I remember that I was a kid and something very unusual happened in Dhaka (capital of Bangladesh) which caught everyone’s attention. A man was begging at a very busy point in the city till the day a noble man wanted to help him by taking him to a doctor for treatment. The man (beggar) resisted but the noble man insisted, and at the end the noble man succeeded only to discover that the poor helpless man was begging in disguise despite being physically an able man.

I do not remember all the details and findings of the incident so many years later except remembering he had kids, he had apartments in the capital, and a few more information, which reasonably prove that he was not begging because he was poor. He was begging because he chose to live his life and afloat his home through begging. He was a loving father, the best one in the world to his kids, probably the best man as husband to his wife, surely a good son to his parents who decided to beg but not robbing people or stealing, certainly a very good friend to his friends, and probably a very good brother to his siblings. But the world since then valued and labeled him with one identity only and that is a beggar in disguise.

Almost 25 years later that memory has resurfaced again in me, and I am thinking; like that man begging for living everyone of us around has so many lives to live. We all carefully make choices along with compartments to fit our choices in and live our lives. Some time we let our choices to spill over from one compartment to another thinking there will be a coexistence and it will be congenial just to find out we have made a wrong choice of spill-over/ crossing the boundaries. Certainly, it affects us because our choices are proved wrong and human minds are not designed to accept rejection and disregard. He who can manage all his compartments well, are mostly regarded as the happiest around living all his lives simultaneously.

Being here in a multinational environment, I find more affirmation of this idea of human’s compartmentalized lives or many lives we live. I assure you that the walls, streets, trees, leaves, security lights of this place have witness and know more stories of humans than any good sizeable public library. People coming and going frequently matching their one-year (or less or more) tour of duty from more than sixty countries makes really a very good number over a span of fifteen/ twenty years.

Often, I think I am a good listener though on the contrary I think I talk too much. It’s bizarre but its true that I prefer both to be correct. I listen when I need to and when I see sharing gives comfort to another person. I prefer talking when someone needs to hear something. Off-course often I fail to balance and that comes with a price. But that’s not the discussion here. The discussion is about our many lives. Should they be in compartments, or they should mingle with each other! I am neither certain about the fact nor your belief except knowing that in most of the cases relieving the boundaries of the compartments did not yield expected outcome like that man who was begging.

Though apparently it seems that a beggar lives a miserable life, which he was not. On top of everything it’s assumed that he had a fantastic life fooling everyone around till some noble man (a villain to him for sure) has shattered everything with a noble intention. The disguised poor man everyday used to walk out of his door leaving his wife and family with the idea that he is heading to the office, while he used to go to his secret cabin to prepare himself in disguise for begging. After earning throughout the day, he used to change his disguise and return to his family like a successful happy man. He must have had a happy family till someone relieved the boundaries of his compartments against his will. Everything he has built over the years just shattered like a sandcastle in an unwanted noble effort.

The world we live in is mostly an illusion. Off course there’s something call reality. The moments we live in, moments we share, thing we eat, time we pass, air we breathe are real. But everything which is subjective is an illusion. As our facts mostly overarched by our feelings, I would like to label everything as illusion. What we see (facts) are mostly depends on what our eyes are seeing and not everyone has the same intellect or insight. So, even what we see (facts) varies from one to another. But what we conceive, feel, and realize are mostly based on the perception we behold and the perspective we chose to look at. The man in disguise was a happy man living happily with all his stories carefully knitted in individual compartments till the time everything fell apart. The man who has forced everything to fall apart never wanted to cause any harm to the happy man in disguise. He only wanted to be a nice man and help a helpless man not knowing that he is just destroying a man’s whole life’s investment.

Most of the times we say ‘truth will prevail’ but what if the truth is not wanted. Why a truth should prevail if that harms peoples’ lives so bad! Well, we say that we must not live a life of lie but what if someone chose to live a life of a million lie but not harming anyone and be happy. Isn’t he a better human being than someone who keeps on surfacing the truths and keeps destroying peoples’ lives!

There’s no end to this discussion. My realization is that before offering someone help, we all should carefully ask whether he/ she needs that help or not! More importantly, we must be careful in rendering help because the price of the cure can be more than the pain someone is capable of bearing and living with.

The stories in the compartments are preserved better than allowing them to spill over or trying to put two lives in one compartment and likewise. The human being is an eternity away from being so noble with limitless acceptance of accepting everything. Sometimes, we are so driven by our possessiveness and ownership of relationship that we minds are clouded and we do not respect the person’s need rather we try to impose our choices, which always ends up in a toxic outcome. Accepting and letting things go to maintain the harmony are two virtue which people rarely have.

After all these years of my life, all I do care is people around me must be happy. I do not care what’s going on around, near, or beyond. I rarely care what happened, what is likely to happen, and what will happen. In doing so, only thing I care or consider is, if you have not caused any harm to anyone and you respect people for just being people, you are welcome. The most important thing for me is to transcend happiness to people around me and not letting anyone down.