Embracing Uncertainty

I was down there, on my bathroom floor, sobbing. I have done so before for legit reasons but this was the first time I didn’t know the reason. It was just a burst out of an amalgamation of many emotions at once.

Usually, I don’t share feelings. I write out to myself, cry and get done with. This is how I have grown. This is how I have lived. But each time I have dealt with something this way in the past, I was certain of what I am feeling, and what it was that I was dealing with.

But a few days back, I was sobbing in the bathroom without a clue. Only to realize after hours of being there, it was just ‘adulting’!

Last April I got done with my graduation and from then life has been nothing but chaos. I had a fun vacation to Manali and Ladakh in May. The following June I trekked every weekend to the Sahydaris. After which my mom retired from her first job after working there for 37 years and I managed to land upon my first job ever.

I didn’t think much at all. I just went with the flow. The May trips were pre-planned nothing after that. I took up a job because I had zero clarity about if I wished to do masters and if yes in what field. Luckily, with the soul-sucking job I managed to deal for eight months made me realize that yes, I should surely do further studying and am not so ready to be strangled in the work cycle yet.

It is easy to write down the above paragraph today, but living the last year of my life wasn’t so. I am the kind of person who loves to plan and wishes to follow them. If you know Monica from FRIENDS and how she loves rules and discipline, I relate to that side of her. And now imagine going through such chaos about masters, about doing a job etc.

The May trips made me write to me that I shall try to visit the Himalayas once a year at least. The treks after that helped me understand that I can’t stay away from the Sahyadris. Mom’s retirement made me grow closer to her. My first job molded me in many ways.

I faced my first failure at my first job. I dealt with a horrible workspace and a relatively dizzy boss. But this job and people I met helped me getting regular with my craft as I began blogging weekly.

So the chaos that I went through, lead to something good. Now I am dealing with a different set of uncertainty altogether. Earlier the uncertainty was whether masters or working. Now it is more like, what if after doing this master I figure this is not what I want, what if this is a wrong decision? What if I waste years of my life?

Unknowingly, in the past year, I embraced the uncertainty and started blogging weekly, realized my love for writing and traveling. And this is my hope to embrace all these thoughts in my head right now, the reason I sobbed, the uncertainty about the master, the fear of failure again.

I am embracing all these thoughts, all this uncertainty, in hope that it will turn out to be good, it will all sort out and fit in.

I don’t know in what phase of life you are right now, and what is it that you are dealing with. I just penned down a bit of what I faced and am facing and how I am dealing with it. If nothing I hope you take from this that there is no escape from the chaos and embracing the uncertainty without giving up is the only way forward.

July 20, 2018

Flashback – Dec’16

“When asked the question, who in the class can sing? All the hands in the kinder-garden would go up! But as the same question is being asked in classes higher up till class 10, slowly numbers of hands go down. Why? As we grow up we don’t say yes, we understand our comfort zone and dwell in it. It is important to try new things and broadening the comfort zone!”

This is the story Sir narrated as we reached Apsara Vihar-a scenic view point in Madhya Pradesh last December as part of college Nature Club Camp. He then asked us to take out the colour pencils he gave and draw the scene. Obediently we all drew. My drawing looked more like a zombie girl trying to save her life from some scary triangles (supposed to be mountains) but that was the point, to try something new! I drew and I also penned my first poem. It was a beautiful feeling!

Last December I was a third year media student. At the back of my mind were questions of what next? Questions about future to which I didn’t have answers or knew where to find them. But then, I met Tejal Ma’am on the camp and one simple morning conversation with her made me relax about all those back-end questions!

You are a professional architect, what makes you still roll in for these part time courses in so many varied fields?

IMG_20171209_165849346-01 — A glimpse of my travel book

“At the end it all connects.

Even if it doesn’t make you happy, it shall give you experience.

It is also good to know what you don’t like!” are earnest pointers of her well explained reply.

This December, when I am half year ahead of being a graduate and actually living the most chaotic stage in life, it all connects to this conversation with Tejal Ma’am last year.

