Am I losing control?

“Control what you can control. Don’t lose sleep worrying about things that you don’t have control over because, at the end of the day, you still won’t have any control over them”

–Cam Newton

I’m back after a brief hiatus. The last time I posted here about a week back, I had undergone my RT-PCR test for detection of corona virus and was awaiting it’s results. Thankfully, I tested negative and could carry on with my normal life. My parents heaved a sigh of relief as they were a million times more worried and scared than me. Over the weekend, I got the opportunity (blessed as I got tested negative right before it) to go on a short getaway with my friends. This was a long awaited trip and we enjoyed every bit of it.

Back home, I was forced to dive straight into reality. Going on vacations rejuvenates me yet I’m never pumped up to get back to my normal routine after the end of the trip. On the other hand I’m left with an intense feeling of doom and gloom which takes a while to get over with.

In the past week, I underwent a roller coaster of emotions. It started off from feeling extremely happy about myself and the results of my fitness routine to pitying my existence. I get extremely worked up even at the mention of my marriage at home. It is something my mother is really looking forward to, but this might be one of the most difficult things I have to undergo in life. I truly believe now that I had a slight bit of control over all my earlier problems in life.

I read a TV actor’s love confession on Instagram yesterday, she said that every person deserves a partner who understands us, believes in us, inspires us, helps us grow and truly cares for us. These are simple personality traits of a decent human being yet it feels like an impossible task to find such a person. An unmarried girl who has crossed the age of 30 is directly or indirectly made to feel like a burden in the eyes of the society. Even though she is completely happy and content with the manner in which she has led her life, all of her achievements fall short before the mention of her unmarried status. My relatives and most of the people who are dearly concerned about my marriage today were missing when my family led a difficult life throughout my childhood. No one offered to help us with the expenses on our education yet these people are willing to pay money (huge sum to the tune of Rs.35,000) to a marriage broker to find a prospective groom for me. Few of the marriage broker’s requirements were a pictures of me in traditional attire and answers to questions such as, “Does the girl know how to cook food?” or rather “Is the girl comfortable in cooking food for the family after coming back from work?“. While cooking is a necessary life skill which I wish to posses, my male counterparts are never asked such questions even when they lead the exact same life as us!!!

In the midst of this I gave an interview for a job which I couldn’t prepare for, owing to my own carelessness and blamed it on my anxiety. I never felt this before but after I gave a shoddy attempt at this interview, I realized that I suppress myself. I deliberately sabotage my attempts to excel at my work for reasons unknown to me. I know I am capable of doing much better at my workplace and my career yet I never try my best. There is something that holds me back and I will try to find out what it is to the best of my ability. As of now, this realization is a great starting point to work on improving myself in this extremely important aspect of life.

Pouring my thoughts and feelings here have made me feel better already. Here’s to finding those tiny little things that help us cope with the inconsistencies in life, a little better each day!

Dealing with someone’s anger

#98/100

“Anger is never without a reason, but seldom with a good one.”

–Benjamin Franklin

Anger is a very necessary and strong emotion. It becomes out of hand when we let it control our actions. I am a passive aggressive person. I used to keep all my thoughts and feelings within me as long as I could till it got the better of me. I only vented out and stopped talking to the person for sometime only after someone’s actions hurt me beyond my limits of patience. Since I always feared speaking my mind when I felt bad about something, I kept my feelings to myself till it turned into regrets. Once it turs to regret, it takes a long time to get over our anger and for us to realize the ill effects of our actions.

I used to keep my frustrations pent up for a long time and burst out into arguments when I couldn’t take it anymore. After such arguments, I preferred not talking to the person for a long time till I dealt with my emotional reaction over the situation. I have had long periods of silence with most of my close friends for reasons that seem extremely petty to me now. None of the issues that have angered me in the past make sense to me anymore. Yet I don’t regret it as I dealt with low confidence, insecurity and low self esteem issues growing up.

Anger starts from a simple emotion of “expectation”. We expect something to happen in a certain manner and when things don’t unfold according to our wishes, all hell breaks loose. We cannot expect other people to behave exactly in the manner we expect them to. We are dealing with human beings with varied emotions and expressions that is unique from person to person. A little understanding and patience when things start to feel wrong could go a long way in avoiding unnecessary conflicts. A high sense of self worth helps us get over the inertia of handing out the olive branch and apologize first to make things right, especially when we know both sides are at fault. This is still a work in progress for me but I’m trying everyday to become more secure with my self and patient in life as I absolutely despise having conflicts of any kind. I tend to think about them every waking minute of my life and lose my sleep over it.

