Life is Action, Not Contemplation

Life is a struggle; one must fight the battle of life valiantly. Everybody who takes birth has to die one day. Therefore, one should make the best of life. Time at our disposal is very short. We must make the best use of every minute given to us by God. Life consists of action, not contemplation. Those who do not act, but go on hesitating and postponing things, achieve nothing in life. Such persons as going on thinking and brooding can never attain the heights of glory

A short life full of action is much better than a long life of inactivity and indolence. Tennyson has rightly remarked that one crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name. A man lives in deeds, not in years. Age or longevity does not matter. What matters is what one makes of life. Ben Jonson, the scholar-poet writes:

“It is not growing big in bulk like a tree

Doth make man better be.”

An oak tree lives for three hundred years but it falls down as a dry, bald and useless log of wood. In contrast, a lily flower lives only for a day but it spreads its sweet fragrance all around and is a source of joy and pleasure for all. A good life is a life lived for the good of others. It is a selfless life of service and dedication.

Life is an action, Contemplation is not bad but it is useless if it is not transformed into action. Noble thoughts are of no use if they are not transformed into golden deeds. Life is not an idle dream. Every beat of our heart is taking us nearer to our death. We must not lose any time in crying over the past or worrying about the present. H.W. Longfellow writes in his ‘Pslam of Life’:

These no future, however pleasant;

Let the dead past bury its dead,

Act, act in the living present

Heart within, and God overhead.”

Man is an image of God. He has not been sent to this world just to eat, live and sleep. A brute or a beast does the same. Man must establish his divinity by noble deeds. Nobility lies in doing one’s duty with a spirit of true service to God and a dedication to His Will. One must do one’s best to leave this world better than what he found it. One must make some positive contribution to this world during one’s lifetime. A man who does that is remembered even after his death. He continues to live in his deeds. A man who does nothing is forgotten as soon as he dies. He leaves this world unsung, unhonoured and unwept. What makes a man immortal are his actions and deeds.

Some of the great men who have become immortal, died very young, Keats died when he was 26; Alexander the Great, died when he was about 33; Byron died when he was 36; Shelley died at the age of 33. Napoleon, Swami Vivekanand and Shankaracharya – all died young. But all these persons immortalized their names by their noble deeds and great achievements. One, therefore, lives in deeds, not in years. Life is real and earnest. We must take it seriously. Real salvation lies in work. Work alone is real worship. Longfellow was perfectly right when he wrote:

The heights by great men reached and kept,

Were not attained by sudden flight,

But they while their companions slept,

Were foiling upward in the night.”