Keeping Ourselves Sane Through The Pandemic

It is day 5 of the 2^nd phase of lockdown in India. Instagram, these days is flooded with memes about the lockdown. Not just that people have also been constantly posting about how they have been making full productive use of this quarantine. From making Dalgona Coffee to cooking some mouth-watering dishes and even re-working on their lost skills, my friends have done it all. A really close friend of mine from college even started her Youtube Channel. How amazing is that? People have been making so much out of this time while I laze all day in my bed with my face in my phone. Is it so important to make ourselves productive?

I am bored out of my mind!!! That’s what most people like me say since the day COVID-19 came into existence and made social-distancing and staying indoors the norm of our lives. Throughout the time that I have stayed indoors and practised social distancing, I have followed only one routine. Wake up, clean, cook, work, Netflix, sleep, repeat. On some days when I tried to take a break from my mundane cycle, I started to overthink without even realizing. I overthought about the situation, came with theories and each one of them concluded with the world coming to an end. Disturbing right? At least it was for me.

Now, this is why during these times when we aren’t busy with our lives like we used to be, it is important to be involved in some activity or another. You do not want to be productive, don’t force yourself. But being involved with something will keep you sane through these times.  

I have come across people saying, ‘Didn’t you want a time like this where you could sleep in all day, and do whatever you want without having to worry about anything in the world?’ Well, I personally wanted such a time for myself where I didn’t have to be worried about anything. But when one thinks about it, is that really possible? A human being not worrying about anything? We are made a certain way when we think most of us automatically start worrying about everything that can go wrong. Right now we do have the time of our lives but how can we live like we aren't bothered or anxious while the world is facing a pandemic.

I’ve tried to keep myself involved with the work that I do from home, cleaning, cooking and watching a lot of movies and some trashy web series. But I still end up feeling depressed and lost.

It is not strange that we get worried and start to panic while reading newspapers or watching the news. There is no shame in accepting that I have always been a pessimist, thinking about all the bad things that can happen to mankind. But right now nobody wants to hear about the misdeeds that mankind has done to the planet. All of us need hope to survive this pandemic and come out of it healthy, physically and mentally.

Even after keeping yourself occupied if you don’t feel like you are doing well mentally. Seek help. There is nothing wrong with wanting to talk to someone about what is happening in your head. There are numerous organisations/institutions that are working to help people in need of counselling during these testing times.

Pick up that book that you left unread a gazillion years ago. I am sure you’ve always wanted to bake that yum-looking cake when you first watched the recipe but couldn’t do it because you didn’t have time. Enrol yourself onto that novel-writing class that you always wanted to take up. Call up your friends from school, take that train down the memory lane and relive those days when you had a not so stressful life. Open that journal you used to carry along wherever you went. Read it, re-read it and start writing where you left off.

We sure are amidst a crisis we never thought of finding ourselves to be in. But we need to remember one thing.  Giving up is not an option. It surely will take time for us to come out of this. Let’s face reality it is harder than we think it is. But let’s do ourselves a favour and be positive. And the journal I was talking about. Keep writing so that 10 years down the line you can tell your extended family about what the situation was and how you overcame it.

Here is a helpline number of an organisation that is conducting free counselling session for all those who need it. And remember there is absolutely nothing wrong with seeking help.   

                                    

Patience Is The Key

We reached the place way before time. Almost over an hour before the show actually starts. It was 2 AM. We decided we could go for a long drive before we came back and so we did. Almost 45 minutes later, when we went back, there was a long queue awaiting the arrival of the man of the hour. And then he came wheeling his chariot. Interesting right? He was not on his chariot, but he was wheeling his chariot. And this wasn’t the usual chariot either. His chariot had huge vessels of dosa batter and chutney, and cottage cheese and cheese and some vegetables and maybe oil and a lot of other things.

This was the chariot of the renowned Ram Shinde.  Pushing what people of Hyderabad called ‘Ram Ki Bandi’, he came and the people who stood there waiting for him surrounded him where he stopped. This was no magician. But the way everyone swarmed towards him, took out their phones, clicked pictures, updated statuses. Coming out at 3 AM on a Monday morning for dosas surely was something. 

It was a delight to watch him make the dosas, watching people relishing them. The man had a story like all of us. He had his bunch of struggles and after surviving through each of his struggles, the result was the long queue of people waiting for him in the middle of the night to make his trademark dosas for which they could sacrifice their sleep.

