Fighting a losing battle?

Fighting a loosing battle.!!! It is really tough when you know that you are not going to win. But you have to stand by your ideals and have to guard your ideological boundaries for which you are sure you are right. What should you do? Should you give up the loosing battle. Should you join the opponents? These are very difficult questions. Let’s discuss them.

How do you know that you are actually fighting a loosing battle. It is nothing more than your prediction. And who knows the future. It is an established fact that most of the time, people quit when they are actually just inches away from their destination. Although based on the circumstances and the past experiences some safe predictions can be made yet when you are dead sure that you are right and it worth fighting you should never loose the ground.

Fighting a loosing battle or fighting a winning battle is more or less the same. While fighting a loosing battle, you try to delay the defeat as long as possible whereas in fighting a winning battle, you are doing the same but you think the defeat is not in near future. No success is eternal. Every success is followed by the failure. We call it success only because we don’t see any threat in near future. You can put it this way that a battle becomes loosing when you can predict a threat in near future. And when you can’t predict a threat in near future, it is called a winning battle.

That’s why it is said that when you set out for a big adventure, turn a deaf ear to the spectators. There is a motivational story for kids about it. Once there was a group of ants. Once they decided to elect their king. It was unanimously decided that the one who had the most power and stamina would be their king. The task was to carry a whole grain of wheat from the ground all the way up to the roof across a brick wall. Only one attempt was allowed. All of them tried but no one succeeded except one. When any ant, trying to carry the grain, was about to fall, all other started shouting. “you are about to fall, you are about to fall.”. Thus making her belief that  she was fighting a loosing battle. This realization of loss actually caused every ant to loose. To our surprise, the one who won the competition was not the strongest. She was actually deaf who did not listen to any one and kept fighting to win the battle.

We are all bound to die. So should not we call this life as fighting the loosing battle? but we don’t do so. Rather we try to enjoy every bit of it. Although we know that at the end of the day, the life will end yet we try to rejoice as much as possible. The threat is there but we can not predict the timing of the threat. So we can conclude that the battle becomes a loosing battle when the timing of the threat is predicted. So problem is not about threat but its prediction.

Once there was a young man suffering from some incurable disease. His doctor gave him the time of 2 years. It was a prediction of threat. He was going to be married in next month but he dismissed the  plan. He asked his fiancee to marry some one else. He quieted all the joyful activities. Threat is a reality but it looks like a fiction as we don’t have any prediction. But when the threat of death is there on your head with exact timing, life becomes the most dreadful thing in the universe.  The doctor who gave him the time of two years, died the same year in an accident. But he enjoyed every bit of his life. He married and went to honeymoon.  While on honeymoon, his car underwent a land slide and he died on the spot. But just before that moment of death he was as lively as he is  going to live forever. On the other hand, the man with incurable disease lived ten years but ruined all his life. When some one is suffering from incurable disease, it is said he is fighting a loosing battle. but when some one is recovering from a curable disease he thinks himself victorious. No one knows about the future. So predicting about the threat of future will only ruin your present.

Death is bitter reality of this universe. We are all moving towards death day by day. So while taking food and taking care of our health, we are all fighting the loosing battle. By fighting this battle we try increase the quality of life and try to delay the arrival of death. But we don’t call it a loosing battle only because we don’t know the exact time of death.  They say, the past is a history, the future is a mystery and the present is a gift that’s why it is called present.

I have been struggling for saving the Punjabi language in Pakistan. Punjabi being the most common language in Pakistan is loosing ground in its homeland due to state sponsored policies. Punjabi is used in informal discussions and at home. The written form of Punjabi is not taught at any school in Pakistan. In this era of information, a language that is not in written form is most like to perish. As Punjabi has no official status in Pakistan, the Punjabi families started abandoning it. In any city of Punjab Pakistan, the new generation can not speak Punjabi because parents prefer to speak in Urdu with them. There is not a single Punjabi TV channel in Lahore the heart of Punjab. Punjabi is dying day by day. I and some other crazy Punjabi Nationals are doing our best to save and promote. We hear such rhetoric very often as the “time of Punjabi is over”. “You are fighting a loosing battle.” But we will not give up. As we know every single step of our effort no matter how small it is, will delay the death of this very beautiful and enriched language.

At the end of the day every thing is mortal. Every thing is changeable. Nothing is permanent. English was once the language of a village but now gained the status of most popular International language. Similarly Urdu/Hindi are now prevailing in India Pakistan region. But it is sure that they will not stay for ever as change is the only  permanent aspect of this universe. But we will not give in. We will carry on our struggle hoping that one day Punjabi will be the national, official, scientific and business language. It may look like a dream but every realization starts with a dream. And it is not a loosing battle, it is CERTAINLY a winning battle and worth fighting.