We are all waging a war today. No not the kind that’s keeping a part of Europe occupied. No, we are all battling a different kind of battle today. A silent battle. A brutal battle. A battle that’s gnawing at us from within. A battle that sucks away the happiness from within worse than dementors.
A battle where there’s only one perpetrator and victim – I, me, myself.
We are constantly at war within ourselves. An ensuing battle in our minds. A darkness like no other where there is no light in sight. We are in constant conflict with ourselves. We have a lot of things going for us in the world, but the mind is in a different orbit altogether.
If we are in a plush corporate job, we desperately seek the thrill of entrepreneurship. If we are a founder we charge towards that unicorn status at all costs or are regretting leaving the plush comfort of a corporate job.
If we are single we crave the comfort of coming home to someone’s arms. If we are married, we spew hate and can’t wait for a chance to break away and get our freedom back.
If we are new parents, we await the luxury of a good night’s sleep. If we are trying hard to conceive, we yearn for that chaos and disrupt what we have today.
If we don’t have enough wealth, we seek the security and freedom that comes from having enough savings. If we have enough savings, we fret about losing it all or not having as much as that other person we are always trying to match up to.
If our business is thriving we crave slowness and quiet. If our businesses plateau in a lean period we get completely insecure and question our very existence and worth.
If we are under duress or disease we long for perfect health and a pain-free body. If we have a pain-free body we find something else to worry about.
If we’ve arrived and achieved the pinnacle of our success we are questioning if this is it. If we’re striving hard and are yet to arrive we constantly second guess ourselves or keep comparing our journies resenting other’s progress or our lack of it.
We call this constant churn and misery life… but where is the life in our days? Where is life when we are constantly in our heads fighting an imaginary tug of war with no opponents or winners?
When we get exhausted with this mental game to nowhere we immerse ourselves in the myriad choices of distraction offered in our internet-powered era. We binge-watch, doom scroll, or intoxicate ourselves till we are numb to our very core.
Is this it? Is this life? Were all the poets and mystics who praise life and its eternal glory simply deluded? Or are we? Caught in these petty material illusory web.
Because we all remember once upon a time. An evergreen era where things were not so bleak. A time when we were so sensitive to the world around us that we felt everything deeply – be it joy or sadness. A time when we could laugh from our very core so much so our insides hurt. A time when joy was boundless and needed no reason. A time when fulfilment came naturally because we were seldom left wanting. A time when we extended love, kindness, and compassion to all including ourselves because we had an unlimited supply of it. A time when we skipped a step in our walk just because we felt like it. A time where there was no yesterday or tomorrow, just here and now.
Our childhood.
Somewhere along growing up and learning to be an adult and survive, we deluded ourselves to believe that was make-believe. This war is real life. Or did we get it right the first time around?
