Time- Or the Lack Thereof

The biggest race you will ever run in your life, will be the constant race against time. There will always be too little time and too much to achieve in it. There will be social constructs of how your life should pan out, and the pressure to meet those invisible deadlines will be brash and suffocating.

The right time to get married, the right time to study, the right time to build your career, the right time to travel, the right time to make time… they all add up till you’ve suddenly landed on a boat, with a hole in it. The land is far away, and the water is filling up fast. You can paddle all you want but there is no way you can have your cake and eat it too.

I was inspired very early on by the idea of “living to the fullest”, “achieving my potential”, and doing more than is “expected.” It is so very easy to fall into the rut of saying “Yes” to every social gathering, every opportunity and every task that falls into your lap. It becomes so very difficult then, to break out of this constant cycle, walk away, breathe and start anew. I always talk about prioritizing the important things in life, but my fundamental flaw is not prioritizing myself.

The pressure of time, makes us compare our skills, our experiences and worst of all, our achievements with our social counterparts. Oh so I “wasted” four years of medical school while you travelled the globe, and met these amazing people! Oh I spent, the last two weekends, trying to meet everyone who has reached out but I’ve fallen behind on my study schedule, and concurrently, my sleep…

It has become a horrific struggle to be able to match up to my own standards. There is a level that I feel I should be at, an imaginary bar set so high that even I find myself panting to keep sight of it. But, that bar will always be there. And I haven’t been able to accept that maybe the horizon is where it should stay as, a motivator and not the finish line.

One of the reasons I name my blog what it is, is because of how impossible it is to satiate the expectations one has, they are ever changing and ever growing. And amidst all of the hustle of running from pillar to post the possibility of never being happy starts looming overhead. It starts to dawn on me that the rat-race will never end, one success or hurdle only precedes the struggle for the next. This exam only precedes the next. This life goal only puts more pressure on the next thing on the social construct we call a list.

Am I doing enough? Is this extra hour I spend enough? Is this extra volunteer work I take up worth it? I love what I do, but am I spreading myself too thin? Is it worth forgoing being able to stand in a moment without thinking about the next?

The hourglass has been trickling down ever since I was born, and I can’t stop it. But I need to identify, does each grain of sand have to be worth something? Does each grain of sand need to be accounted for? Does it count as success if it is simply me and silence? Can achievements be redefined?

Or are we forever condemned to be chasing the clock, a trail of unfinished business, a burgeoning list of wants and needs remaining unfulfilled as we try to have it all?

 

 

Karma 3.0

One of the tried and tested methods of being successful is the belief that karma can really be a bitch.

Absolute behavior is the character on display when under stress, emotional or physical, or when confronted with a daunting situation. Usually people tend towards the easy way out, passive aggressive tendencies, avoidance techniques compounded by the surrounding themselves with “like minded” people who have been similarly “wronged”. It’s definitely the easier and more palatable decision to make. Reflex dictates that one is always on the defensive and the aggressive. Very few people, have the skills needed to conduct a thorough retrospective analysis of the situation. Those people will not be running their mouth about the unfairness of a situation, those people will not be angrily avoiding their instigator, those people will not be selfishly making contact only when it benefits them, and they will not be the ones who will feign normalcy and niceties when face to face with the problem.

These people will be the ones who are mentally challenged and surprised at every turning but are able to compartmentalize and assess a situation for what it is. They are able to separate their personal lives from their professional forays and are capable of making fair, just decisions for that reason. They do not bear crosses of entitlement nor do they talk without actually being capable of walking the walk.

Life gives you lemons and you make lemonade. Life gives you people to learn from, to lean on and to grow with. Some people can only supply you with the knowledge of what not to do, or how not to act and that is okay. That is their role in your life. Do not be disappointed or distressed in the way something goes, because their selfish needs are always rewarded. Be kind and compassionate and fair. Refuse to give in to the urge to fall to their level. Refuse to be petty and selfish. Refuse to let them drag you down.

Karma is a bitch. But she’s consistent.

