For the last few years, I have lived a very apologetic life. A lot of people might disagree with that. But I know I have. I have lived in the fear of hurting others with my actions. Lived in the thought that there is something fundamentally flawed with me. All of us are flawed in our own ways. But I took it to the extreme by believing that no one wants me to be around. That the best way for me to exist is to be silent. To disappear. Be invisible, if possible. So, every time someone tries to see me, I run away and hide in my corner. It is safer there. When I am around people, I have to listen to this constant voice inside my head saying that everyone hates me. That I am a liability. I am no fun to be around. I need to justify my existence and presence around them. Otherwise, they will reject me and I will be left all alone very soon. Choosing to be alone is a different matter because this choice comes from a place of agency. But being rejected is a horrible feeling. One that I have gone through more times than I would ever wish upon anyone else.
I have always had a distaste for authority, starting from my own home. I have never enjoyed someone giving me unsolicited advice, especially someone who does not really know who I am as a person today. I have not been able to be in the same job for more than 2 years, in the last 7 years of working in startups and non-profits. Eventually, the distaste catches up. I am grateful that I have almost always loved working with the people around me, but at some point, things come down to a judgement call and when I am not able to make that call, I feel crippled. It is in those moments I realise that I am not made to work for someone else. I am just fundamentally unable to do so, something one of my mentors had identified a long time back.
Coming from a middle-class family that has seen a lot of struggles due to money (a struggle that continues to be present today in the psyche of my family members even though our reality has changed), it is impossible to not be grateful for having a well-paying job. Truly, I am grateful for all the wonderful places I have had th chance to work at and all the incredible people I have met and learnt from. Still, that nagging voice has always been there, wispering things like "You don't belong here", "This is not you", "You cannot work with people who don't care as deeply as you do", "You need to be in charge", "They just don't get it", "Why do you have to do this".
All these years I have been fighting this voice. Reprimanding it for being too selfish, unrealistic, egoistic and ungrateful. While I am sure that all of those labels are true, at least to some extent, it does not change the fact that it is who I am. As much as I have tried to run away from my true self, I have continued to live in misery because of not embracing my true nature. However, over the last many years, thanks to social media, internet and YouTube, I also got to meet and know people who seem just like me. When I hear them talk, I can hear myself in them. Suddenly, I don't seem like a weirdo who is different from anyone else and struggles to connect with most people. Here are these people whom I can listen to for hours and whom I would like to spend a good chunk of my waking hours with. People who reasonate with me and amplify my energy. Those who charge me up. And now, only now, I am starting to see that I cannot run away from who I am. Even though I can forsee all the issues that will come from embracing my true self, I can't help but give in to it. The alternative is too painful. Not being myself, primarily to avoid the consequences that lie at the end of the road is making the journey I am curently on not worth pursuing in the first place.
Yes, I have hurt a lot of people. I continue to hurt people around me. Hopefully, much lesser now. I have also been hurt a lot. My confidence has taken a severe beating in multiple phases. But it is time to move on from the past. It is time to let it go. Of course, simply saying that won't change things overnight. It will take its time. But I know now that I need to let bygones be bygones and focus on the present. I know it sounds like a cliché but there is a reason it is a cliché. I learnt it from my mom. As I sat beside her today, I coulnd't help but wonder how she manages to remain happy all the time, despite having gone through so many difficult times with the same people who created that misery being present around her every day. Even though I like to harp about Vipassana, she is the one who has truly learnt its lesson. There is no point living in the past or in the future. We have to see the present for what it is. And if things are good today, why not be happy about it? I know it sounds like a simple idea but it can be very difficult to practice. But I have a role model to emulate that right in front of me. I hope some of her light shines on me as well. It is time to start forgiving myself for what I have done, let go of the pain I have received from others that is holding me back and focus on the love and belief that my mother and others close to me continue to shower upon me every day.