Noel Manuel
Perfection comes to those who learn from their failures and not depend on their excuses. Everybody desires to be perfect in anything and everything we do. And to perfect this perfection we strive to be the jack-of-all-trades actively prepared with a bag of alibis to counter our imperfections. However, despite our repeated failures in whatever we attempt to do there is just no acceptance of the fact that we are imperfect. There is always an alibi or the other to prove that I am perfect but the others aren’t.
So much is our dependence on alibis that we have virtually become immune to the acceptance of our own weaknesses and imperfections. We have gone accustomed to pointing a finger to people and objects to justify ourselves as perfect. And sadly, we are blind to the remaining fingers that are pointing back at us.
I would like to share with you a short story of just how disadvantageous alibis can be when we try to cover our imperfections with them.
The high school final examinations were approaching and 16-year-old Russell was preparing himself for it. He had failed the previous year and was just unwilling to reappear the examinations for the second time. After much coercing and counseling he finally decided to go with it.
Russell was an average student and had never once repeated a class throughout his academic history. The final hurdle was also not as tough as one may have thought. But it was Russell that seemed too conceited to accept the fact that he nurtured only alibis. He was more engrossed into games and other activities and of late the internet had made him disregard his studies completely. As a result of which, he had to pay the price of failure. But he seemed undeterred by his mistakes and always tried to find a way out with convincing alibis. For the moment, he may have proved a point to justify his claim, but then he was to learn that the truth was not to remain buried for long.
He blamed the teachers and the books. He also made the poor power supply his scapegoat and then everything else that moved around him had become an alibi. He was full of alibis and his association with them had got so intense that his life meant nothing, without them. In other words, he gained immense satisfaction, whenever he coughed up an alibi to soothe his imperfection.
The result of his high school examinations, as anyone would have expected, was negative. But the alibis did not end here. It continued till eventually one fine day, Russell fell sick. He suffered a dual attack of malaria and jaundice. His condition was critical and the priest was called to pray for him.
At the bed side the priest asked, ‘Tell me my son what is it that you would like me to pray for?’ Russell, who could barely speak, took a pen and wrote, “I want you to pray, not for me, but for all those whom I have falsely accused and blamed on account of my attachment with my alibis. I know how much hurt, I may have caused them, but I would also like them to know that I have been a total failure in understanding my imperfection. I want to be perfect and I request you to pray for this body to become so by allowing me to confess my failures of imperfection.”
Russell miraculously recovered and today he proudly uses each day to learn and understand the importance of failures and how to live with the truth.
There are generally three kinds of Alibis. The alibis that we use to defend the truth. Alibis that go against the truth and of course the third kind of alibis, which neither defend nor go against. It just emerges out of a habitual practice.
Those who use alibis to defend the truth are often regarded as perfectionists and always willing to learn and understand their failures. While those belonging to the second and third category are just not willing to bury their alibis. They think more about their false egos and capabilities without actually realizing that the truth has to emerge some day and when it does, their alibis will have no meaning at all.
Our lives are filled with alibis and how we choose to use these alibis depend on how we have decided to live with the truth. Does the truth actually exist today? Indeed it does. But only in words not in actions. If we wish that the truth should rise in every situation of our lives, then we need to bury our alibis.
Sadly, nowadays, we discover that the truth is buried and the alibis given the opportunity to rise in every situation of our lives. Blames, accusations and targeting have all become part of the alibis that are flung at each other to maintain our false egos and further bury the truth.
I have come across several people who just keep coming up with one alibi or the other to justify their incompetence and satisfy their egos. This is because we live in a world where everyone wants to be a master and nobody a learner. And if everybody were to be a master then we will have no learners. Let alibis be used to transform us from learners to masters and not masters to learners.
We often talk about God and the wonderful life that lies in store for us in heaven. The scriptures say it and the coming of the Lord has proved it. Where is heaven? It is some place that lies above and not below us. When we die our bodies are buried below the earth’s surface but are souls rise above it. Similarly, when we talk about the truth it is something akin to the soul that rises and has got an abode of its own. The truth is allowed to rise only when we learn to bury our alibis. Can we allow the soul to be buried along with the body and finally rot in hell? Nobody would wish for such a thing. Then, why do we allow the truth to be buried instead of defending it, so that it could rise to its actual abode?
We need to decide now about the alibis that we continuously nurture and in the process dampen our spirit of defending the truth. For if we are to strive for perfection in the Lord then we need to acknowledge our failures and not our alibis.
noelmanuel@rediffmail.com
The writer is the Bureau Chief (Nagaland) of Eastern Panorama (News Magazine of the Northeast), Coordinator of the Northeast Region (Poetry Society of India) and Life Member of the Poetry Society of India, Phonetics Trainer.