Lacquer and Color

Soon the lacquer will start to crack
Eden a far and forgotten dream
Love and hope of all the things are
Fragile and fracture under stress
Even when the night comes and goes
She still stares out the window until
Tears course down their well-known tracks
Else someone catches the truth and lies
Else anyone guesses the fear and failure
Making up the face with cream and color

Vilify the harsh and empty threats
Stare at the mirror and banish all

Evil thoughts and angry words
Go forth my love and conquer all
Only then can the sun shine on you again

Constant Introspection

I’m slowly learning that sometimes it is okay to feel confident. I’m slowly mapping out the possibilities and opportunities I have. I am more sure than I have ever been about the kind of person I am. But with introspection, comes the tainted reflection of the outer world. With introspection comes the mirror facing the world.

I am writing today, after a hiatus of sorts, because today I realized that very soon I’m going to have to shift gears going forward. The young adolescent version of myself, with her FOMO, and her decidedly awful choices will have to take a seat. Making time, for people who can never return the favor has become a sore spot. I think she refuses to allow being taken for granted anymore.

It always amazes me how a jolt in the road bring out the reality of some people. Spend enough time with someone and you will inevitably see their reality. Their thoughts, their weaknesses, the facade they put on to make themselves more palatable to their own world view. Sometimes a look behind the veil is anything but charming. It may be the only thing between the fog of face-value and the truth of the darkness beneath.

Most of my blogs up and until now have been written as a sounding board and documentation of moments that intrigued and confused me. That is no longer the case. It is now the amalgamation of pointed observations.

The noose is cinching closed the group of individuals I would give my arm to be with. The number of people outside the knot is growing larger every day. Your trust is not something to be taken lightly, your presence is not something to be expected and not appreciated. Your self-respect is in your own hands. Your hypocrisy and double-standards are a product of your own insecurities. Your ability to use people for your own gain is markedly self-serving and glaringly obvious. Your paranoia about being “different” and “special” and not “typical” has made you the exact opposite. Your constant need to please people whilst bad-mouthing them to other people is your own decision, learn to live with the consequences. Your ability to make time for those around you is your sacrifice. Your generosity of spirit should never be taken lightly. And YOU, should accept and understand others before you attempt to understand yourself.

I worry about a lot of things these days, but the one thing that I am not afraid of anymore is discovering who I am. I can safely say that profile is not a mystery anymore.

Good Job growing up kiddo.

Quarter-Life Crisis

It has become a weird weekly ritual to come and open up this blog. I can spend minutes at a stretch staring at the screen. Trying to summon an emotion, a smudge of feeling to put down in writing. Everything is so abstract now. My emotions swim in the deep end with uncertainty, they rattle around with anxiety till the only thing I have rooted for me are the chapters and videos I have to complete per day.

I find myself thinking oddly scary things now. Life has lost so much of its luster. The path before me is so well-trodden. I know everything. I know what to do all the time. I’m going full throttle down the highway of life and I feel like I have forgotten how to live life for the pure sake of enjoying it.

Yesterday, in a moment of panic I decided to sit down on the carpet with my eyes closed and attempt to do a rudimentary version of meditation. It didn’t go so well. Instead of the relaxing bliss of water and sand that I was aiming for I saw myself careening through the years. I saw myself knee-deep in assignments, reports, patient histories. I saw myself sitting for exams (after exams after exams). I clearly felt the pressures of a daily social obligation, the intensity of keeping up appearances and I saw myself turning grey and dull and matte. It was horrid. I tried to shake it off, to turn off the lurid movie now playing in my head and in my panic to do so dove straight back into my books.

I forget my habit of compartmentalizing and storing away.

But surely, I’m mistaken. Life cannot just be a storybook with goals and milestones that are achieved and forgotten. How can they all be so typical, and mediocre and expected? How do people live like this? How can you go day after day knowing this is your day to day; knowing that this is as good as it’s going to get?

Either I’m too stressed out now to see things with my usual rosy tints, or the blindfolds to life have suddenly come off.