 When I look at a human, a successful human, I want to be that human. It is funny how our brains work.  I have this bad habit of only focussing on a person's success & completely ignoring the fact that behind every success story is a life full of struggle that the person went through.

Rome wasn’t built in a day. So are our lives. In the generation we live in, which I’d like to call the instant generation, we like everything to come by us instantly. Be it food, cabs, jobs, money, success. No, I am not bashing at the millennials. I am one of them and I am guilty of wanting everything instantly. I look at successful bloggers, influencers, colleagues, friends and I think, what was that one thing that I did wrong and I am not where they are? It is difficult for me to answer that question. Why? Because I am affirmative of the fact that I am giving the best I can. I push myself to give more than what I did the previous day. Then why is it that I do not see the same results as the other person. In the meanwhile, do I think of the person’s experience? Do I think of that person’s approach? Do I think of the person’s struggles? Do I think of the person’s efforts?  No. I do not. Am I prejudiced? Yes, I am. And I am guilty.

Sometimes, it does not matter how much you give. Sometimes it does not matter if you sacrificed the previous night’s sleep to finish the work your boss asked you to finish. Sometimes it does not matter how much you are pushing yourself to be the best. Sometimes all that matters is for you to stop thinking about success, to stop thinking about how many efforts you put in. Sometimes, all you are required to do is to love what you do, give the best of your abilities, learn something new every day. It is a difficult task to do because life has been a competition even before we are born.

We humans have the tendency of living in our past through the present and into the future. We never fully live in our present. Ofcourse, the past teaches us to have a better future but what about today?

So every day from today, I will tell myself to take one step at a time. Because at the end of every day, I need to be happy. Because if I am not happy then the entire world’s success and wealth are not going to suffice.

Ram Shinde making his trademark dosas
PC: Priety Baid

 

 

 

Adult-ing 101

Every day is a new day; tomorrow is a new day. New day means new you. So you have to go grab every opportunity that comes your way no matter what. Give your best and be confident. You ought to believe that you are the best. You are going to walk into that room and own everything. Everything!!!

Now, that’s what I think every day before I go to sleep. But then reality is quite the opposite. I wake up in the morning which is of course, late. Now, I am not a morning person which I believe no one really is. At least I have not met people who are all this bright and shining like a bird.

There are a zillion times in a day where I am silently crying and questioning God like Joey does. ‘Why God? Why me? I thought we had a deal.’ Just that I never had a deal like the one Joey had. I was the kind of child, who wanted to grow as fast I possibly could so that I could take control over my life and be entirely responsible for whatever I did.  I still like the fact that growing up has given me total control over my life for most of the parts but for some situations when I do have to take permission from my parents. But coming back to the point, yes, adult-ing is great until you are thinking of it in your head but in reality, there is only sometimes when you are proud of being an adult.

I am broke, I am lonely, I am hungry and I want to sleep. These are some of the phrases you will hear an adult say. It might look overrated. But trust me it is not. To get out of your quilt is one challenge and to get out of your bed is a whole new challenge.  While you were just taking small tiny steps because they said, ‘ Take one step at a time’ the next moment you know you have to pay your bills and rents and the electrician guy and the plumber guy and the maid and the cook and then you realize that all your hard-earned money is gone and then you spend the rest of the month which is almost half the month managing your expenses, waiting for that one bus to arrive to take you home because obviously the cab is going to cost you more and you don’t want to ask your dad for money. Yes it is frustrating; it gets on my nerves every day to think of money constantly.

But you know what, every month when I get the message saying my salary has been credited, I do somersaults in my head, the numbers aren’t really that great, but there sure is something about the last day of every month for those who work. It is like validation to my existence. It is like a pat on my back. For just that moment you feel good, you forget about the bills and the rents and you just live that moment. Only if every day of adult-ing felt that way.  It is difficult, it sure is. But if I think of it, on the days when I wake up early, run my errands; catch the bus on time I somehow am proud of myself at the end of the day.

