How to live your life
There are many questions that rattle us, sooner or later. The title of this blogpost, I presume, shouldn’t be one of them. Unless you are the thinking type who is often caught staring onto the wall or into the distance outside your window. In my defense, thinking is my favourite thing to do. It also happens to be my least favourite thing. Nothing less than a miracle that I’ve got an exceptionally high standard of work ethics. I always deliver before the deadline no matter how much time I am “lost” in my thoughts. But then, as a writer, I make most of the fact that writing for an hour can’t preclude staring out of the window for 42 minutes.
Yes, we can’t keep going on trying the same things again and again and again, hoping to greet different results. As we grow older, it becomes more and more obvious to us why we can’t afford to remain stupid forever. We’ve got to wisen up. There is no natural antidote.
An inward intervention turns urgent after a while. And this process involves quite a lot of uncomfortable introspection. When we don’t admit our wrongs, we reduce the space to improve. They say that the truth shall set you free but what it really does is it makes you strong enough to accept yourself. The truth under focus is your relationship with yourself. Take any situation that you’ve found yourself in; it applies like a silver tape on the mouth of a river.
Of course, I can’t spell out the terms for others. Every individual is unique with their inherent beauty as well as idiosyncrasies. Can’t put everyone under the same umbrella. The sun doesn’t shine that way. What worked for you may not work for me and vice versa. Yet, it’s important to learn each other’s stories—the much celebrated trials and tribulations—so that we can measure ourselves against our odds. At any point of time, we are just a crisis away from asking for help. Whether we ask or not is a factor of who we wish to reach out to. After all, help received on time is help. Otherwise, it magically becomes a burden.
The trouble with us is we are prone to hide things, even from those we are supposedly close to. Why? Because we don’t want to bother. Everybody has enough on their plate of worries. They neither signed up for your share nor deserve your share. You are an adult and can deal on your own. Except when you can’t. That’s when your resolve is tested. That’s when you learn to live your life on your own. Of course, it’s not an ideal state but it is something that is uniquely yours. Comes at an exorbitant price though.
Whenever you meet old people with wrinkles tattooed by time, you are in the presence of stories that can help you live better. But are we truly interested in listening to others? We are so occupied with ourselves that there is very little scope to squeeze in others’ learnings. Nope. Sorry. Today is about us. Like yesterday was. Like tomorrow will be. Until we reach a stage of calmness that will make us understand that we were delusional. Nobody was looking at us. Every group picture is about them, not others. Nobody gave a rat’s tiny balls about us. Apart from us.
How you lead your life is your personal problem. Others can only throw a high beam of (borrowed) wisdom or share their experiences, to help you decide better. At the end of the day, when the sun sinks and your eyes light up, you are the only one left at your party. And at this instance, it’s up to you whether you wish to dance to the music playing in the background or not.
Most probably, you will choose to dance because, at first, you like the song playing. But here’s the thing about music: you can’t always expect a song to be something it’s not. Sometimes, it’s advisable to enjoy it for whatever it is. Please remember that it wasn’t written specifically for you.
Furthermore, things get interesting when the music stops. Now, at this juncture, will you continue dancing? Well, if you’ve lived long enough, you’d know by then that when it’s your turn to dance, you shall dance whether the music is playing or not.
May godspeed you.