If the conflict remains unresolved even after apologizing, the only thing that one can do is to give the other person time and space to deal with their emotions. Although it’s my ardent desire to live a conflict free life, I know very well that this might be an absurd expectation. Avoiding any form of conflict could end up muting my real thoughts and convert me into a person who agrees to everything that other people say and live with grudges all my life. All I can do is work to find a middle ground where I can ensure that my voice is heard without hurting anyone’s feelings.

What’s your purpose?

#20/100

I felt like a motivational guru while asking this question. Isn’t this the hot topic of discussion amongst every motivational speaker? It’ll always revolve around these grey topics which might end up confusing people more rather than helping them. People like me feel motivated at first however when things don’t fall in place even after following all the vague rules listed out by the gurus, we feel more empty and lost than ever.

I’ve read a lot of self help books on various topics meant to improve the quality of our life. I’ve tried listening to my absolutely chaotic inner voice with no respite. I’ve watched videos of many successful people who have noticeably made it big in this world. I’ve tried to list down the common traits that exists in all of them. They keep saying, love what you do and everything else would be taken care of.

People talk about following your passion, finding your true self, doing what lights up their soul, but what about the ones who can’t seem to figure out the source that lets them experience these emotions?

Are you as confused as me in this matter? Should I let you on a little secret that I’ve discovered recently? I really like being happy. Happiness drives me to do better, it lights up my soul and I’m completely passionate about it. But my happiness is not restricted to a single source. These days, I’m learning a new language and that makes me immensely happy and fulfilled. A cup of hot steaming green tea, a sweaty workout session, my 20 minute meditation routine, reading a good book, watching a great rom-com, figuring out new things about myself, learning a little more about people and the world, the list is endless. I experience true happiness when I indulge in these activities.

I guess I might have finally figured out my purpose after almost losing all hope to never discover it in my entire lifetime. Can you see how dramatic I can be about these things? I have absolutely no clue how the future will turn out yet somehow I managed to beat myself up everyday for not finding out answers to these “unnecessary philosophical questions”. Yes, I called them unnecessary. Racking my brains behind these questions stressed me out, made me lose my confidence, forced me to look down upon myself and made me lose a lot of my precious time on this planet.

My purpose on this earth is simple, be happy and do everything possible to keep myself truly happy. I don’t want to bind my happiness with a rule book, I just want to be truly happy as much as I can during my time on this planet.

“Happiness consists more in conveniences of pleasure that occur everyday than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom.”

-Benjamin Franklin

Down the memory lane

Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.

– Haruki Murakami

#10/100

I really don’t know if the human ability of keeping memories is a good thing. We’d most definitely love to recall the happy events but what about the sad ones? The pain of losing someone, that time when someone broke your heart, failing at that one thing which meant the most to you, betrayed by someone close to your heart or just being let down by your close ones, time and again. What do we do with such memories that just end up causing pain and sadness when we begrudgingly recollect them? Why doesn’t our brain have a functionality to selectively ignore the bad experiences and store only the good ones?

I know our life is a culmination of all types of experiences, the good, bad and ugly. But sometimes these bad remembrances have adverse effects on our present and cloud our vision for the future. A person’s likes, dislikes and entire personality is defined from the kind of encounters that they go through as a child. If a person had a bad childhood, they grow up having deep resentments and regrets in life. It is very difficult to let go of these bad emotions and carry on with their lives. They keep relapsing back to those horrific childhood memories and fear their present as well as future. Therapists and counselors tend to apply Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) while dealing with people with mental health issues. They try and understand the person’s childhood and all the events they have gone through to help them understand their emotions better.

Life would have been simpler with the existence of a reset button in our brain. We would be able to discard all the harmful memories and keep the ones that help us be happy and at peace with ourselves. A baby is born with a clean slate and an optimistic future. Before a human being develops the sense and ability to take their own decisions, their subconscious mind stores all the memories deep inside the brain from the word go. The good ones make you positive, gives you confidence, strength and happiness. The bad ones instills fear, anxiety, sadness, disappointment over events that your conscious mind has no control over.

In hindsight, the human ability of preserving memories is marvelous. They just have to work very hard on reacting to the emotions that are a consequence of these memories in a conducive manner.