Tag: change

  • RAW REFLECTIONS OF RUSTY FINGERS

    RAW REFLECTIONS OF RUSTY FINGERS

    My hands are rusty. It’s been a long time since the fingers were summoned by the heart to do some spillover. And there have been reasons behind it. Being self-aware is probably one of them. When I used to write earlier, it was never in the hope of being read. I always happened to put forth a part of me that I’ve had not expressed, or felt has not been given the ample opportunity to express to the best of my ability. And now, I have changed.

    I acknowledge it. I have changed. Not in the form of turning into person B from person A, but rather conversing with the person inside person A and bringing it at the forefront, hence evolving into new person A. I had been struggling to use the word “evolve” in my own context, because it might sound presumptuous. As I had been told that, in recent times, I was appearing to be someone who feels they are better than people around them. I’ll be honest, I tackled the question quite well then. But truly, I did feel that if I am, or if I feel like I do, what’s wrong with that? I know I am not a superior person, but identifying a field or an aspect of life where you are better than someone else, is it wrong? Rubbing it, is. I am not a show-off. I think I am not. But I do sometimes knowingly, in a very sadistic manner, rub salt all over the wound, rather ego of someone. Partly because I can, but mainly because they are being blatantly ignorant about how dumb they sound at times. Yeah, I have maxed out on my patience.

    The guy I used to be in my 20s was someone with immense patience. I still do, but then I used it very liberally. Today, I think I have a good enough data to assess applying patience where is just a humongous waste of it. And yes, I have now someone who, if they want, should be able to monopolize it. Two of them now actually. Bliss of my life.

    I was never an insecure person. But after having Swati and now Polo, I do have a sense of fulfillment that I didn’t know exist. Now I know how it’s physically possible to feel your heart to be full. The downside is that my patience with the rest has gone for a toss. I do not regret it, like it even. Simply because all my 20s, I thought it was my responsibility to be there for someone who needed me. And people did, when they had issues. It took a lot of time for me to realize that even though I know their issues, I do not know these people. And more importantly, they don’t know me. They would love to assume.

    It was tough breaking out of their assumptions. Is still tough at times. Self doubt creeps quite easily. Afterall, not everyone around you could be wrong? Only you can’t be right all the time? The struggle is real. A few days ago my mother asked me, which I am paraphrasing, didn’t I think I have become more strongheaded and less flexible in recent times. It was followed by me trying to explain how this was something that I wanted to, and have worked upon to reach towards, including the whys of it. I was occassionally pigheaded earlier, now I am trying to be more aware and vocal. I listen to reason and have less patience to discount the lack of it otherwise. Which is something I carefully tried to avoid doing in my 20s. Then, my motto was to be as neutral as possible. To be good to who is good to you and vice versa. But then at the ending of my 20s I started founding it inadequate to answer all my questions.

    That flip had very heavily affected me and my equations with people around me. In hindsight, it wasn’t something that they asked for, or were given a notice about, so I understand their bewilderment, disbelief and even straight up non acceptance. But it was neither my problem, nor I went ahead and made it for me. And it wasn’t easy to do that at any level. Last few years have been a struggle. It is tough enough trying to know yourself better and accept what you discover, but what makes it an even unforgiving uphill battle, is how your inner circle reacts to it. Which is directly proportional to how much attuned to societal norms they are. Thankfully, I found my core in more than one ways.

    So why this post? No special reason. Just an honest update to myself, that I’ve reached a place where I can again say what’s in my mind. It will be incorrect to say that I don’t know or don’t care who it might hurt at times, but then I’ll try not to get so influenced by it that it doesn’t allow me to voice my truth. So yes, I’ll be trying to be regular in posting again.

  • MY RELATIONSHIP WITH CHANGE

    MY RELATIONSHIP WITH CHANGE

    Recently, my relationship with a certain word has been in a difficult position. I thought it had mended after struggling for so long over the years, but was found otherwise. The word is “change”.

