These days I have been feeling too low. It isn't winters yet
so I am a bit worried as to what brings these blues into my life which
otherwise come only in the cold times due to SAD. I have been pondering every
night if ‘this too shall pass’ applies to this dull phase of my life.
Apparently, a thought also crossed my mind few days back that this moment of
blue was not self-invited, rather it was created by certain events, or you
could say, certain ways that our lives today go on.
I would in fact say that too much ‘ambition’ could be a
reason why we feel low so often. Or is it our lifestyle that most shrimps claim
to be the reason behind the ‘unusual depressing times’? In relatable terms, is
it about that almost perfect girl who fits into 26 inch denims, and walks in
with all that panache wearing Mango, Mac and Mary Kay? Or that boy, who with
his uncanny ability to score a 100 almost all the time, is the one whom your
parents talk about always? Or that group of yours where your mobile phone looks
like the one from the Stone Age? Or those from the family, who, you don’t know
how, always know when your result is coming?
My god! The world is a brutal place! At least if we put it
that way. I just don’t get why there is an extreme pressure on all of us; a
pressure not only to fair well, but to be perfect- with perfect bodies, perfect
jobs, perfect paychecks, and in fact with perfect partners. I suppose we are in
a generation where we want to create robots, and not better human beings.
Acceptance the word is. Beyond the long spelling, there is a long context I wish to draw your
attention to. Acceptance to what, you might ask. I would say, acceptance to
everything, tall or short, ugly or pretty, classic or mediocre, good or bad and
most importantly acceptance of our own self, which in fact is the most
difficult kind. The only thing that stops us from accepting things, living or
non-living, is that we judge.
The girl in the short skirt? What a slut. The guy with that
female accent? So gay! The lady who negotiates at the neighbourhood grocer? A
cheapskate! The man, who complimented you in front of his wife? Such a flirt.
Everyday, as people go places, and meet other people, they
tend to form an opinion. We tend to frame people into specific images in our
mind, that aren't motivated by any logic. The reason why we do it, is because
the reality appears to be like that.
Short and simple, we perceive and believe, not wanting to
know the truth. Most say, “don’t worry about what people think. “ I have
personally found it impossible. What college I get into, what man I marry, what
company I work for, what car I drive, would matter to my aunt as much as it
does to my dad.
So our lives are not our own, and henceforth, the pressure, the
pressure to be acceptable, to be laudable. No one likes it that way; at least
most of us would not. But then why do we struggle every day, to make ourselves
more perfect? Or why do we look in the mirror, and wish we looked more like
Diaz or Cruise? Most of us are walking on the path of life in a direction taken
by majority. We are scared to experiment, scared to not be accepted, scared of
the outcome, and scared of what people will think.
I am not excluding myself from the ‘WE’. I found the reason
behind my troubled times. Sometimes making too much effort is fatal. You tire
yourself, and you still aren't enough. You would never be. There is always a scope
of improvement, they say, but to what extent? To what extent do you have to drive
yourself, and what makes you ask for more? The fact that ‘more is better’ or the
fact that ‘success is all about growth, all about improvement’ ?
This makes me dream of a different world; where no one was
‘obliged’ to be somebody, where imperfections were good, where I did not have
to write such pessimistic stuff. I wish
for a life, where your loved ones were happy in your happiness (no, this does
not happen in real life). By the way, I
just figured out how to get out of grey- omega 3 fatty acids, dark chocolates
(yum), sunlight, cod liver oil supplements and the most important thing of
all-connect and create!
I just connected and created something as I
wrote this piece (Feeling so much better). You might try it as well as I fetch
dark chocolates and flax seeds from the market! :-)
