Why the tears?

At some point of life, every one of us has cried.  Many of us are very emotional and we cry a lot, others are stronger and have a better control over their tears. People who care about us and love us get concerned over why we cry but we are never able to give them the right answer. Often they make assumptions and then explain to us that whatever is happening is for the best and we should just accept it.

Have we ever asked ourselves why are we really crying? The answer is very simple. We cry when a situation is not according to our will.

As a child, we used to cry when we didn’t want to go to school but were forced to. We didn’t want our favorite toy to break but it happened which made us cry. We wanted to eat our favorite snack but we needed a healthier meal. We wanted to play but were forced to study. As a kid we didn’t understand the better but our parents did and hence we were forced to do something we didn’t want to. The result; crying.

Moving towards maturity, we still cry at many times. The reason is still the same but now we can’t control it anymore, in most of the situations. We failed in an exam; we didn’t want to, we were working hard, but somehow not hard enough to clear the exam. We cry, because we are scared our parents will scold us. We don’t want to be scolded, we want to be motivated, and we want to hear “no problem if you failed this time, work harder and you will pass the next exam”.

Many people even cry when they are in the wrong profession. It was not their choice, they did it out of pressure from the family. They are living a life they didn’t want, they are doing a job they don’t like but they have to. How many doctors, engineers and managers are out there who would have been happier being a painter, musician or a designer? Or how happy a dermatologist might have been being a cardiologist, but the decision to become a dermatologist had to be taken because of better opportunities in the field and better chances of earning.

When a person leaves us, or dies, it is not according to our will. It makes us cry. We didn’t want that person to leave us but we can’t make things happen according to our will. Maybe we can convince a person to come back into our life by solving problems but we cannot bring someone back from the grave. This makes us cry even more. Someone we loved so much is no more, we can’t see them, we can’t touch them, we can’t talk to them; this helpless thought keeps the tears flowing.

When a girl gets married and has to leave her home, she cries. She doesn’t want to go, she wants to stay with her parents, her siblings, in her room, with her favorite food and movies. She wants that liberty she has at her parent’s house. Her family cries because they don’t her want to leave as well, but they are forced by the norms of society.

When a person is angry and not talking to us, we often cry. We don’t want that person’s anger, we didn’t mean to hurt them. We do or say things that are the real us, which hurts the other person and then they ignore us and we cry. Considering the person’s importance in our life we decide not to say or do those things again. In other words we decide not to be ourselves.

When we cry we convince ourselves to accept the situation, no matter how against it is to us. People who don’t cry are better at accepting and submitting towards the needs of society and family. They accept that they cannot take the situation into control and they have to do whatever they are forced to. They have been taught not to fight for themselves and to accept the decisions imposed on to them but at times, the very difficult times, even they cry. They cry because on the inside, they wish they had the power to control the situations in their lives and be happy the way they wish to be.