    My journey to reach where I stand currently has been quite long. I started from being the boy who wanted a few constants in his life forever, and then I was the wreck, who seethed at the state of those constants after almighty time shaped them beyond familiarity then. Finally, I was able to understand that the “not so familiar” constants then, were not the only part of the equation that determine the changes. It took me quite some time to accept, that I changed too, which also changed the equation, making those constants more distorted than they were. Only then I was able to make my peace with the changing relationships with the people around me. With the fact, that how a friend for whom I switched a school once, is now a friend whose profile I find at times in my IG while scrolling. Or the girl for whom I travelled 400 km in a day once, is now someone I accidentally skipped wishing on her b’day. I am not saying that all these changes happened because of them or me. Change happens due to multiple reasons, but we are one of those reasons too. So when things start to feel not the same, the first thing that needs to be checked is us.

    Before diving more into it, I need to clarify a basic thing which many times people assume about change. Change is neither good nor bad. Change is change, like a fact. The outcomes of it are what hit people differently. And because the outcomes have their relevance aligned with the people they impact; they can be molded by those people themselves. If tomorrow rain occurs in the middle of the advent of summer, which would be a change, its outcome to someone like me who travels daily would be pleasant weather to ride my bike in, but for a farmer who was waiting to harvest his/her crop over somewhere else, would possibly cry tears of blood. So the question that asks to be answered here is, how blaming the change can be the solution to the problem if the outcome depends on who took the impact? You cannot control the change. What you can control is always the outcome.

    Coming back to my difficult relationship with change, it has been in this state due to the perceived meaning and notion around it. My life currently has a lot of factors that have contributed to the changes occurring in it. These changes are as varied as an increase in my curiosity about the social scenarios around me, to being in a relationship with an amazing person, to changes at work, and many more. These changes are connected through many different threads with different outcomes for me and people affected by me. As the outcomes differ for everyone, the impact they have on everyone is different too. But the difference between outcomes and changes are not very clear in the eyes of people, which has put all the burden the outcomes were supposed to carry, on the changes themselves.

    Tell me honestly, if you never have been a part of a similar conversation, when a person in your group has recently started seeing someone, as a result of which they spend less time with you, and the talk that happens in the group is, “Since they have been in the relationship, he/she is changed. He/she doesn’t even hang around much.” The simple outcome, which was the lack of availability of the person, which due to any reason was an issue, is directed instead to the change. Even I have been a part of such conversations. Change is crucial to be understood to deal with the outcome, but that’s where the role of the change ends. It’s the outcome that needs to be addressed. At times there are some outcomes that can only be modified if the change itself is modified, or is changed itself, even then, the process has to be the same.

    My relationship with the word started straining when the people around me, especially the ones closest to me, started negating the fact that the outcomes that they are being affected by, are not due to the changes, or me, but them. This stressed relationship between them and the outcomes is being transferred to my relationship with the changes, knowingly or unknowingly. It is also having different kinds of impact on me, both short term and long term, making me question if what I am doing is enough, where I do not even know what I am supposed to do. I find myself consistently defending the changes I am proud of, and that is not a healthy thing at all. When I start thinking about it from a third person’s perspective, it terrifies me to imagine what others would go through in the same scenario. I deem myself to be a pretty confident person, but I find myself questioning my own decisions and what other possible paths I could have taken, leading to even questioning if the changes in question are right for me in the first place. It is like carrying a burden that is not even yours, for no reason, and it is not helping anyone.

    Which brings us to another question, to what extent are you responsible for mending the relationships of the people around you with the outcomes of the changes? This question does not have a simple answer, still to put it in a statement addressing the utmost priority, I would say, to the extent beyond which it does not have any deteriorating effect on you. You can only help someone if you are in the right headspace. With that sentiment taking top priority, there is no expiry date to the duration or maximum capacity barrier to the load you can offer support to. It requires patience and self-belief to navigate through it.

    This piece was a part of therapy for my relationship with the changes in my life that I needed to put into a proper perspective, and I think it has solved its purpose. For anyone who reads it, I would like to urge you to keep asking yourself about the distinction and work towards outcomes of the changes, so that you and people around you could absorb changes, as they intend to be. After all, change is the only constant in this world.