This is one day when I see mist and haze everywhere. Not in the air but in the eyes of people. I see through their eyes a world of fantasy and dreams with ‘happily ever after’ written all over them, of romantic conquests long fought and won and of many more romantic adventures yet to come. It is only on this day that I see even the most practical and conservative of them dream unhesitant, almost heroically of lives lived in pure joy with a long desired but not understood craving of being held and cherished by an almost godlike figure who personifies their very concept of the perfect ‘man’ or ‘woman’.

Pure, unrivalled hope fills their hearts, blinding them to the tug of reason and common sense. They for once allow themselves to see and believe the impossible and convince themselves without much effort that...it can be…It will find me…it exists…I will find my soul mate and then nothing else will touch me.

With clouds in their eyes and a certain bounce to their gait they thus go about their daily chores oblivious to those around them, expecting that certain magic to happen at any moment...like now…or just after I finish this write-up…or just when I walk around that bend. They smile those secret smiles, like they know some beautiful secret foretold only to them.

So easily have people over the centuries caught on to the myth of this little Greek God with his special bow and arrows that work wonders and simply spring soul mates out of thin air to take home and adore…of this miracle that is just waiting to happen….of a beautiful boon that is given to them as a gift from god. So easily have people believed in the ‘phenomenon’ of ‘love at first sight’ that they no longer know what it means to take a deeper look.

They expect this romantic vision of a human who will understand them so perfectly that they don’t even have to take the effort of understanding themselves. Their expectations are so wild and unreasonable that they expect this soul mate to know everything about them from the moment their eyes meet from across the room. They believe that this person will find for them that great feeling of euphoria and meaning that life is supposed to have.

Soon their cloud clears and they don’t understand why they weren’t understood and why their once soul mate turned into such a disappointment....But, time heals or rather it makes them forget. They once again wait for that special day made especially for lovers by that tiny Greek god and once again there is mist in their eyes…………..and repeated are the sharp shards of disappointment that prick them. but, then again....time heals. It is then that you hear people around you bitterly call this the karmic circle of life where nothing is in their hands and they call themselves the ‘victims of life’.

Little do they understand that all this happiness and romantic euphoria is in their hands. Only when they decide to claim their lives as their own…. when they realize that all their moments in life are decided by choices that they make…that the kind of soul mate to hold and keep does not come from some gods arrows but from their own understanding of their desires, capabilities and objectives…will the haze begin to lift.

It is only with this self-realization that this HOPE will be rightly mirrored in clear and focused eyes that are ready to take a deeper look and make their own happiness. Only then will the world be ready to truly accept the ‘circle of life’ with true contentent.