Right to worry

If you are a youngster living away from home in college and you slip and fracture your arm, would you inform your parents (or immediate family members) about the incident? They can’t really help you anyway except worry about you since treatment will happen at its own pace. Many in such circumstances don’t call out to their family members since they don’t want them to worry about them unnecessarily.

What is family for? To provide you emotional support primarily, I’d say. If you don’t want them to worry for you, then you suffer pain in silence without support. Because you love them, you don’t want them to be worried. But because they love you too, they want to know. How would you feel if you are not part of important event in your near and dear one’s life?

I don’t know what’s real answer, if any, and like pretty much everything else it depends on the person concerned. I however feel that when relationship is at its closest, be with family or friend, then one has right to make others worry to reduce one’s suffering. It’s a sacred right which we don’t grant to acquaintances. If you are frustrated and feeling down then you have right to shout at your closest people and they must take it without complain. You cannot do that with mere acquaintance to whom you will smile and pretend everything is alright. In similar vain when one is asked “how are you?” only people who are close deserve complete truthful answer, and that right is not available to others who ask this in mere formality and expect nothing more than “fine, you?”

In an parable, when Lord Krishn was suffering from serious headache, He was advised by sage Narad to put dust from the feet of person who loved Him most on His forehead for cure. He asked Rukmani if She would do it. She refused saying that She will go to hell for eternity if She dares let dust of Her feet touch the forehead of esteemed Lord Himself. It will be a sin, She declared. Krishn then asked Radha about the same. She immediately agreed. When people wondered how dare She sin against the God Himself, She opined that Her love of Lord is so great that She will willingly suffer hell fire just to reduce His small pain.

Our relationship with our nearest loved ones should be that of Radha and Krishn because right to worry is most coveted right of true love.