Life is Not Meant to be a Bed of Roses

By Rafi M. Ali, M.D.

Director of DarusSalam Seminary’s Tadrīs Integrated High School Program

“It seldom happens that any felicity comes so pure as not to be tempered and allayed by some mixture of sorrow.”  Miguel de Cervantes, 1547 – 1616 C.E.[1]

The Spanish poet and playwright, Miguel de Cervantes is best known for his novel Don Quixote. His statement here, I believe, represents a near universal truth about human experience. Except for the blessed few, life only infrequently gifts us moments so profuse with joy that we are able to forget our sorrows completely. Those who desire life’s difficulties to be an anomaly rather than modus operandi, or worse, those who expect it so, make their lives unnecessarily difficult. Life pampers no one. Difficulties of life set the stage for the human drama. The protagonists embrace their challenges, and by doing so, become the agents of good.

Also, as is popularly understood, one is pretty much as happy as one makes up his mind to be. Indeed, our focus determines our perception of reality. As Gandhi said, “in the midst of death life persists, in the midst of untruth truth persists, in the midst of darkness light persists.”[2] Life also gives us rainbows, snowflakes, sunsets, roses, and countless other gifts that are hardly noticed by most. In the words of Longfellow:

Tell me not, in mournful numbers, 

   Life is but an empty dream! 

For the soul is dead that slumbers, 

   And things are not what they seem. 

Life is real! Life is earnest! 

   And the grave is not its goal; 

Dust thou art, to dust returnest, 

   Was not spoken of the soul. 

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, 

   Is our destined end or way; 

But to act, that each to-morrow 

   Find us farther than to-day…[3]

An Excellent Teacher appreciates that Life need not be perfect to be enjoyed.

[1]. Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote (Hertfordshire: Wordsworth, 1993), 295.

[2]. Mahatma Gandhi, “Quotes,” Gandhi Memorial Center (Gandhi Center, September 16, 2017), https://www.gandhimemorialcenter.org/quotes.

[3]. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.” Poetry Foundation (Poetry Foundation), https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44644/a-psaml-of-life (accessed September 29, 2019).