Hope is all we have

“Hope can be a powerful force. Maybe there’s no actual magic in it, but when you know what you hope for most and hold it like a light within you, you can make things happen, almost like magic.”

-Laini Taylor

I didn’t have a very comfortable life as a child. We had many financial and household issues to deal with. Everyday was a struggle for us, especially my mom. However, if I were to compare my mental strength back then to now, I was way more happy, hopeful and positive in the past. I refrained from overthinking every single aspect of my life, I was hopeful and positive of a bright future, I knew things would turn out in our favour sooner or later. I had something to look forward to, I had a lot of goals for my future, the future seemed like a happy dream that I was eager to convert to reality.

Things did work out in our favour. Most of my childhood goals have been accomplished (from earning a degree, getting a stable job, fulfilling the basic materialistic goals such as buying a branded cell phone to fancy clothes to renovating my house). Life should be amazing, I should be happy, I shouldn’t have anything to crib about anymore. Well that’s the issue, why does all of this still seem difficult? Why do we forget everything that has worked for us and always focus on the things that we don’t have? Why does my mind have to overthink every single moment of my life and present me with situations that always seem unfavorable and scary? I was never this confused during my childhood when we had very few reasons to be happy or grateful for. But now when I have a zillion things to be happy about, my mind keeps redirecting me to that one thing that I don’t have or that one goal I might never achieve!

I had problems back in my childhood as well. But I was hopeful of a happy future and that dream kept me alive. It gave me the energy to fight the devils of my mind and just focus on the task at hand. As I grew up and came across more failures in life, my hopeful nature lost it’s sheen and my mind started storing and reliving the real life experiences of feeling lost, disappointed, hurt and scared. Because of this I’ve reached at a phase in life where every new decision causes my mind to relive all the pain and trauma I’ve experienced in the past. Thus, I’m unable to think straight, hope for a bright future, work towards a goal or simply be happy without overthinking any aspect of my life.

Overthinking sucks big time. It makes every simple decision of my life into a life or death situation. It completely drains my energy and distorts my ability to think straight. I know happiness is not a destination but a life long journey. A single event or goal in our life doesn’t have the ability to keep us happy forever. It’s a daily process, a life long effort and developing a hopeful attitude towards life.

I might have mentioned this many times before but I need to reiterate it to myself as I’ve lost my track and fallen deep into the black hole of overthinking. It has drained me and is now clouding my judgement. It isn’t allowing me to enjoy a single moment of peace and happiness without thinking twice about it. Few minor changes that I’m planning to make henceforth to avoid my mind to take control of my life.

• Practice being in the present : Focus only on the present moment
• Focus on what I have control over : Ignore what we can’t change, work on things we can control
• Write down your thoughts when it gets overwhelming : Maintain a daily journal
• Figure out solutions than mulling over problems : Think about all the possible way out and how it can be effective in solving the problem
• Become a person of action : Especially in making simple decisions, take decisions right away rather than pondering over it indefinitely.

I’ll share my thoughts and experiences on the effect of making these simple changes in my life soon. Till then, let’s be happy and focus on living our life to the fullest!

When things seem uncertain

“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity. ” 

-Gilda Radner

Everything in my life seems uncertain at the moment. Ever since I turned 30, I feel the presence of a ticking time bomb right above my head. I don’t know how much time is left for it to blast but not knowing it makes me want to quit everything and move to a place far away. My mind keeps making desperate plea for clarity and peace.

The past week has been emotionally taxing. I never used to experience any mood swings or emotional upheavals as part of PMS before. However, anxiety has somehow befriended my hormones to give me the choicest of fears to deal with right before Aunt Flo decides to strike with cramps.

In the middle of this mental turbulence, I gave a job interview through the reference of one my closest friends. On the outcast, the job seemed perfect but I just couldn’t convince my mind to take it up. The job timings were odd (from 12.30 pm to 9.30 pm) and I’ve felt mentally harassed and tortured while working in these timings before. It would have been a different case had I enjoyed working in a corporate set up or I was passionate about my career choice. The primary reason I work in a corporate is to make myself and my family financially independent. My “job” and career as an accountant always feels like a routine, is burdensome, stressful and drains me of my energy as it’s far from my personality and purpose in life. Don’t take me wrong, I am grateful for my current life and all the opportunities I have been blessed with. It kills me to feel constantly “unfulfilled” and “unhappy” in life.

