Essentials of Life

What are essentials of life . This is a difficult question to answer. Essentials make life easy ,comfortable and safe. One can forgo necessities but not essentials of life. It is difficult to manage life without essentials. Essentials are fragrance of life. Nobody by birth has all their essentials of life. In fact, those who have some essentials of life at the time of their birth are really fortunate. They are said to be born with silver spoon. Essentials of life are not guaranteed to anybody at all.First priority of everyone in life is procurement of essentials. Everybody has to struggle in their life to acquire their essentials. Further, stress and strain that everybody puts in acquiring essentials of their life are not the same. Some people have to put in more stress and some people have to put in less stress and strain to have their essentials of life. Not having ,essentials of life is definitely an handicap.

Essentials of life depend on individual's thinking. An individual’s thinking does not always remain the same because every human mind does not receive same inputs. Individual to individual intelligence, knowledge, and other qualities vary. One can lessen or build up their essentials of life. It is up to them . As such, essentials of life or individual preferences also vary from individual to individual. One's essentials of life may not be the essentials of life of another individual. It is individual prerogative.They are according to whims and fancies of individuals. Essentials of life are more to some people and are less to some people. Depending individual's choice of essentials of life it could be made out what type of person the individual is.

Yesterday's luxuries become today's essentials. It is always better one has all their preferences. Even if one’s single requirement is not met they would be surely disappointed. A vehicle cannot be run without petrol. Petrol is quite essential to vehicles . So also, essentials of life are quite essential to human beings to lead their life comfortably. Patience is as essential to one’s life as a salt is essential to a meal. Patience makes a life amiable as a salt makes a meal mouth worthy. In fact,it is as essential to a human being as clothing, food and shelter are. In other words it is indispensable.

There is no wonder if one's life progresses just like a day follows a night even though they are not able to secure all the essentials of life. It marches ahead. There is no doubt that the most important essentials of life are contentment, peace of mind and happiness. They are indispensable. One may have many things, if they do not have contentment, peace of mind and happiness,they would not find any charm in life at all. Love is also equally essential to life. Love, is as essential to life as water. Without love, life is barren.

In order to live on this earth; we require certain items like food, water, light , air, clothes and shelter. These are known as basic necessities of life. Only after meeting the basic needs one can think of other requirements of life. It is always better if one confines to only essential requirements. All necessities of one are not essentials of life. Some say health wealth and character are required to lead a life. They say if health is lost something is lost, if wealth is lost nothing is lost, if character is lost everything is lost. It is difficult to say what are required to lead a life. What is required to lead life is individual’s assumption and presumption only. Standard of living determines essentials of life.

Man is a social animal. A family, friends , relatives and recreation are essentials of life to a man. A man expects ample opportunities in life. One’s requirements in life depend upon on various factors. The environment in which one is born and brought up and live in, influence one’s requirements a great deal. Further, time to time requirements of individuals change too. They do not remain static. In fact; they are increasing day by day. The needs are not only materialistic but also are spiritual as well as intellectual. Requirements of some people are more materialistic whereas requirements of other people are more spiritual and intellectual. Generally all the requirements of one are not met in life. This also varies from individual to individual. That is why everywhere dissatisfaction is prevailing and a few are only complacent in this world. Hence peace has become the most important requirement of a modern life. Everybody whether one is rich or poor needs it. Besides all this, physical as well as mental health is of paramount importance to everyone in this world. A purpose is always definitely required to lead a life. Of course, some believe that money is everything and devote their entire time, and energy for that sole purpose. That is amassing wealth. However, majority of people in this world lead their life with one or another better purpose. A few lead life without any purpose too. It is purpose of life that decides what is required by him or her to lead their life.

According to a saint Essentials of Life are as stated here below.

The salt of life is selfless service. The bread of life is universal love. The water of life is purity. The sweetness of life is devotion. The fragrance of life is generosity. The pivot of life is meditation. The goal of life is Self-realization. Therefore, serve, love, be pure and generous. Meditate and realize.

We cannot live in this world without adequate knowledge and intelligence. They are very essential. Life is survival of the fittest. Knowledge and intelligence have no limits. There are different kinds of knowledge and intelligence too. More you have both of them, better it would be. Here intelligence comprises of capacity to understand, capacity to realize, common sense, presence of mind, capacity to express capacity to judge forethought, foresight and such other instincts. In the same way knowledge has many wings or branches. It is vast like an ocean.

We have to toil hard to acquire knowledge and develop intelligence. Our concerted and determined efforts generally yield good results in achieving this goal. Knowledge and intelligence are not the inborn qualities which we can inherit. Genes may help us but only to a little extent to build up these qualities. We may have to spend money only at times to acquire knowledge but not always. According to our efforts, circumstances environment opportunities and challenges that we face, we are what we are to-day. If one works hard one requires more food. If one works hard, one develops one’s knowledge and intelligence very well. More one acquires knowledge, more one becomes intelligent. As a result one’s hunger for knowledge grows. It is a continuing process. There is no end to it. A new born baby is nothing but innocence which has neither knowledge nor intelligence. We acquire knowledge and develop our intelligence gradually as we grow up.

