  has been the most cathartic thing I have ever done and it helped me make meaning of my mad life. 

It set into perspective all the random experiences I have had till date and how there was meaning in all of them. It  taught me how I stupidly whine and stress about inane things, and it helped me sift the wheat from the chaff. I have learnt that there are no mistakes in life and there are no experiences that are not worth having. There should be no regret - because life was meant to be such for me!

It taught me gratitude -that my life has been one full of blessings, happiness and love. 

Ofcourse, in my list of more than a hundred people, I found only four people who have impacted me enough to change my life...I still wait for the fifth one to reveal him/herself!!