A New Earth Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

A New Earth - Essay Example It is true that one never realizes the importance of a person in his/her life unless that person is detached from him/her. Just like I realized the importance of my best friend in my life when he passed away in an air crash. I had never come across such a situation before. My entire existence clung like a thread on his presence in my life and I was nothing without him. His departure from this world brought me so close to reality, it taught me the biggest lesson of my life. The way others react to such a situation is both helpful and displeasing for you. Helpful in a way, that you can vent out your feelings. You can shout, cry and yell out at them. And displeasing in the sense that everyone directs his/her sympathies towards you. It makes you a victim of self pity and denial. It hurts your ego and your conscience. The worst part of it is that you cannot share the feeling of agony and excruciating pain with anyone else. My best friend’s death left an irreparable scar on my soul. It made me feel isolated and helpless. I thought I was the only one to be a victim of this folly while everyone else lived their lives normally. I thought some calamity had struck me and it is unnatural. However after reading A New Earth, I realized that this was not anything unnatural and a lot of people in this world have been through the pain of losing their loved ones. This book gave me a part of the peace that I was long looking for. In chapters two, three and four, Tolle talks about human ego. It explains how this sense of â€Å"us† against â€Å"them† leads to lethal rivalries. He talks about how others make us a victim of inferiority complexes. This was so true in my case. Whenever I’d see a pair of best friends together in my school, I’d plunge down into an inferiority complex. Why is my best friend separated from me? I thought. I asked myself some unanswerable questions and went down the memory lane of all the good times I had spent with my bes t friend. The laughter, the smiles and those moments of rejoice had all become memories. It was just so hard to believe in that. This book gave me a chance to understand that the accident that occurred, occurred by the will of God and hence I shouldn’t be the one blaming myself or feeling inferior. I felt that the grief had settled within and there was no way I could be happy or jolly again. I could never be the same hyper and fun-filled person again. There are different ways in which others react to accidents or losses of this magnitude. Either they become introverts and start suppressing their feelings or they find other ways of venting out their frustrations. Some become angry, some bitter. Some try to become self-destructive in trying to cope up with the pain better, while others become jealous of people around them. It’s the feeling of loss and deprivation that inflicts more pain on you. The most appropriate lines that I found in the reading are: â€Å"Apart from the obvious ones such as anger, hatred and so on, there are other more subtle forms of negativity such as impatience, irritation, being fed up and nervousness† (Tolle 148) If you just feel that your loved one is just around you, he can feel you, he is watching you, guiding you in every step of your life. The thought that my best friend is close to me even after his departure has made me feel better and has given me strength. So it’s a trick to not think about the loss deeply when you are in such situations.