I believe the problem is all our lives we are told to study well and perform well at exams, get good scores while our parents have done the rest of the work. Our mothers some of them excelled at taking care of the house without us even knowing what a great deal of effort it takes to run a house and some of the mothers excelled in taking care of both the house and their jobs. And our fathers never really told us about work experiences, they probably told us about their good days but never about their bad days. So, in the meantime what happened was that we learnt to be good at our work, good at our jobs but never really understood how much it takes to live all by oneself and to deal with bad days at work.

We grew up in such a comfortable environment thinking ‘oh we can all live by ourselves’. But it isn’t so easy. Which is why every little thing done right makes us so happy.

Sometimes I think how people older to me do it so effortlessly without complaining a bit. But I was wrong, just because our parents don’t say it doesn’t mean they enjoy every bit of adult-ing. On one such day when I was complaining about how life was so difficult, I met a taxi- driver. That was one day when the first taxi that came by agreed to drop me home. That was one of the days that made me fall in love with the city that Mumbai is. People here are so busy and always running with the time that sometimes you just require to stop and think for a moment or two or at least just talk about how you are feeling with probably the first nice person you see. This really nice man who was my chauffeur for the day started to talk about random things. And then he told me about how he had been living in Mumbai for over 25 years now away from his family in order to support them.  Adult-ing is not this cool word that you can use whenever you are broke or you have a breakdown. It is a part of your life as much as it is mine and there is no denying that. The way we all had a childhood and teenage life, adulthood is just another part of our lives.

It is always difficult to pass through every age of life. I remember how I cribbed during school wishing I never got old after the baby stage. There was that and then there is now when I crib about being older. I fear to get older than this. But that is how life is. I would not say embrace it because that would be way too clichéd but I would say, take one step at a time. Remember when we were kids, we always feared the part when we had exams? Well, now every day is that day. So, welcome to the real world. It sucks. You are going to love it. ;)

                                         P.C: Yeshwanth Mareedu

It is okay to be insecure....

I was eating my lunch while watching TV.  I was as nervous as hell. I had to be. The selection results for my post-graduation programme were coming out and I had been waiting for them since the time I woke up, which unusually was pretty early that day.

Mid-way on finishing my lunch, I checked my phone. The results were out. I scrolled nervously. I wanted to scroll down my way quickly to see my name at the same time I also did not want to scroll quickly, because I did not know how I would feel after knowing that I did not make through it.

There it was. I finally saw my name on the list. Tears welled up. They weren’t tears of joy. These tears did not have a definition maybe. They were just there. I ran to my dad and told him I got selected. I tried as much as I could to not cry in front of him. But I just couldn’t control. He looked at me, laughed and asked; do you not want to go?  His brave child that I was, I said, of course, I want to go. He did not coax me to tell him why I was crying any further. Maybe he knew the reason. But I did not.

The course was for 10 months. Each day felt like a year to me. I have lived away from home earlier but this time it was very different. I just could not be myself around people. I was not an introvert, but I had become one. I had become insecure and afraid of people. The first three months went on to be like that. I was insecure that maybe the others were much better than I was. Insecure that maybe others knew a lot more than what I knew. I was insecure about being dominated. The first three months were really difficult. At a point, I felt that maybe I was going into depression. I could feel a lot of negative vibes in the place which I just could not take.

The second trimester seemed a little easier. This was probably when I had the best of my time here. We did a lot of practical work, something that I had always wanted to do. I became friends with people in the process. I got to understand that I was not as bad as I thought I was at work. It gave me some sort of joy and peace.

The issue with short term courses is that there is very little time to know people with the entire hectic schedule keeping one busy all throughout. An opportunity to know a person is possible only if you work with the person. Most of the friends I made were in this way. By the time you get to know everyone, times up and you have to leave the college to lead your respective lives.

The third trimester went by like the wind. Though most of the time we were busy with the submissions and deadlines. This was probably the bestest if there was any such word that existed. What we did during this trimester has made me into this confident person, who I would never want to lose.

Sometimes, when I just sit back and think about why I cried the day the results came out, I feel that maybe in the back of my mind, I knew that it would take me time to settle down which meant that maybe I would have to spend some time alone without friends. I think that maybe I was afraid of going about alone without friends and afraid of being judged.

When I think of why this place has excessive negative vibes, I feel maybe it isn’t the negative vibes after all. Everyone present there either was staying away from home for the first time or was sceptical about finding good friends.

