I think I misunderstood life
How did I reach where I am?
I regret a lot of things and most of them seem laughable now that I’m slightly wiser but arguably less enthusiastic about life in general. I saw it as a bad thing but not anymore, or at least I’m warming up to the idea of it. Sometimes I think that the price you pay for being hauntingly self-aware is anonymity. There’s elegance in not knowing who you are, a certain purity that’s authentic. This isn’t ignorance or denial; this is the absence of understanding of self. You can only ignore or deny what you know and so you’re not willing to acknowledge it despite being self-aware.
What I’m saying is that when you don’t know who you are, you’re indifferent, unbiased, innocent. The opportunity to understand who you are is infinite until you do, unraveling your reality and eradicating the possibilities of who you’re not (or who you could’ve been). Some things can be unbearably rewarding, some questionably unrewarding; some things can be obvious, hiding in plain sight; some layered like onions—the more you peel the more you discover. But most things, the most difficult ones, the ones that baffle you, make you question your entire identity—these are the hardest to accept. I’ve spent the better part of my self-aware years coming to terms with certain revelations that left me with conflicting convictions. I witnessed my naivety waning as I desperately tried to hold onto the kid in me who now seems to have faded away gradually. I don’t recognize myself anymore and I justify that by saying that I’m wiser now.
Growing up I had the annoying habit of wanting things my way. I was an uptight jerk for a very long time and projected certain insecurities onto people as a coping mechanism. I didn’t want people to acknowledge something I wasn’t comfortable with so I preempted it to avoid that possibility altogether. I wouldn’t say that I was a difficult person but I definitely had a very intrinsic, internalized way of dealing with things (like most introverts do) and hurt myself overthinking about what wasn’t remotely likely to happen. I wanted things to be a certain way but I didn’t lash out when they weren’t; I held on to it instead, inscribing it deep into my psyche and leaving it there to rot.
A lot of people in life, good people, made me aware of this but I never accepted it. It wasn’t until I was faced with the horrors of everyday life—the ordeal of making a living—that these illusions of control came crumbling down and I didn’t know how to handle it. I had the freedom to do whatever I wanted but somehow I didn’t feel free. I felt trapped instead. The realities of life gently revealing themselves with each interaction. My psychology of “wanting things my way” didn’t work but I still avoided facing it until the rotting couldn’t be ignored anymore. I feel like there’s grace in becoming uncomfortable with who you are because that forces you to change. Self-acceptance is about accepting the flaws you can’t change and learning to be comfortable in your own skin; accepting your weird little mannerisms and overcoming your insecurities. It was never about accepting who you shouldn’t be. I’d grown tired of my very existence. I didn’t like who I was or who I’d become. A vigil consciousness, constantly overthinking, constantly sulking, constantly inebriated. I lost my sense of self. And when self-awareness took over, I thought I could go back to being the version of me I always wanted to be but I’d forgotten all about him—he wasn’t there. I had all this self-awareness but nothing I could do with it, nowhere to go. I was scared, for the first time in my life, I felt alone, burdened by the thought of not being understood by anyone ever again.
When you start accepting things that are not in your control, it gets easier. This burden of feeling like your life isn’t headed anywhere slowly gets lighter. I haven’t figured much out but I have gotten better at letting things happen the way they’re supposed to happen. I realized my way of living life was extremely ego-centric. I wasn’t seeing beyond what I felt was owed to me and it took years of receiving nothing from the universe to understand that I’m not owed anything. In the intricate fabric of cosmic cause and effect, everyone is treated equally—there are no favors, no biases. All that’s left are decisions suspended in space and time, that’s all you can control. Whether it’s deciding how you deal with things, deciding what to eat, or deciding whether or not you want to switch jobs—all you can really do is make one out of infinite possibilities into your reality and then move to the next one. That’s all there is.
But that doesn’t mean you don’t learn from previous realities. A lot of who I am today is a collection of mistakes and corrected mistakes. This reminds me of a poem I read a few years ago: “Autobiography in five short chapters” which takes you on a journey of self-discovery. This poem made me realize that self-discovery isn’t just a series of revelations that you wake up with but rather the efforts you make to discover who you want to be. The perfect balance of making some decisions yourself and the universe making some decisions for you. There’s beauty in accepting things the way they are and not trying to change what was never meant to be. And this applies to the little things in life too, in fact, it especially applies to the little things in life. The barber fucking up your hair, someone spilling their drink on you, your flight gets canceled, getting rejected in an interview—these small pockets of events define our everyday life and everyday life defines life altogether. We’re made up of these moments and, if we’re being honest, most of the decisions we make are in response to something that happened and not the other way around.
The price I’ve paid for a nonchalant attitude is possibly my childlike wonder. Oh, I still get excited about things but not in a way like I used to. I think a lot of people might relate to this experience but somehow it feels ineffable. As if I’ve forgotten what it feels like to be a child. Well, maybe I have, and I’m too afraid of accepting that I have. I traded anxiety for peace; I traded an intrepid attitude for indifference. Indifference is a tightrope to walk. Becoming indifferent towards everything might perpetuate repressed feelings that you never acknowledged, while not being indifferent is extremely demanding of your mental space. I don’t know where in that spectrum of indifference I lie but I feel comfortable with who I am right now. Maybe I’m lying to myself but I think being curious about yourself is undoubtedly just as important as everything else on the path to self-discovery.
I was always worried about the next big thing. Made it to high school? What now. Oh, I’m in college? What now. Got my first paycheck! What now. I don't remember how much of my life I wasted trying to unravel mysteries that were figments of my imagination; I created these mysteries and then got angry when I couldn’t solve them. It was so simple, hiding in plain sight—nothing exists beyond what already exists. All this time, I was desperately actualizing an existence that never wanted to exist in the first place. Forced proliferation of problems that were nothing more than improbable probabilities. I wish I had the luxury of attributing this shift in perspective to some life-changing event when nothing of that sort really happened. I don’t know what happened but I’m glad it did. Maybe it was a result of solitude or just receding affection with material possessions—I turned to those questions that lingered on my mind but I never acknowledged. I don’t know what exactly happened. I’m glad that it did.
It’s a liberating realization when you remove yourself from the center of the universe and become an observer. Take note of the air you breathe or the fact that you can see things. Listen closely to the crickets eavesdropping on your silence. A tapestry of stories painted across unknown faces intertwining with yours in a fleeting moment. Man-made miracles juxtaposed as magnificent backdrops all around you. The blade of grass growing through cracks on a wall that looks just as prominent as mountain peaks peeking from behind the clouds. When you remove yourself from yourself, you start seeing things that are so much bigger, more profound than you could ever be. And what’s weird is that they never lose their essence; you never get sick of them, or at least I don't. What lies in the incompleteness of life is a certain completeness that cannot be questioned or challenged but only accepted.
I’ve started to realize that life is never about what you do but more about things that happen to you. A butterfly flaps its wings and begins to rain. You don’t have control and real joy is in accepting that fact. I think we misunderstand accomplishment with success. To be honest, I don’t know what the difference is but I don’t think they’re quite the same thing either. Yet, both only exist in our conscience; they’re simply things we’ve given meaning to, nothing more, nothing less. At the end of the day, we’re all just walking down unknown streets. What do you do if there’s a hole in the sidewalk? You fall in. And that’s okay.