I still have 1.5 years of medical school left. Another goal to achieve. Another milestone to chalk off. One step closer to… what exactly?

I need a break from being myself.

So cliche. So sad.

Hourglass

It has somehow managed to be almost an entire year since I last wrote.

I just haven’t had the time.

I’ve been saying that a lot lately.

No time. Nada. Too busy. Too stressed. Too much to do. Sorry I’m tired. Sorry I don’t want to. No thanks! Spread too thin. Tension reigns supreme. 

But this isn’t the complete truth. For some odd reason I haven’t wanted to write. I haven’t wanted to sit down and deal with any of this last year. Because it  has been a really hard year. And this one isn’t looking too bright either.

I don’t entirely know what I would have written, had I taken time to pound the keyboard. I don’t entirely know what to write right now either.

How disappointing. 

Between the countless hours spent studying, restudying and cramming for medical school to having panic attacks every other week regarding my future endeavors; from navigating the waters of a new relationship to sustaining old ones; from endless minutes spent discussing the conundrums of life up to keeping up with all my favorite shows- I think I lost a little bit of myself.

I kinda miss the old me.

There are days when there is nothing I want more than to turn off my phone, stay in bed and shut out everything. There are other days when I need nothing more than to make every minute count. Then there are those days in between in which I drag myself inch by painful inch to get through the day. I know this is normal, I know this is what adult life is like. I should know what I signed up for the minute I applied for medical school.

And yet… this constant stream of need- the need to be there for everything, everyone. The need to excel, the need to perform, the need to behave, the need to survive, the need to grow as a person and the need to live up to expectations…

It’s starting weighing on me and for once I don’t even have the energy to talk it out, to address it, to ensure it doesn’t swell and take me with the ebb of it’s wave. Every morning I wake up to a dark gloom of pressure and expectations, and every night I fall asleep with the half-hearted belief that I’ve fought them back to the demarcation line.

Ah well.

Tomorrow is another Monday. 

June Bug

I refuse to write about today on the account that writing about today will make me furious. It will make me delve into the past and reach into the future. It will make me grit my teeth and it will make me clench my fist. I will not write about today because it will disappoint me.  

Yes, if I write about today… I won’t be able to go back. 

 

Hype

Did you hear that sound?
That fracture in the air?
Neutral expression, wide smile
Many words, little said

You saw that, I saw
I click once, twice
Backspace, delete 
Press the tiny cross

Blue and White 
White and Blue
Suddenly quiet
Little blips, something more

Hype it up
Obsess 
Rise Above

 

Pause. Rewind. Play.

I’m running in circles and they are infinite.
I want to ask you why you’re being so indifferent.
I want you to quell my insecurities
I want to know that I’m still primary
How can you know everything and yet nothing
How can you hear me reaching out and somehow not see it
I can see you slowly drifting down a stream. A stream for which I don’t have a boat.
You’re putting me on the back burner and forgetting.
You’ve put me away under lock and key and I can’t even bang on the door anymore.
Too far gone.
I look to find my voice but it’s hidden too.
Just like the pain and sorrow I hold when I speak to you.
You will not know this is for you. You will read it and put it away. Like the hardcover books being replaced with your paperbacks.
Jealousy.
This is a cry for help and salvation.
Call in the cavalry.
Arm the guns.

Shall I still name her after you?

Superfluous

Contentment: A feeling of ease and happiness that stems from needing nothing more at that particular point in time.

Examples:

A) When your six year old cousin falls asleep in your lap having spent his entire afternoon regaling you about the intricacies of his first grade life

B) Knowing you have five people you can call at a moments notice and have them listen to you whine

C) Seeing the entire clan around one dining table. 

D) Knowing the power of difficult circumstances and being able to control any urge to aggravate it

E) Proving the one year promise to myself and having sheer satisfaction at seeing the fruits of my labor laid out before me

F) Doing the most extensive introspection and being able to use it to be a more empathic individual

I have nothing to whine about or cry about or write about. This is a new terrain and I am slowly mapping it out