A Voice Unheard- Part I: Prose

Sacrifice

When we look back on our lives and think upon our actions, we are struck with different emotions. Regret, satisfaction, peace, pain, the need to apologize; whatever it may be, we definitely have an opinion on our past deeds.

However, we feel, one feeling that is very hard to reconcile with is "sacrifice". The moment or thing or person you give up for some greater good result, is something that we often have mixed feelings about. Sacrifice - such a powerful word. It is like when a mother forgoes portions of meal so that her child may have more, or when a father goes insane with stress and worry, giving up his sanity and time in order to keep the family afloat. There are other forms of sacrifice, no doubt. But sacrifice, done by whomever, for whatever the reasons is definitely a difficult act. An act whose only motivation can be love.

I am certain that we have all made sacrifices aimed towards some end. And when we look back upon those sacrifices, we wonder many things about it - for example, how it would have been had the sacrifice never been made at all. I guess we will never know the answer to our ruminations. Sacrifice is something hard to understand when you do it, but it is even harder to reconcile when someone else sacrifices for you. The guilt you feel along with the gratitude just leaves you confused.

Imagine, what it feels like to mean so much to someone? So much so that, that other being would be willing to sacrifice something important for your benefit?

How lucky to be so loved! How blessed you are if you are the child borne of some sacrificial act resulting from something so pure as love! How beautiful it is to know that you matter to someone so much that they will part with a dream or something important for your sake!

Being a person who is alive and happy as a result of so many sacrifices, gratitude is the most important thing to have. True as it may be that when one sacrifices they do not do so with any intention to demand anything in return (be it simple acknowledgement or worldly praise and acclaim), it is still important to show them how thankful you are, for everything they have given up in order for you to be alright. For without gratitude, life is meaningless. We are all indebted to each other, in one way or another... we all depend on each other at some point in our lives. Gratitude therefore is what will make life more pleasant, and make human beings come closer together. There may be so much wrong with the world, but that is no excuse to perpetuate and further it. It may be utopian to think of a world where everyone is gracious, but isn't that what we aspire for? Utopia? Do we not have high standards for ourselves, if not for our peers? Only if we are gracious, we can hope to bring out the best in the people we interact with; if not we are doomed to only receive the worst from the world around us.

Sacrifice is difficult. Difficult to take, difficult to accept and even more difficult to think upon later. I suppose the only way to understand or reconcile with Sacrifice, is to remember that some good resulted from it, that some good end was reached. And the world needs more of just that - Goodness.