I have a job in hand, a course in mind and uncertainty about what to do now and in future dwelling within me. Things at my first job haven’t made me happy, they have made me sure of what I don’t like and hey, overall definitely given me an experience! It also calms me down to think that the new job I am doing now will connect to what I’ll do in future.

Last December Camp’s flashback has to talk about this one night I opened up about what exactly I feel about the people who matter the most to me. This night’s conversation helped me this entire year to deal with emotions better. Yes, I spoke about family, friends, etc with Tejal Ma’am and Anish Cheata (the star from My First Snow Trek blog.) The mantra that I received from the conversation which helped me survive this year was-

“Observe, grasp it all in, the entire situation with your loved one.

Feeling: try to analyse what exactly you feel about the situation/equation with the person.

Need, try to understand what you need from the person

Request, attempt to politely get it”

In more than one situation and in varied ways, I did use this formula and had a better emotional journey this year. This formula might sound vague, unrealistic perhaps. But if you are in an emotional situation with a person, or ever wish to deal a relation with your close one better, try to apply it then, and I am sure, at that point, this would be helpful.

I am glad that year was beautiful emotionally and definitely feels stronger at heart. Keeping the ‘say yes to life’ principle in mind, I wrote poetry all year long and also managed to get courage by end to design them up for Instagram. I promised myself and managed to travel more this year. Bonus, made a travel book as well!

The Flashback series will give a glimpse of this year in varied ways. I hope you like this last series of 2017 and get something to take back from each post in the series too.

December 9, 2017

My first job

What are your favorite childhood memories? I popped this question to few of my friends to receive a different range of answers. I was going to work over these answers, write something but then my first job happened.

My interview was smooth; it lasted a day almost as if I worked there that day too. The first time I ever cleared an interview was for junior kg school when I was hardly 4. My mother was the happiest person then and so was she now. That time the happiness was for my education, this time it was purely for the new stage in my life that this job would bring in.

‘You were a confident little girl, who spoke well and answered everything asked’ recalls my mother. I was worn out of just interviewing and had made my head for this job. I repeated this line of being confident and speaking well and did it, I got my first job.

‘The best part was you preparing for the new academic year. You would ask me to get your books in May and read a few chapters before the school begin in June, you loved to be prepared for what’s coming up,’ she added.

I don’t think I have changed. The reason why I liked to read and be prepared was because I didn’t like to take the change of an academic year in a rush. Any change at once makes me uneasy. I wished to do my masters and my results got delayed and couldn’t get through the admission process in time. To get out of the unpleasant uncertainty of what to do since I have missed a year, I got myself this job.

‘The unsaid rule was to not hit anyone while playing, I would daily love to it hit at least someone on the road or in the opposite team and then run away,’ remembers a college friend as one of his fondest memory as a kid. Breaking rules is always a different kind of pleasure, be it said or unsaid. ‘I was a disobedient child, I took five to seven years of my life to become a good obedient one,’ adds the same friend.

My first job demands me to follow certain rules, most are bizarre and I think only a handful make sense. I feel like to rebel and be that disobedient child my school friend spoke of. He took five years to get on track, I am sure I won’t do this job that long, but hopefully get adjusted to the bizarre rules soon.

‘I miss the school routine, waking up, dressing up, eating breakfast, and walking to school’ a school friend recalls as her fond childhood memory.

My first job routine isn’t pleasant at all. I am trying to get adjusted to it. The work is yet to begin and we are being trained still. I kind of am expected to learn everything for this job in about few weeks and set it in my routine. It looks difficult but not impossible. I’ll be hopeful that I get my head trained for this job and be okay with the routine soon.

‘The classmates I had fun with, the neighbor kids I played with, I miss them all. The memories of all the games we played, festivals we celebrated have a special place in my heart’ states a friend about his childhood.

I feel the same like this friend does above, about the people I am working with. There is a girl I spent the entire interview routine with and by the end we both cleared it. Two more recently recruited boys join our training session. We are all almost same age group and share some beautiful moments training together. Overall the place we work is pretty sad but being with each other makes it easier and tolerable.

Be it any kind of uncertainty or about the first job like mine, embrace it to unravel all possibilities, like you did as a kid.

September 10, 2017