This post was long due release, somewhere in the initial days of 2021.
"I am so bummed, I am actually enjoying watching a Marathi TV drama with my grandmother, and this is not it, I look forward to watching it the next day. So the man of the house is having an extra marital affair with an office colleague, and his wife of course is too busy running the kitchen and feeding the kids. Nothing beats Ramayan though. And I mean it. Though we know the story, it is enlightening in many ways.
Is it a crime to not ask for more office work and blog instead? I do miss writing though!I do not know where to start from. Honestly, it is the third time that I sat down to write and cannot think of anything. Today is a good day to write.
I was having a conversation with a friend the other day, when he said that what if all of this is just a 'Bad Dream'. What if tomorrow, we wake up, and all of this is restored? Rather, never happened to get restored.
Unfortunately, all of this is too good to be true. God! We did not ask for our nightmares to come into reality. Not fair. Such is life though. Looking at the brighter side, what this year taught us was to be grateful. Until now, we looked at what we did not have , when we already had our basic necessities in abundance.
Personally, I had a very tough time this year. Like most of us have, had or probably will (God forbid) face something called anxiety. I am an introvert, I am comfortable around a very few people and I had quite a few emotional ups and downs in the last 4-5 years. Detailing them would run into pages, so to sum up, I had a lot of things saturated, preconceived notions, wrongly developed thought processes that affected my direction of thinking ability, had shaken my confidence, had made me a dull, negative person, not to mention how all this had affected me physically. I did not realise, I was carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. I was turning into a person with negative vibes.
Anxiety makes you narrow minded. You cannot look beyond yourself. The worst part about anxiety is only you understand what you feel, how much ever you explain. The problem is intangible, all in your head. I had to let go 100s of things, which I had collected like pennies. When there is a disturbance in life, human beings have a tendency to first deny, avoid if possible and if accepted, try to get out with minimal irritation.
The solution is to take a step back and look at the larger picture. To look at the brighter side, what I take from this year is that I found the root cause of my anxiety. I took therapy and found out that even emotional problems can be solved logically. When you advice your friend, you do it better because you approach the problem rationally. Personal problems are always looked at emotionally and we end up blaming others, not accepting the situation and self-pitying.
When your mind is not engaged, there is a leeway. To simplify. 'Empty mind is devil's workshop', was my situation. The biggest accomplishment was realizing and accepting that my behavior has changed and it is affecting other people.
My biggest lesson was to keep myself engaged throughout. The vacuum plants the seed of anxiety. When I was younger (OMG! I cannot believe I just said, when I was younger!!!), I was constantly occupied. Yes, there were fewer responsibilities, but the pressure was of a different kind.
I have consciously changed my thoughts. Changed my habits. I have definitely grown to be a bigger and better person and I am very happy and proud of myself. Yes, still there are some bad days, but I make peace with them instead of fighting against, find out the reason behind it, and move on."
Mayura Prabhudesai
