the up-down syndrome

i saw him looking distraught, sitting alone at our office pantry. sipping coffee from the vendo machine. he's usually not like this. he's one of my perkier acquaintances.

"hey!" i greeted him. i took a sip from my coffee cup and laid it down on the table. oh, how i missed my brewed coffee. coffee from dispensing machines are generally good but brewed coffee is heaven. i pulled a chair beside him and sat.

"hey!" he greeted back. there was this forced smile on his face. he managed to take four successive gulps of coffee during that sliver of silence between us.

"why the long face, my friend?" i queried him,"this is so not you." i tried to make as sympathetic a face as i can hoping to coax him to open up.

"i have a problem," he answered, "it's very personal i can't share it with you."

i looked straight into his eyes. they were sad. "if it's about money .." i allowed my words to trail.

"nope," he immediately cut me off, "nothing to do with money. i have enough. it's just this unhappy feeling. don't know where it's coming from." he explained.

i looked at his eyes again. they were honest. "well, tell me later my friend," i said, "just remember, if you're down, there's nowhere to go but up!" i continued and flashed the thumbs up sign. he smiled. his eyes were still sad.

at home i still remembered that bit of conversation. "if you're down, nowhere to go but up." i think there's something lacking in that advice i gave my friend. when i looked at this picture of a stair i saved in my folder, that's when i had this added thought -- if you're in a stair such as this, where it is definite where the "up" is and where the "down" is, then the advice i gave my friend is adequate.

with Life, it is inadequate.

Life is nothing like a simple stair. in Life, if one says he's down, it does not follow that he is in the "final down". so it could happen that a person will continue to slide, to be further down, and this may go on and on and on, because Life is not a stair where there is a bottom landing and a top landing.

no way!

Life is a staircase that has infinite number of steps. if you say you're up, it does not follow you have reached the top landing. you can still go further up, and up, and up into the abode of happiness and contentment. you are to decide when you don't need to go any further. now, vice versa, when you say you're down it does not mean you have reached the bottom landing. IF YOU ALLOW IT, you will find yourself going further down into the abyss of unhappiness and discontent.

so, this is what i'm going to tell my friend when i meet him again. if i still find him in that sad state, it'll be like this: "my friend, it's okay to say that you are down, but, please will yourself to recognize that you have reached the bottom landing of Life's stairs, believe that there's no more step lower than where you are now. once you have affirmed this, there's no way to go but up!" then the double thumbs up sign.

Life is a staircase. each of us individually determines how long this staircase will be. each of us is given the chance to decide how many steps there will be between the bottom step and the top step.


and don't ever forget this:

going up entails more effort than going down. it sounds paradoxical, but don't be surprised when you find yourself feeling "down" when you're trying to go upstairs in Life.


it's not just gravity, it's how Life requires it to be.