Darwin theory of evolution applies to man also. A child imitates others especially its kith and kin. It picks up behavior from its parents, and other members of family like grand parents, brothers, and sisters . The members of a family especially mother and father and the surroundings influence a child a lot. The parents should always take every care to bring up their child in a right direction. In this context, smaller the family better it would be. It is not enough if the parents provide their children food and clothes. The more the parents realize their duties, more fortunate the child would be. They should make their children know the value of time .The future of a child lies in the hands of parents to a great extent .Parents or elders in the family should try to imbibe all the good qualities to a child. The child should always be made to understand what is right or wrong. .Similarly, it should be taught what is good or bad. The child should always be shown right path. Parents should provide the child not only proper but also adequate guidance as and when required. They should also make available all the opportunities to a child to learn and develop. The teacher and the education that child receives at the initial stages do play a pivotal role in a child's development. Thus knowledge and intelligence differ person to person. Even children who belong to same family need not have the same quantum of knowledge and intelligence even though there may be some resemblance between one and another in appearance. The aptitude of a child and also the talent possessed by a child are to be found out by parents at the earliest .It is the duty of parents to allow a budding talent to grow and blossom. In this respect no stone should be allowed to be left upturned Similarly, parents should also encourage the child to develop its knowledge and allow it to pick up a curriculum which it likes. The parents should not thrust any curriculum on their children. However, right guidance and other assistance needed should be made available to children as and when they require. As the children grow and become mature, the responsibility of the natural guardians decreases. But the responsibility never ceases. The parents or guardians should extend the helping hand to the adolescent to face the life even thereafter .If one loses parents at an early age and has no guardian even, then it is left to that individual only to strive and find out the ways and means to develop.

The urge to develop must come from within. The friends, great personalities and some of the individuals whom we come across contribute to our spiritual as well as intellectual growth .Though all are born equal, all do not have the same opportunities or the same environment or guidance. Opportunities and challenges that one person gets or meets differ from the opportunities and challenges that another person gets or meets. Moreover, circumstances under which that one has to face them also differ from the circumstances under which another individual has to face. This may be mainly due to variance in efforts, aptitude and other earlier mentioned factors. Further, the quantum of common sense, presence of mind, foresight, fortitude, forbearance and such other instincts do not develop in the same proportion in every individual. This imbalance from person to person results in some acquiring undesired knowledge and intelligence to become anti social elements. On the other hand some who are really fortunate get exposed to better environment better circumstances and better opportunities and become generous,kind hearted straight forward well educated famous gentlemen. Generally people blame the fate for all this disparity.

The individual should learn lessons from every situation .Here also the people who come across influence the individual. Sometimes number of persons lending helping hand may be more than one .Those people not only help in bringing to light the talent and capacity in experience or guidance at appropriate times enables one to make use of knowledge and intelligence apprthat individual but also encourage, guide and help the individual in all possible ways. The individual must do introspection from time to time and come out with a plan of action and strive hard for its implementation. We are the creator of our destiny.

It is not enough if we have knowledge and intelligence.We should know when and how we have to utilize them.That is, it is not enough if we have a cake, we should know how to eat it too. Only experience or guidance at appropriate times enables us to make use of knowledge and intelligence suitably. Experience is the best teacher.Experience is invaluable. Everyone would like to have it. Everyone needs it also. It is always not easy to have an experience at all. All experiences could not be shared too. Many experiences one would not know fully well unless they experience themselves. In fact, one has to pay a price for every experience that they add to their lives. Without a price no experience could be had in life. Experience is one's armor. It is a strong weapon. It is often invisible.It cannot be bought or sold. In fact, an experience is more valid to someone if they have it. With experience either one can beat someone or defend themselves.When experience of more people gathers, it is really unbeatable.More knowledge and intelligence one has more will be their essentials of life. More the world advances more the essentials of life.

Besides, knowledge, intelligence and experience ,understanding is also one of the essentials of life. Understanding is knowing fully well. It is grasping minutely. It is knowing A to Z. It is filling the mind with new content. It is a quest. Understanding everything is impossible to everyone. Understanding life fully and leading it is an herculean task. Understanding is a continuous process. It is nobody's property. Anyone can understand anything. Various authors convey their understanding of life to us through novels and stories to a certain extent only. Being inquisitive comes naturally to a human being .Being inquisitive,human beings always expand their understanding.Though, contents of human minds are different, understanding bridges them. Understanding brings harmony into human minds. It is always essential to live and let others live in this world . It is a light within a human being that illuminates as and when necessary only. It creates cordial atmosphere.It makes everything clear. It is useful at all times. If two have no understanding , they could be like a north pole and a south pole.Even animals do not perform well without proper understanding.The oxen when they are yoked to the plow, pull the yoke in different directions and everything go awry in case there is lack of understanding. Value of understanding cannot be estimated. At times, it is worth more than gold.It is in demand or in need everywhere. It is a treasure that adds to one's arsenal of knowledge . It is very important.