I had become very defensive during the first 3 months, I wouldn’t talk to people. I would just sit in my room and loathe about not having good friends. I failed to think that maybe the others were also getting defensive just like me. Maybe others were also thinking of being approached by people instead of going out and making friends themselves.

These days, for hours together, I sit in the college library or in some corridor of the college contemplating on how life has changed and how it will change in the coming days. These are some of the last few days I have here where I am either reading something or planning something for the projects that don’t seem to get over.

Life for me will surely change in the next couple of months considering that I will no longer be going to college, which in turn means, life will be tougher and meaner.

It wouldn’t be like how it is now. I wouldn’t be waking up to see my college right before my eyes. I wouldn’t be waking up just minutes before my classes. I would not be carefree about how messy I look. I wouldn’t have wonderful mentors to guide me even after I do something wrong. Most importantly, I wouldn’t be getting second chances.

It is always difficult to settle down in a new place. Especially in a place which is diverse. It is important to be open to all sorts of communication. It is important to be a good company for yourself first before looking out for friends to keep you company. Because people come into your life just so they can leave you. This is harsh, but also the truth.

PC: Deepali Saxena

This life that I will embrace...

Sometimes it so happens that you want to do something which you want to do but then at the same time there is something that keeps pulling you from not doing it. Such are the days that I experience these days. I have wanted to write for the longest time now. I have thought of things that I would write about. But every time I sit down to write there is some unknown force that keeps me from letting out my thoughts.

   I wonder if it is the new place I live in now that makes me unconsciously feel conscious about everything I do. A person usually can give the best of his/her capability in anything when in comfort.  Maybe I wasn’t feeling as comfortable as I would in the places that I have earlier lived in.

   This new place where I live now has everything I had imagined of. The facilities are really good compared to the place where I lived during my bachelor’s.  Yet there is some sort of an unease growing inside me that makes me want to weep and sit in a corner hidden from the world around me.

   I never was an introvert before. All this while I believed that I had mastered the art of accepting change in a way no one could. It now seems like I have been wrong all this while.  The changed environment, the people here feel like a lump in my throat that needs to be gulped down.

   As I write this, I start to feel like a lost child wanting to find some light in order to get back on the path I had come from. 

I sometimes feel extremely insecure about the people around me. I feel insecure that they are in some way better than I am. I feel insecure that maybe they would go ahead with achieving all their aims and ambitions and possibly I would fall and not be able to get up because of all the insecurities that I have.

  Sometimes it really is difficult to gather all the broken parts within you to be able to stand on your feet. Sometimes you just want to let the chaos take control of you because you think you cannot do anything to clear the mess. Sometimes you think your world has come to an end and that you should probably compromise on life and go into isolation so that you do not have to face the successful people.  Sometimes you just don’t want to be a part of the competition because even before you actually step in you think that you would lose it. Sometimes you have seen so much success in life that you don’t wish to fail. You don’t wish to fail because the mind cannot accept it. The mind follows a particular algorithm. If it has perceived that failure relates to something negative, then bringing it to accept the fact that failure was just a part of life and making the mind accept it is a task.

   One thing that I have understood after coming here is that one needs to forget his/her past life before going to a new place to start a new life or to just add more into the life that has been lived. The mind needs to start everything afresh to not have any preconceived notions.

As I write and read all that I have written, I feel there is so much that I have learnt about myself. Until now, before I began to put my thoughts in words, everything felt so unclear. My mind felt like a paper on which a child had just scribbled and abandoned it. Now that I have given myself the time to clear the tangled thoughts one by one, I feel good. I wouldn’t say that everything now is clear. I am sure that it will take time. And I would not give up until I am finally able to comprehend the doubts within me.


Image credits: Aindrisha Mitra. 

  

Thinking is good, overthinking is not!

I sometimes wonder how we humans complicate our lives so much by overthinking about something. What's funnier, are the mixed feelings that we begin to have as a result of overthinking.

At this point in time, while I give verses and lectures regarding overthinking and its consequences,  I shamelessly am doing it myself. I sometimes wonder what shall stop me from overthinking and I instantly get an answer.

 'An idle mind is the devil's workshop'.  I have been hearing this phrase since I was in 3rd grade.  At that point in life being idle only gave us chances to make noise in the classroom. But now at this stage in life, being idle has not got anything to do with making noise. An idle mind runs so fast that you forget what you are doing. You cannot concentrate on anything even if it's driving. An idle mind will only force you to think of something that sooner or later will have no meaning in your life.

