to process...

Its not a fancy blog. Its not a story which will inspire you. Its not even a cry for help. Its just my way to exhale and tell the world that its okay if I need some time. Its okay if you need sometime. Its just SOME time off from the rush, the expectations, the life goals, the distractions and from everyone around us.

Though its a little personal blog so if you want an insight into my life then get a cup of tea and if not then see you in next blog. Assuming that you are still reading or if not then, well, the next lines are from me to myself.

You know, even in my real life, its rare occurrence that I say out loud what I am actually feeling. People who love me knows that its mostly a guessing game with me. I am also not the one who would cry out loud and say that ‘just leave me alone – I need my time. I need time to process.’

Process? Process what ? You may ask. ..

Well, the normal sh*t that happens. No, I did not have a major accident , I did not get my heart broken, I also did not have anyone take advantage of me or cheat me or hurt me, I did not lose a lot of my money and I did not fall sick. So, let me guess, if life has not thrown a towel at me then I am okay?

Guess what? I am not and neither are you if you are feeling like things are fine as nothing has broken yet. Side Note: When did we start to have this dialogue with ourselves where fine became the ‘new normal’ ? News my friend- you are playing too safe. Anyways, I want to get back to my problem. I want this blog to be the best narcissistic blog I have ever written as I am feeling like puking my heart out on this page created by some amazing designer, coder, creator and what not. Basically by someone who did not sit and whine rather worked on their passion and created this platform which we all writers use and abuse from time to time. But today, I want to get up close and personal here.

Sheetal, get on with the topic please.

Okay Okay, what is wrong with me? Why do I need some time off my world? Nothing. Yeah, nothing is wrong. I have people who love me, a job that pays the bill, my health is okay, I have comfortable house so whats the problem? The problem is that I have an over excited and stimulated brain. I have dreams, hope and desires. I have passion and imagination. I have thoughts that overflow from my small brain. I have vastness inside me and as I am writing this its filling up with remorse of not investing enough time, money and energy into my life. I am living my life but am I really living it?

One day last month, when I was sitting at work and was literally feeling like the walls were closing on me- I started a personal doc where I started to write the things that are actually going on inside my brain. When I started writing at that time, I was more or less numb or silent. But then slowly I started to get myself back. At that time, I made a list of 50 blogs I would want to write in future starting with ’19 things I learned in 2019‘. But I never wrote that blog. So let me use this blog as an excuse and just say it -“It was a very very bad year. Not the worst but a really bad one. It did teach me a lot of good things and few simply out of world things happened but overall its very difficult to write about that whole year. So I am not going to.”

Moving ahead. These days, I am feeling this overwhelming feeling almost at all times. Mostly because I have decided to do this big experiment with my time & skill, learn few new things which would be useful for my future and to complete all the pending tasks which are lingering on me.

In order to do this, I made a plan to give myself 90 days to complete all the pending tasks that are dancing on my head, finally invest my time and energy into the pursuits fulfilling my dreams, take care of my health and to be prepared for the next chapter of my life. But but but, the 90 days start date just would not come as I COULD NOT COMMIT. Hours and hours went in waste mode which I simply could not use to my advantage. I do have reasons for most of that. If you don’t know I am not sitting at home and chilling. I work 9 hours from Monday to Friday and I travel to and fro work for 5 hours each day. I am doing a course on weekends which takes up most of my day and I have a full time health condition which does not bother me too much but it requires my attention and time. I also have a big family, a long distance relationship, many long distance friendships and way too little time to give to everyone. I am also working on some personal projects to uplift my life. So, maybe there is too much going on or maybe I am just getting overwhelmed by the way I am looking at it.

However, I would be so wrong painting a picture of this woman who is hustling and getting things accomplished. When in reality, I feel like I am just spending time in metro , spending my days with no proper guideline and agenda, just getting over with my day as everyone around me by watching Youtube. Not that I am better than everyone around me but it sucks that I am not using my brains to its highest potential known to me. I am only waiting for that time when I will have time to do what I want to do with my time. But….

In one way I feel really great about myself and its that I am not clueless now about what I really want to do in my life as I was a few years or even months ago. Someday in future, I will enlighten you all with the process I used to learn more about my talents and passions.

Okay, I have a question: Have you been in that stage in life where you are going through a major change? You know like when you are in between jobs ..that kind of stage? I am in that zone. And no I am not in between jobs but my life is going through a change and that’s for future blogs. But my question here is– what is the best thing to do when you know that life is going to change?Maybe just staying chill at that time is the right attitude? I mean what you have now may or may not be useful in next job and you will have to go through a lot of change so why waste time doing something that might not last in future? Its the logical way of thinking but voila, I never learned that way in my life. For some reason, I can not quit. If I start something then till eternity, it lingers on me. This is maybe my biggest weakness in life and also a big strength that I don’t give up, like ever.

What happened today: My system crashed. So I am working on creating a platform and trying to make a space for myself in this wide world. However,I took a challenge to do this with minimal resources and basically its my way of staying safe. But now, I am at a stage where I am conflicted between ‘should I take big challenge & risk or should I stay safe and play small’. My brain has frozen on picking a thing. I also have other pursuits that are very close to my heart. Today was the day when I finally lost it. No I did not have a breakdown, maybe a meltdown for a minutes but at that time I was only thinking – I need some time to be quiet.

As per Nie Eyal’s Indistractable – All human behavior is motivated by one thing: the avoidance of pain/escaping discomfort.

This is so damn right. Bang on Nir. I can certainly speak for myself atleast. When I have too much on my plate then what do I do? I check out, my brain finds excuses to not look at that plate rather procrastinate looking at it for another day. And my brain is awesome at it. What do you think. Any thoughts on this?

So, I am in this ‘not here’ ‘not there’ stage and I am conflicted in my mind. I have given myself a deadline for the 90 days challenge from 1st March 2020. In this I have tens and thousands of things that I want to work on so basically I have about 6 days to give structure to my 90 days challenge and pick only THE MOST IMPORTANT things to do out of the lot. I am positive about it. You know why? Because I never give up.

What about you? Are you wasting your time in distractions to avoid a pain point in life? What are your ideas to avoid this and stay focussed?

I would be thrilled if you also came along in my 90 days challenge. Will you?