Days that changed into weeks, weeks that changed into months! The lockdown was imposed because there was a definite feeling that an evil force is lurking in the streets. We might have a lot of weird or wonderful coping mechanisms, but what has amazed me is how seriously this challenge was taken.

We slowed down to a complete halt. Now that life is resuming fast (around me), this is my time to reflect upon the resolution I made during the lockdown period.

A New Lease of Life

I remember that before the quarantine, my head was filled with so many ideas, emotions and fears. Where was the direction? So much was happening in my head, instead of outside. My whole life took a U-turn during the quarantine period. Progress was made. I was ready to take each one of those ideas and break it down into several smaller ideas, to accomplish the objective. Notebooks came out to draw plans. I wanted to write, cook, get published as a writer, save money and go on an adventure and so on. So I started tracking each one of my goals and sharing it. I started posting my recipes on Instagram, started exercising in my balcony and doing the pilates circuit by one of my favourite instructors. I set the mood to sit down and focus, basically.

About writing though…

Before the quarantine, I felt like there was no chance I could write a beautiful article without giving into some of the world’s expectations. Six weeks later, when I sat down to write a full article instead of leaving it halfway, I had so much to say because I had observed the world around me during the quarantine instead of forcing myself to write. I had calmed down and realised that I have a cool future if I can just be confident in my own skin.

If I could just listen to myself..if I could just do what I needed…ask for more time when the world started moving again.

But that won’t happen, will it? What will happen to observing the world pass you by?

Maybe it was better to live a life in blissful ignorance.

Before the quarantine, my head was crying out loud because I could not ask anyone for help. It was telling me to shut up and listen, to sit down on my desk and just see the world as it is, without clouding my head with judgment. But it didn’t tell me to take a chill pill. My head just made me feel over-competitive. That’s the problem with our heads…we are so used to destroying our happiness though we get tricked into believing that we are in fact helping ourselves.

‘She writes 10 articles a day…she must be rubbish’

‘She writes 1 article a week…she must be a high-paid writer but this is rubbish’

‘Of course his thoughts are sexist’ and so on and so forth.

For the likes of those who had a place to comfortably relax, letting go of the judgments was challenging. Not being watched by the world for every single thing you do, or being evaluated by your relatives or family in terms of how much progress you’ve made, or keeping yourself sane as a human being when life was hard because all you can think about is…Is this all life is about? Psychological wars with loved ones?

Maybe I had exhausted myself to a point where I would purposely pit my challenges against myself. Maybe unlike many confident writers, I needed to acknowledge how messy I’d become, how many relationships had broken down due to my inability to express myself, maybe I needed to sit down and make some changes, maybe it was just me. Maybe I was just frustrated to the point that I had abandoned myself.

Before I sit down to write after the quarantine period, I have to think about all the details I have absorbed from my surroundings amid the social drama that surrounds us everyday.  I know most people dread this part, but this is such a positive exercise. It makes you free to be what you want especially especially now that the world is becoming loud, and it will attempt to block your attempt to run in the opposite direction…towards peace.

Earlier, I used to be exhausted because every single day I would sit at my desk and choose which thought to pick among the umpteen threads of incomplete existential matter that floated in my brain. I couldn’t pick a single thought, let alone four or five main thoughts to base an article on. It was not because I had nothing to say…it was because I gave too much power to my head.

The difference now is that I understand the difference between knowledge and ignorance. Having too much of knowledge can be risky, eh?

There can be a million different paths, you have to choose which one. Being on this journey hasn’t all been about perfecting my path. It has more to do with perfecting my strengths so that others can trust in me…so that my worldview is not defined through some sugar-coated lens. But one cannot become a complete hermit in the search for truth. Then that means you are no longer interested in the journey.

If I did not have this soul-crushing desire to become someone in the world, I don’t know who I’d be. I don’t know if I am meant to become someone if I have to go against the tide more often than not; more often than what other people do. But I just know somewhere that I was born to do something cool, born to create.

Most people give up very early in this journey because they don’t know what to expect out of it. But many people see it to the end. They might degrade the power of words and glorify money and life’s pleasures. If that is life, I’m quite sure I wasn’t born to live it like that only.

This may sound uncomfortable to you but it is what it is.