Tag: adulthood

Pick your battles

HarkrishanLeave a comment

Have you ever been in the shower or on your commute and imagined having a perfect argument? One where you make such sound and perfect arguments that the other person is struck speechless. For any young readers, I mean an argument that would be unanimously declared “savage” by your peers.

Well, I’ve done those before. Day dreamed of that perfect combination of words that change minds, moods and mindsets.

Sadly, I must inform you that those are only dreams. Reality is not the flavour you expect it to be. As I grow up, I find that I wake up with a finite and often startlingly little amount of energy. This is spent on dogs, work, conversations, reminding myself I don’t need more tech (for now) and finally, time with loved ones. The last one is what I try and save most of it for, to be honest.

Now, on any given day there’s quite a few opportunities for me to engage in ‘winnable” situations – mostly things like what show to watch, or whether we should watch the new Deadpool movie, do the dogs need another accessory, do we really need to go to that dinner. The more serious ones I won’t name but all relationships suffer from those moments where the other takes a position that you don’t agree with.

The more serious moments can be frustrating. In my experience, those moments where someone cannot share your viewpoint is like standing at the edge of steep hill when you cannot see the bottom.

You can jump into a conversation or you can walk away.

I’ve known both kinds of people. Those who rarely engage and those who have commandeered entire meals to make sure they prove their viewpoint to be the only one worth having.

Honestly, you gotta pick your battles.

I respect someone who stands up for what they believe in, but when the food is getting cold and you’ve scrolled most of Netflix trying not to watch what your partner wants to watch – that battle is no longer worth winning. Put on their movie and eat your dinner. You’ll be done in ten minutes, anyways.

It is the naive mindset that tries to win every situation because their worth is linked to how correct everyone else thinks they are. Or yet worse, it is linked to how wrong they can prove others.

To know when it is not worth it, is a skill I hope you all work on. To spare yourself the effort of explaining yourself to one who will not understand. Avoid wielding logic in a situation spurned by emotion. Run from those who sink low to win, lest you find yourself sinking lower. And in the face of blatant ignorance and blind belief, nod or better yet, stay silent. To avoid starting some battles, is a victory in itself, I have learned.

In many ways, I link this to self-care. Care about your self enough to know when to engage, when to step back and if you’re like me, when to send a long letter explaining how you feel so you can’t be interrupted by those incapable of listening.

In no time, we’ll all end up veterans of those small everyday battles. Scarred from the wrong ones, glad for the right ones, and happy about the times we picked peace over pride.

What say you

HarkrishanLeave a comment

Most days I can sum up my existence as how I respond to what happens.

And it’s fairly straightforward sometimes – smile when I see my dogs, laugh when my wife is being goofy, nervous when work is super busy and excited on Friday evenings for the weekend.

I suppose those are your basic responses to recurring events.

But then there’s the more complicated happenings of the world, which require responses beyond the usual or logical. Like when a friend breaks your heart. Or you discover a deep anxiety that leaves you scrambling. Or during friction in relationships caused by two people just being different.

These are the big leagues. And your responses become important. They determine the future of a relationship with someone else. And often, affect your relationship with yourself.

Responses in these situations are not just verbal. But your actions, inaction, silence or, if you are of the sort, your volume; all count as responses.

So what do you say? Or as they once put it – what say you?

I’m obviously not going to provide a one answer solution to all earthly situations.

But I suppose we could consider what a response needs. Let’s start simple – thought. We need to think about what we say before we say it. Words like many stores, have a no-return policy. You are much better off taking time to think or better yet, asking for time to think about your response. If your response is to a person, it shows you care enough about them to consider your words. 

A second important one would be – truth. Will you be honest or will you lie? I’ll leave this one alone, as grey areas are highly situational. But truth is preferable, I am told by many.

While there’s many things to consider, I’ll cap it at three – perspective. Try to think from many sides. Other shoes can be too small or too big, and you don’t need to walk a mile. But try them on for a moment, just to see what it looks like for them.

Okay this one is too important to miss – so I’ll leave it at four. Values. I sincerely hope you are someone with values, some sort of a code. Not complicated, but important I’ve found. Like an inner compass. Your responses to what life throws at you, have to align with who you are as a person. I guess this can be summed up as – be yourself. I say this in the hopes you are a good person, so this one is on you.

I feel like I’ve gone deeper than usual, but I’m finding my way back to writing, so take what you will and leave the rest ^^

In closing, I’ll say this. Whatever you do or say, sometimes it may feel like it won’t matter. And yeah, if the sun explodes later today, I suppose it won’t. But until that time, as you and I live our lives, we do so holding hands with the consequences of our actions. It’s not about always doing or saying the correct thing. That’s unrealistic.

No, it’s about who you choose to be everyday. And how every decision, weaves the fabric of you!

Meant to be

Harkrishan1 Comment

When I look back at how I’ve changed, sometimes it’s hard to look beyond what I’ve lost since then. University, believe it or not, was a time of hope for me. It was a time of possibility and despite living in a small city, nothing felt out of grasp. I did everything I wanted to. 

Now don’t go expecting my list of things to stagger you, but I used to leave the house on a whim but have no idea where I was headed, just to clear my head. I would call a friend I hadn’t heard from in a few days. I would walk all the way to a bridge just so I could read by the water for an hour or so. And I took great advantage of discounts on beer at a nearby roadhouse. 

I took a chance on people, made friends, had some fallouts and every day, I took the bus to school with a different mood. I walked the same trail with about six people on different occasions because it was the only one I could walk to from my house never having owned a car. I read so much and I don’t mean school readings. These were more self-assigned, if you catch my drift. I used to work on my mental health through some intermittent counselling when I needed to screw my head on straight.

And I spoke. I was part of a Toastmasters club and I like to think that I spoke my heart out.

But so much has changed now and to highlight all the ways in which I abandoned the person I used would make for painful writing. Like most of you, I’ve picked up a few demons along the path to adulthood. They might be the same ones you have. I dread Mondays. I worry about money. I haven’t finished a book in weeks. And my writing has been scattered, to say the least. And I go on a walk by myself maybe once in a fortnight and there haven’t been many bridges.

It all sounds so bleak, and I’ll be honest, it feels that way too. To leave some parts of you behind and wonder if they were the best parts of you.

“You do what you have to do, so you can do what you want to do” – is perhaps a sound description of adulthood. But a fatal flaw I’ve found is that doing what I have to do leaves me so tired and aching that I no longer spend much time doing what I want to do.

But I thought of an exercise where I would ask that person I stopped being for advice. And channeling myself from a different, possibly pre-covid age, I would reply – “Of the many things we do, there are some that we are truly meant to do. Our selves are sewn into the fabric of existence because some books need reading, some paths need walking and some people need believing in. There is no grand purpose, except the one where you find your way back to doing the things you were always meant to do. And should you stray from these acts, you recognize that you are lost and try to find your way back. Try and try again because being yourself is and will always be your most important act on Earth”

Despite the changes I’ve made in adulthood, that past-self still exists within me. Unburdened by everything I carry now, he had had some life changing advice under his sleeve. He just didn’t know he’d need to give it to himself down the road.

It is no longer as easy to walk to a bridge and read. But I will try. And when I find a bridge I will sit by the water and read. And passers-by will see a bearded young man reading by the water and have no idea that they are looking at a small part of the universe correcting itself to what it was always meant to be.