When I was a child, minute details of everyday life used to amaze and intrigue me no end. I could never figure out why the day gives way to the onset of the night and vice versa; why one season precedes another; or why people change their habits, including food and dressing, with the change of seasons. I was intrigued by, and bored of, those constant changes in my life and in the lives of other people around me. During my formative years, I used to have an iconoclastic steak in me, and therefore I chose to challenge the constant changes.
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I decide to stick to the same set of clothing and same food items round the year, not to mention a fixed set of governing principles. i wanted to be some sort of a rebel by challenging the constant process of change prevalent in the society. For a certain period, I felt quite proud of the radical path I had chose to tread. However, after some time, I found myself at my wit’s end as the monotony began to take its toll. Then it dawned on me that without change, or without a steady dose of variety, life is is meaningless.
Monotonous, soporific, unvarying, uneventful, etc. are some words of the English language, which constitute the antithesis to the concept of variety. When any of these words come to epitomize the life of an individual, his or her life becomes dramatically insipid.
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At all times, everyone we know is busy with something or the other. A school-going boy is busy attending classes, and office-going executive is busy completing his/her respective assignments. Similarly, we see lawyers, politicians and sportspersons carrying on with their respective professions. Do we ever give it a thought as to what would happen if all the people of the society have to do endless work throughout their lifetime and that too without any leisure? Life would definitely be a horrendous experience then. From this, it becomes clear that variety, which we very often tend to take for granted, is an indispensable pat of our lives as also one of the most underrated attributes of our existence.
Across the world, modern lifestyles are characterized by excessive work-related stress which plagues most people in the society. For all its virtues, variety today is not something that can be made available at will. Nowadays, variety or change happens just by change. Despite knowing full well that variety has the ability to spice up the life of anybody, people fail to bring in the required change in their lives for some reason or the other. Changing our work schedules after a certain period of time or even acknowledging that positive changes on improve our work do not feature in our priority list. People tend to ignore these and then complain of work-related stress and boredom.
At most times, people fail to realize this simple fact that a little dose of variety does not just lighten up the drab day-to-day monotype, it serves us in various other ways as well. As for example, by bringing in some small, nice changes into our daily lives, we can increase our capability manifolds. Variety helps us fight off boredom, thereby rejuvenating us to a great extent. And the result of the newfound enthusiasm can be quite profitable, as is seen from the enhanced productivity of people who are just back from a vacation. Spicing up our lives with a little variation in our routines or schedules is not al all a waste of time, as some people would tend to opine. Rather, it is the best way to recharge the mind, body and soul.
Over a course of time every individual wants some displacement from his starting position, and then at a later stage, aspires for some further velocity. There is a well-known adage, “There is an end to man’s needs but not to his greed”. The adage quite clearly points out that an individual wishes to see some acceleration in his achievements. If we choose to dwell upon the theoretical aspect of it, we will find that the rate of change is displacement is velocity and the rate of change in velocity in acceleration. Thus it becomes quite conspicuous that the “change” mentioned here represents “variety”- and entity which can make all the different.
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Another exquisite example will make the significance of variety more pronounced. Indians, life all other people around the world, possess a close attachment to their dwelling places, or their homes. Irrespective of such factors as size, shape and other related aspects, we all tend to develop a special bond with our homes. that is how the phrase “home sweet home” came into existence. However, we at times tend t get some what bored with the constant features of our homes, like that colour of the walls, which usually remain the same for a long period of time. It is precisely for this reason that we paint the walls during a festive season. In India, it is a tradition among the masses to colour the walls of their homes on the eve of every major festival. Merely painting the walls during a festival permeates our minds with a feel good factor; seeing the newly-painted houses, a feeling of joy erupts inside us. It is a bit ironical but quite true that freshly painted walls during festive seasons are instant mood swingers of the majority of our fellow countrymen. It again spells out loud the importance of having variety in life so as to make it wholesome.
India is a land of diverse cultures, traditions, ethnicities; not to forget the whole range of mouth-watering delicacies. To state it differently, our country is a gourmet’s paradise. Had this variety in cuisine been absent, the feeling of culinary gratification, which our taste buds experience every time we dig our teeth into a new dish, would have never been there as well. It is only because of contrast among, and our comparison of the various food items that we fully understand what taste is all about. The ardour associated with food can be attributed to the fact that the variety available here constantly spices up our taste buds and annihilates the insipidity that might have crept in my binging on a particular cuisine over and extended period of time.
Whenever we have the opportunity, we like to visit exotic locales. Every change of place becomes a delight. Some people just adore the mountains, which they visit at every vacation. On the other hand, there are people who can think of nothing but the sea when an opportunity presents itself. When on vacations, they invariably head to the seashore and enjoy the adventures associated with it. Every person has different preferences and different tests. Thanks to the inexhaustible treasure trove of Mother Nature, people with different preferences are never short of options. Vacationing facilities available in different corners of the global ensure that there is something for everybody. It would have been so boring if the Earth consisted of only mountains or only plains or water bodies. In such a scenarios, vacations would have been only for a select few. All credit goes to nature for introducing and enormous amount of variety of this planet which makes vacations on of the most desired things in any individual’s life.
“The variety of all things forms a pleasure” – Euripides.
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Variety is a phenomenon which brings a fresh whiff of joy in anything that we may be doing. When each of the next movements becomes utterly predictable because of the monotonous nature of our routines, we tend to lose our interests in the daily chores and as a result, the quality of our work suffers. In such a situation, our lives cease to have any ardour. on the other hand, if surprises, pleasant or otherwise, are waiting for us at every next moment to follow, then life becomes worth living, in the real sense of the term. The prospect of surprises freshens us up and rejuvenates us. It helps us get upbeat about life. We start living life to the hilt which makes it a wholesome experience.
Each and everything in the world has some exceptions. in the same way, for all its positive qualities, variety should not dictate terms in each aspect of life. For example, the principles and ethos that govern our lives should be constant. There should not be any variation. All great souls who ever lived never injected variety into their principles. This is what made them immortal. Variety is no doubt a virtue, but we would do well to be mindful of the fact that we should be wise enough to apply it appropriately so as to reap the maximum benefits.
Life, as we know it, resembles a garden, Garden is always associated with virtues like beauty and splendor. The alluring power of a garden is directly proportional to the variety of flowers and plants it has. hence, those of us who do not have any interest in infusing their lives with variety, should make it their hobby in right earnest so as to make life more meaningful. After all, extreme uniformity is the mother of disgust and variety is the only cure.