Revealing It All
I was talking to someone yesterday about the fact that I reveal so much about myself on this blog for the whole wide world to read. It may feel like a trap to have others know about your true feelings, but it is actually a very freeing feeling.
I worry though. I worry sometimes that people in the Indian community will talk about my confession that I have a mental illness, bipolar disorder. I wonder if the Indian community talks about the fact that I'm 43 and unmarried with no children.
Do people think I'm an old maid? The real question is, what do I think? The truth is I haven't been in a place where it would be good for me to get married until recently. I want to get married, and maybe even adopt children.
But it's not because I want to fit in or be normal. It's mostly because I think that will make me happier. I'm after happiness, not social status. I would have married the first guy who proposed to me if I was looking for just security and normalcy.
I'm searching, as many people are, for something deeper in life. I notice the fact that as the saying goes, most people live lives of quiet desperation. Most of the world is full of people who are unfulfilled in many ways.
I'm not saying that I have found the answer to that emptiness. I am simply stating that I am aware of it and looking to fill my cup. I only want to share my life when my cup overflows and I can help fill someone else's cup.
We are all going around judging other people, and not really looking in the mirror. Sometimes I look at people who have young children and think how lucky I am to have this time to care for myself. However, how lucky they are to have someone else to care for.
There really is no good or bad, or right or wrong, only our judgment of a thing. I know for me personally I like to judge other people in order to feel better about myself. But it's just a farce. It does not help in the end. The truth is right here. The truth is I don't know anymore about life than anyone else does.
If you are striving to be normal and secure, then good for you. That is your way. My way is not a better way but a different one. We are not competing with other people in our lives, we are competing with our demons, our fears, our anxieties, our depression. We are only in competition with ourselves.
I may think it is better to do a job you feel passionate about than do a job simply for money. However, many people are just working to survive. I have the luxury of loving my work, I have the luxury of not being a slave to the man. People who work simply to get a paycheck are not doing anything wrong, they see their security as the primary thing in their lives.
I have the option, the privilege, of doing a job that I love doing because most of my financial needs are met at the moment. But I also chose not to become a corporate lawyer because I knew that would make me unhappy. I may have become very rich if I did this. But I value my contentment more than money.
It's OK to value money. Not everyone has enough. What we value in life is ours alone to contend with. No one else has the right to judge us for not wanting other people's values.
I value a more esoteric and nebulous thing in life. The thing I value the most is happiness. But do I even know that means? Sometimes happiness for me means making myself do things that don't make me happy
For instance, I woke up and did not want to write this. I wanted to do anything but write. But I am doing this because in the long run, for the rest of the day, and days after, and years after, this is going to make me happy. Happy does not always seem happy. We have to do a lot of things that make us unhappy to get to true happiness.
But what is true happiness? Maybe it is being at peace with who you are and what you have. Maybe it is also love, pure unobstructed, passionate love. Love for other people, love for our work, or even love for life itself.
I don't write because I have something to say that no one has ever said before or something that no one could ever think. I do have original thoughts, but everyone does. I write because I need to express myself. I need to create. I need to communicate who I really am.
Why do you do what you do? Whatever your reasons, whatever your path, just know that loving the journey is more important than getting to a particular place. The place we are all headed is death. We are not doing all this for the outcome of death, we are doing all of this stuff in order to enjoy ourselves on the way to death.
And who knows, perhaps death is not all it's cracked up to be. Maybe it isn't horrible and sad. Maybe it is freedom. Maybe it is peace. Maybe we are looking for peace on the way to final peace.
I don't think death is sad, and I don't think life is sad. I think we are sad. And I often wonder why. Why are we all on anti-depressants? Why are we so upset with our lives and the world around us?
I think it is because we are not really living in this moment, in this life. We are living in a life we once had, or a life we want. What about now? Can we live right now with all that we have or don't have, all that we are or all that we are not?
I am not the person that I want to be, yet. But that does not mean I'm half alive, half cooked, or half a person. I need to appreciate now, what I have done so far and who I am up to this point. Yes, I can be better, but until then I must love all that I am.
And the reason again, that I reveal who I am in my writing is because all that I am is something I want to share. I want you to know who I am. It helps me understand who I am myself.
I don't write to tell you what I know. I write in order to find out what I know. I write to explore. I live to explore. This life is an adventure. You can announce to the world who you are, or just keep quiet. Either way is not right or wrong.
You choose to be happy or choose to be upset. Whatever way you are, you are. I don't have the right to judge you for not living life the way I want you to live it.
So don't judge me. I tell you these things in the interest of communication and sharing myself. Don't abuse that by making assumptions and judgments about me.
I won't do the same for you.
nina