Is there something bothering you? Something that you don't seem to be able to take your mind off. First things first, Welcome to adulthood. NoNo, there is no escaping it now. It might be your country's future, your failing dreams, bad relationship, unbearable job, being overweight or successful peers-it can be anything, but if it has been bothering you then you have indeed grown up. The bliss of selective memory of childhood that also works on principles of trivial preferences, and is oblivious to big terms like ego, self respect, demean and helplessness is gone. Now you have learnt to remember and mull over things. You have learnt to base things you do on likes and dislikes. You have learnt the concept of trying to make a difference while common existence and being just happy and merry doesn't suffice anymore. You have arrived to the concept of making a difference- to your life or to the world, and you have arrived to the concept of existentialism. You have learnt to judge and tag and label and introspect and form an opinion. Poof. Happy days are over.
When I was a child, all I wanted to do was to grow up. That seemed so cool to be able to decide what you can do all by yourself. Go out unsupervised, choose what to eat, where to go, what to wear...and most importantly-no homework! Oh what a fool. How come its so obvious to see and tell that people are agitated and irated but a child's eye can't see it at all. A child can't see all the faces in crowd who carry dark shadow of lingering thoughts in their head which won't leave them. They do put these thoughts on hanger when they enter a bar, just before a drink, but even if you want you can't leave it when you head home. So here it is-how to kill what's killing you:
Escapism (See I am facing north, how do I see what's in south)
The good news about escapism is that you are still a child, somewhat. You still feel that closing eyes will hide you from the predator. You are blessed with the believable perception that if you choose to ignore it, things will fall in place by themselves. Actually more often then not, they do. What Escapism also helps with is over reacting and analyzing something unimportant. See, at least some good comes from it. What it can do wrong is that when biology and meaner life kicks in, you are less prepared, more messed up from the past instances and a novice, inexperienced graduate looking for senior roles in the hierarchy. How far will only talent and no experience take you in this dirty business? To be able to find peace with escapism, one needs a level of indifferent naivete. It has its merits if you believe you can remain Alice in wonderland forever. Take a careful pick with this one. Your 'Now' will be fine.
Procrastination (Oh! I am looking at north, will look at south when I am done)
This dilly-dallying and trifling is a big viral infection. It may precede, succeed or lead to Escapism or may be unrelated. It comes from the same rationale that delaying things may take care of them itself. But it differs in how it makes you feel. While Escapism is an art and way of life which affects only once realized, procrastination is done with complete deliberation. This means it hangs on your head. You know you have been putting off something which you shouldn't. Maybe the very feeling of procrastination is bothering you more than what facing issues would. To be able to find peace with procrastination needs thicker skin and reckless guts to face the higher fucked up future you are building for yourself. Your 'Now' will be fine.
Denial ( I am looking at north, I don't know even if there is any south)
Unlike the common perception, this can really help if you are able to really convince yourself. You know, lies have a way of proving themselves by quickly sneaking in the past from future to replace the truth. This works in how you feel and not in events, so please don't start dreaming about Vanilla Sky and Eternal Sunshine of spotless mind as yet. I am talking more on lines of Pygmalion effect; in this case-when greater emphasis is put on changing the version of story about how you feel, you start believing in it. To be able to find peace with Denial, you have to be an excellent story writer of your life, so much so it feels believable.
Deception ( I like what I see in North, I don't want to see any more)
Congratulations, you may have an iota of what it takes to become Buddha. You have accepted that whatever was killing you was for the best. You become more forward-looking and solution focused. You have learnt to forgive and forget and move on. This is hard or next to impossible to achieve. Frankly, you will be a little boring kind of a person if you are this person. This is achievable though in a superficial sense. You decide that you believe so and eventually with time, things naturally start to bother you less. You've also meanwhile taken steps to address it in a non-personal, professional sort of way. To be able to find peace with deception, you need to be like Julia Roberts from Eat, Pray, Love. You have to decide that you love things and accept it with open heart. You need to be strong willed and well, little boring. Your 'Perpetual future' will be fine.
The bottom-line is, you can only be oblivious if you in fact are... you can't pretend that-In which case, you will be at peace, and the mean actual grown-up part will follow later. And if you are aware of it, then talk-to yourself or someone.This way or that... Kill it or it will keep you hanging on the autumn branch for time unknown.
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