A rolling stone gathers no moss

As the world has changed over the years, so have many of the morals and definitions in life. From ‘Slow and steady wins the race’ to it being the fast, furious and calm, the hare and tortoise story is often ridiculed in this day and age, and with good reason- here comes the hare and he isn’t pausing for a nap anymore.

However with that being said, here is one that really needs questioning.

'A rolling stone gathers no moss.’

Well, this is perhaps true, but how about someone completing this phrase with all its involved nuances.

'A rolling stone gathers no moss, but a stationary one gathers just that.'

Think about it.
Now I am not taking away from the fact that a rolling stone indeed does not gather moss, but has anyone thought about the stationary one? What turns out to be that stone’s fate? Fixed, washed up, and covered around the same surrounding and muck for all of time?

How many people have you seen as seniors when you join a company to work, or friends who you may have left behind in a city where you studied, who have been there for almost all of their lives? If you have stepped out a while and come back, these people make you wonder- have they not grown at all? Its really lovely to find a city or village that you perhaps spent your formative years in, but what of the people in them?

You are born, and then you learn to roll around, you learn to crawl and then walk. You grow to get into nursery, then move into pre-school, then school and college and finally graduate to work. And then suddenly, that is all that is left to do. There are no more organized steps to grow after that and we have to pave our own way. But there in lies the catch. Quite a few of us, land up in the same job for years together not knowing what to do next, and life passes us by. Some of us cling on to continue studying, not knowing what to do next. And after a while, even that passes.

A couple of days ago, a senior person in the company I work for retired after around forty years in the same company. That’s right. Forty years! While there was perhaps a time where a steady job was everything, there is a time now where there are innumerable opportunities at any and every turn you take, provided you have the guts to embark on your own private adventure called life.

Edmund Burke wrote, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” extremely powerful words, and if you think about it, its the very same with our own lives as well. If you just sit around waiting for something to happen, you are not going to move. You will simply lie there, waiting, feeling safe in the same place you started until you suddenly you wake up one day, several years from now, and think to yourself, ‘what the hell! When did all that time pass me by? Why have I not grown despite having done everything right and by the proverbial book?’

The only thing necessary for the triumph of the mundane is for any man to sit still, stagnate.

You do not have to be a stone that hurtles down the top of a cliff, chipping of pieces of yourself as you come down, but you do have to be one that rolls at a comfortable pace. The only thing a stationary stone gathers is dust and nothing else but, literally a whole lot of moss. And unless you’re a worm, I’m guessing algae are not exactly the only thing you want to have collected in abundance in a lifetime.

There must be a reason the word ‘living’ and ‘alive’ stir up emotions in our mind.

So roll on. And gather some flower mush and fresh dirt while you’re at it.