The other day my roommate and I were cooking together. Somehow the talk drifted towards life and its ups and downs. I, as usual, started cribbing about how it had been for the past couple of years - uncertainties, broken promises, shaken foundations, blah, blah blah. It was at this junction that she shared a pearl of wisdom that I will take to my deathbed. Following is what she spoke: Have you ever seen a river? Let us take a small part of it. It starts as a small sliver of water somewhere up in the mountains. From the beginning it has to fight for its existence every single instant. Slowly, yet steadily, it moves ahead. In the beginning, even the smallest of pebbles pose a threat to it. It defeats them and moves ahead. Next it has to stave off the challenge of the big rocks that come in the way. It overcomes that too, little knowing that soon it is going to fall and fall heavily. Lesser is its knowledge that the higher it has started, the mightier its fall is going to be. Blissf...