Even the thought of working at this new organisation made me feel extremely stressed and unhappy. I knew that I couldn’t put myself through any more mental pressure for the sake of increasing my pay scale. I finally told my friend yesterday that I couldn’t go ahead with the job process. I might have lost out on a great job opportunity that could have made a huge upswing in my earning capacity. However, I couldn’t bring myself to say “yes” to it, believe me I thought about it, A LOT. Surprisingly I don’t feel dejected by it at all. All I feel is extreme “uncertainty” and “anxiety” about my future.

As kids, we never looked for reasons to be happy. Now, happiness feels like the most expensive commodity in my life. I constantly feel the need to prove myself, work hard, go through pain and turbulence to “earn my happiness“. It feels like I’m on a constant wait for something, someone, to change the course of my life and make it better. Is there an end to this phase of my life? I hope there is because I’m EXHAUSTED of waiting.

I have decided to make 2021, MY GLOW UP year! Even if I start the year on a great note, I know for a fact that I WILL relapse back to my depressed self soon enough. It’s not because of the occurrence of a setback or failure, my positivity usually wears off when I realize that I’ve lost control of my life.

For 2021, I’ve decided to take cue from my “weight loss experience” and be “consistent” with my goals, by hook or by crook.

My mantras for 2021 :-

• What this means is that, my focus would be on my efforts in present moment rather than expected results in the future
• I’ve decided to give my best in the present moment, work hard to become the best version of myself and have faith in the UNIVERSE to unfold things in my life, what it considers BEST for me
• Stop fighting against all situations in life and fear that the Universe has turned it’s back on you
• Document everyday, each day is special
• Trust the process, go with the flow.

I guess I’m all set for the new year, are you?

Bow down, be humble

#49/100

“Leadership is about empathy. It is about having the ability to relate to and connect with people for the purpose of inspiring and empowering their lives.”

–Oprah Winfrey

When I joined my current workplace, the one person I admired the most was my boss. His work ethic is impeccable, is extremely passionate about his work, is polite with his peers and subordinates and has a vast knowledge on any topic. But my admiration for him didn’t take time to turn to loathing the moment I encountered a part of his personality that shocked me to the core. He lacks empathy. Now, sympathy and empathy are two emotions that are extremely crucial to judge a human being’s personality. Most of us are sympathetic and disguise that as empathy. If you are sympathetic, you would listen to someone’s troubles, try to console the person and leave it to that. But if your empathetic, you will imagine yourself in that person’s shoes, lend a helping hand and try to work out on a solution.

My house is almost 56 kms from my workplace. I’ll not even discuss the part where my organisation is gas lighting us into coming to office just because they don’t consider work from home as an effective means of working (the pandemic can’t be used as a reasonable excuse here). It takes 8 hrs each day to travel from my house to my office to do the same work that I can complete in few hours at home. I’m grateful to go through this ordeal only twice a week but the sadist reason behind making the employees suffer in the name of employment is infuriating.

The best way to identify a true leader from a boss is the presence of empathy. In the scenario I explained above, a true leader would have understood the employees troubles, made genuine attempts to listen to their concerns and make an informed decision which favors everyone and keeps the company operations smooth. Instead, my organisation devices new ways each day to make their employees more frustrated and angry. They don’t understand the severity of the situation and make no attempt to do so.

I’m trying to sail through this situation by focusing on being happy and positive to the best of my ability. I wish and have an ardent hope to get out of this mess soon. I don’t know when that would happen but I do know I’ll be much stronger in my actions, thoughts and grit by then. As they say, every dog has it’s day. I’m waiting for my day to arrive sooner than I can imagine. The world can be a scary place sometimes, we can make it better by being empathetic, kind and humble towards one and another. The people helming the decisions at my workplace lack all 3 of these crucial emotions. I pray for their well being when each of the dogs they’ve bruised has it’s day.

Source : Grammarly