Perception, Pretense and other Pastimes

From some days, I have been doing some soul searching.

Why is life the way it is? Could it be anyway different than what it is? What are others thinking about me? How will others react to my comments? Will others like my comments? Is he pretending to be what he is? What is his ulterior motive? Will others feel about what I am going to say? I have not been in touch with X person, what will he/she feel about it? Is this a good time to get in touch with X? Will X mind that I am getting in touch after ages?

All these questions, and many more, bothered me a lot for a very long time. I was too sceptical about expressing my own opinion, which is wierd because I always propogated that one should voice his/her opinion.

But sometimes you just need some 'time-out' from your routine. That is what I wanted. I was unable to focus on work, nor on family. Effectively, making me suffer in the process. I thought if I was able to spend time with myself for a while, I could sort out my messy life.

I was experiencing the widening communcation gap between my family, friends, near and dear ones. For no fault of theirs, I was going away from them, and I didn't know what to do. I just wanted the situation and my life in general to improve. I was neither opening up to others with my problems, nor solving it myself.

Somewhere I knew that I had the solution within me. Only, I was not able to find it. I was just moving along, without making any efforts to solve the problems. I was just waiting for things to get worse before I start controlling them. In this process, I was becoming more introvert and I was just growing an impenetrable shell around me. I had cut all communications with my friends and families, but still pretended that things were all fine.

Then came a point when I was no longer able to sustain the self-developed mountain of problems. I just had to find a solution. The phase of finding a solution was very revealing.

I spoke to my family about it. They offered me a simple solution and the root of my problem was identified rightaway. My problem was, I was doing too much thinking. I used to always think of things too critically - irrespective of their degree of seriousness. I used to think of all the possible outcomes/ possible responses/ possible turn-downs. You get what I am saying? I anticipated responses/ solutions/ problem-areas/ 'their' thoughts - positive or negative, and I refrained from acting on them. Thus, there was a huge delay in 'actions'.

These had become my bottleneck - my work, my family and I was suffering from it terribly. I was not open enough to do radical things, which was again very wierd because I am known to be a radical/ creative thinker.

Having identified these 2 major bottlenecks (and this is a very recent development), I am feeling immensely relaxed. But I knew that I still had to act on them.

This time I have decided - I will act on it asap without critically over-analyzing and over-assessing things. From past few days, results have been awesome. I am discovering that all these problems were my creation. I was only 'speculating' them. And they were becoming real. And they began haunting me.

So now I take quick decisions, and act on them. Life is becoming better again! Cheers!

An example of this is: Earlier, I would think for a long time about blogging my personal thoughts and sharing it with netizens. What will they feel about my thoughts, should I share my personal thoughts with them, etc. But I didn't bother much before writing this post. :) It is important to share than to hide. Sharing helps one grow.

PS: Another thought just struck me: Beneath every problem is a solution waiting to emerge and free itself!