Saying YES to Life: Embracing Life’s Joys, Challenges and Learnings

Hopping Off the Hamster Wheel of Life

It is said that the 20s is a critical decade in a young person’s life to figure out three things – Parents, relationship and livelihood (career). And our industrial education and the modernist world pushes young people on one defined path. A path of money and a hectic work-life.

Very early on in life, I had come to realise that I was not cut out for the conventional rat race. This also meant disappointing my parents big time, but everything I did in the last 10 years, was completely worth it and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Related Read: Education for the Future

Saying a “Yes” to All that Life Offers

When I look back at the decade (I have just turned 30), there is a common thread of saying ‘Yes’ to experiences that would enrich my life, which particularly wouldn’t fit into a conventional career path. Yet I am everything because of these ”risks” I took up. Also a little later I realized that Improvisation – a theatre art form – has an essential principle of “Yes…and…” that has become my life mantra. It essentially points to saying yes to life and building on top of what life offers, instead of saying a no, which closes an opportunity then and there.

Risks may make you win, or they will make you learn. Either of the benefits is worth daring for.

Israelmore Ayivor, ‘Become A Better You’

My First Yes- Building Youth Alliance

My first experience of saying Yes to life happened at 18 years of age when I met a friend who was starting out Youth Alliance in 2011. He asked if I wanted to support him and I said yes, coming from an experience of a college in Delhi University where me and my friends had no idea of what we wanted to do with our lives. The experience of creating experiences for young people where they met leaders in the social sector opened me to the possibilities of service.

I learnt that anything we dream is possible. From creating a community event at the Central Park at Connaught Place, Delhi with all volunteers to now running Earth Shastra, an immersive and perspective building program for young people to bring harmony between self, economics and ecology, it all happened because of the life lesson that all dreams can be made possible.

Related Read: Career in Social Sector

My Second Yes – Pushing past my physical and mental boundaries

My second Yes happened as I graduated from a teaching fellowship in 2016. I knew I didn’t want to take up regular jobs in the education sector, rather wanted to explore what educating a child really meant for me. I took a gap year in my early 20s, not following a rising trajectory career path. During this time I created the most meaningful experiences of life. I got an opportunity to cycle from Delhi to Ahmedabad  (1000 km) with a friend, staying in modest places along the road and eating and resting wherever we could.

It was a physically challenging experience and really got me in touch with my body and strength. As a woman, to do this, I broke a lot of glass ceilings for myself.

My Third Yes – When a Second Chance at Life Changed My Perspective

My third Yes happened around 2016 itself when I had almost drowned in a lake in Udaipur. It changed my life forever I feel. After that incident, I became more relaxed, emergent, open to life going unplanned. It was like I was open to living life more deeply each moment henceforth. I also wanted to connect to my body much more deeply. And through a mentor’s support, I got introduced to Clowning and Interplay – two different art forms that really help connect to the wisdom of the body.

Schooling and education teach us that our brain is the superior body part that controls the whole body. But what it doesn’t teach us is that we have 3 brains in total, one in the gut, one in the heart and one in the head. All three, including the body, control how we perceive life. Learning Clowning and Interplay made me more embodied, more playful and connected to my creativity. In the past few years, I have created clown shows for kids’ festivals, taught and led Interplay sessions for people around the world.

The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.

Buddha

My Fourth Yes – Connecting with nature

My fourth and ongoing Yes happened very recently when I moved to the mountains in Uttarakhand with my partner to create a base in nature and live and work out of there. For many years I had longed to live closer to nature. While it seems very romantic and exciting and very easy in the times of Covid to take such a decision, it also meant a lot of lifestyle changes.

Living in the mountains meant living with limited internet access (3GB) per day. It meant to do all the household chores by ourselves (cleaning, utensils, clothes, cooking etc). Saying this fourth Yes to life also meant planning the supplies in advance as a shopping trip is a 30 minute long hike up the mountain.

All these constraints were chosen and self-imposed as we didn’t want to be living a city life while being in nature. This yes has taught me the importance of getting bored. I spent a large part of my winters, sitting out in the sun, just looking at the sky, and identifying the value of nature’s rhythm in the mundane. Eating food suitable to the weather conditions, rising with the sun, listening to the singing birds and being one with nature.

My learnings Along the Journey of life

All through my 20s, these and many other life experiences have enriched my life, enabled me to live a happier, satisfying and meaningful life. Although there have been times when I felt under-confident, dejected especially each time I had to confront my parent’s fear of not earning enough, not being successful enough, I have learnt so much and continue to do so.

What supported me was that I stayed true to my word, managed my expenses in whatever I was earning. I even managed to travel to the U.S. on a learning journey with very little money and it gave me a lot of freedom of the mind to not be trapped in the money trap.

We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.

Peter Drucker

Now, my parents understand and support my vision of supporting young people to find their paths and true purpose.

Related Read: Learning Is Life

Saying Yes to the Love of My Life

I am grateful that I have been lucky to find love at a very early age. At 21, I fell in love and found a very supportive and nurturing partner. We both spent our 20s growing together, becoming very different human beings from who we were at 21 and yet supporting each other through our respective journey.

And the Journey Continues …

I earn my livelihood from being a facilitator and a lead at Youth Alliance, the same organization I helped build at 18 years of age. I love my work, it seems more like fun than work. I also clown and teach Interplay to support more embodied presence for people.

And I continue to say Yes…and to things life brings my way.

About the Author

Vibhuti Aggarwal is a creative soul, who leads and works at  Youth Alliance. She created the Earth Shastra program to awaken the head, heart and hand of young people to connect to nature and question the current development paradigm. In between working as a full-time member, she offers Clowning and Interplay experiences to embody playfulness and connect to the body. For the past few months, she has been living in the mountains of Uttarakhand, embracing the simple, ecological life.

She is a hands-on person, who loves to cook, knit, paint and write letters. These days you would find her talking about her experiments and learning in reviving the community fabric as a tool to address modernism.

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