The Modern Fable

Hide your tears behind closed doors, Such is the comfort of my home.

This quote was shared with me today by my mentor. And it was a wake-up call for me. Don't believe everything you think - Joseph Nguyen  .     .     .     .     .   In my 11th grade, I struggled a lot. My family had to shift back from Delhi because of our finances, and I was a late admission into a school in which I felt out of place. I was struggling to find a way to work towards my dream of going to study in the USA, but I knew that there was a strong possibility that it wouldn't happen because there wasn't enough financial support I had. I was stuck in my head, most of the time, because I was trying to figure out which project I could build that would be my golden ticket abroad. But the problem was that my self-discovery was going into the realm of self-indulgence, where instead of trying new things and testing them out, I was indulging in stories and patterns from my past that I was trying to make sense of so I could have an insight i...

There comes a time when your daydreams, turn to nightmares, jostled by the abrupt change to reality. Who do you turn to now. when you need to build up hope? When everyone around you, says the same old woe. You need an escape, a vision, to pull you through. How do you balance optimism and practicality, when both of them pull you towards different streets? You try but the balance tips at times, while making sure you tread, towards the vision you have. Even when at times, with little will left, You sometimes resort to go back to daydreams.

Find a love in your life, a love so strong that it can push you forward, even when the storm surrounds. A love so strong, that it gives you strength to carry on, when the struggles seem hopeless,  when pondered upon. A love so deep and true, shining like a beacon of light, revealing all the superficial rules.

These string of moments, flash by my eyes, not tethered by logic or time, but by emotions of wholeheartedness,  filling me with life. These emotions don't pull me down, like the ones I feel usually do, but fill me with strength and hope when life feels just right. Not more or less, looking for an excuse to fill with an escape, but just right. Right here and right now, for no special reason to tell, except that the people are right, and so am I. I look around and spot a ton of ways, the celebration could be grander, The decoration could have been neater, but there is no place  on the face of this earth, I would rather be. Rather than right here and right now. What is so special you might ask? Well, there are some brief glitches, in the matrix of time, when we don't live for a reason or a goal, but just for the sake of living, right here and right now. When life comes together, not to teach you a lesson, but to give you a reason, to keep carrying on. Right here and right now.

When you look back, you remember the moments you felt deeply. Not those moments when you were at an extreme end of a mood swing, but when your emotions held gravity because you recognized something in your life worth noticing. These moments may be felt consciously, like the time when I saw all my family members dancing to weird Bollywood songs I don't even remember and thought that I would miss this when eventually I packed my bags to a college I hadn't decided yet. When I hugged my brother close on his 22nd birthday, hoping that the smell of his hair might soften the reconciliation I'd have to give myself when I left town the next day. It is at these moments that we feel the urge to hold these precious moments close because we're scared of letting them go, filled with fear of losing this wholeheartedness. It is at these moments that I fully experience what Brene Brown meant when she said that joy is the most vulnerable of all emotions. We're scared to feel it, but ...