At this point,  as I write down my deepest concerns,  I also wish to confess that simultaneously I am overthinking of things that shouldn't be a major concern.  There are a million things running in my head.

A few weeks ago I had an interview for my post graduation program. I remember how just before 4 hours of the interview I kept having crazy thoughts. There was a point where I even imagined that the people on the panel who was to interview me would start to shout at me if I answered something wrong.

Finally,  when I was called for the interview,  everything went so smooth. I was tensed,  of course.  But nothing I assumed happened. And a week later I even got selected. Could I ever ask for anything better?

Sometimes,  I ask myself what good could I have possibly done to get all that I have ever dreamt of.  They're scores of girls who don't get to live their lives on their terms. I know girls who don't have dreams big enough and who don't know what it means to have achieved something for themselves in life. Could I just not be thankful for the fact that I had such a supportive family,  such supportive people around who kept pushing me to give my best and never look back?  Alas,  I could not just thank my stars and get over it because again I had to think of all the bad things that "could" happen to me and also ruin my peace of mind by doing so.

So many things running in my mind make me want to cry and laugh at the same time.  I am so overjoyed on realizing the fact that very few girls get to make their dreams turn into reality and that I was one of them. At the same time,  I am afraid of what life has in store for me. I have never been so afraid before. I am afraid if I would be successful to make my dreams reality. I am afraid if I will make all those people who supported me to be proud of me. I am afraid if I can keep up the expectations that people have of me.

In this phase of thinking,  getting frightened and overthinking,  what I am losing is myself.  It is not just me.  I know so many people who think a lot. It not just wastes time but it also kills a person's confidence.

When I confess my deepest thoughts, worries and concerns, do not mistake me to be vulnerable. I am just trying to vent out my feelings and thoughts and feel free. 

There is absolutely nothing wrong in thinking over something. But once you realize that thinking about something is stealing your peace of mind and your confidence, what you have to do first is calm down and then let your feelings out either by sharing it with someone or by writing them down. Just like how I have done it.

Be your own star.

It has been such a long time since I wrote something.  "Well, speaking frankly I do not really have a lot of readers who might be impatiently waiting for my blogs".

Now these are the thoughts that I keep having. The other day I was thinking, “did I start writing thinking that I might end up with so many fans asking me to write regularly?"  Well, the answer was no.  So, since when did I start to think of the results before actually doing something? 

What often happens is that when a person begins to do something out of his or her personal interest,  at first there are chances he/she does the task  out of sheer passion but as time goes on,  if the same person doesn't get any criticism either positive or negative the motivation and passion that was present in the initial stages seems to fade away.  This is an absolute natural phenomenon. Expectation is an undeniably common human tendency. But then losing motivation and passion is not a good sign. 

Over the few days I can say my observatory skills have improved to a great extent (because having finished my exams I am absolutely free).  I have noticed that so many of us lack the motivation that we once possessed. This lack in motivation often leads to under confidence and laziness. 

There are so many ideas that I come up with to write about, but then because of the lack of motivation in me I have become under confident, lazy and forgetful. This means all the ideas that I come up with eventually vanish into the thin air.

"Why do I have to wait for someone to motivate me?” I ask myself.  We human beings always wait for a sign to do something. This behavior can be confirmed as laziness.  It is very unpleasant to hear but we need to accept our flaws.

Our conscious alone is enough to motivate us to an extent that we can achieve wonders. Thinking of the end result leads to distracting ourselves from the mission. When it comes to passion, one should always concentrate on the task and the method in which the task is being done. As far as both these go together properly, we do not have to worry about the outcomes.

I came up with the idea of writing this blog not to show it to people or to make fans (imaginary).  It is a genuine effort to motivate myself to never give up and to always run after my passion. I could probably end up with absolutely nothing by putting my thoughts out into the public. But it will surely help me build my confidence.

Confidence is built after putting in a lot of effort but it can shatter in just a snap of the fingers.  Your confidence might drop a hundred times a day but you can regain it only if you build it for another time by motivating yourself.

In the world we live in today, there are more people who will try harder each time to break your confidence.  So, you need to motivate yourself each time someone demotivates you. At the end of the day, to be a star you need to be your own star.