On patience and roots {+ Some thoughts on being 28. Or twenty-something}

A big part of what influences us all as we grow up is the influence that our immediate surrounding has on us. For the most part, this immediate surrounding comprises of our parents and friends. My parents have naturally had, what I feel, the strongest influence on me. As a daughter of an earnest man, an oncologist who strived hard to establish himself, and a lovely, patient mother with a love for language and books, I found a wonderful balance between the two. I grew to love the art of medicine as a little girl, alongside William Wordsworth poems, learning to enjoy the rain and not to live by the ticking of the clock. My career decisions were distilled from long conversations with my mother as a teenager. She has the patience of a rock and the wisdom of a hundred saints, and I owe all of who I am to her. The flip side to patience is that sometimes, you do not know where to draw the line and you end up tolerating what you shouldn't but I admit - patience is a hard thing to inculcate, but it a huge strength to have. In a world where everything is finite and defined by the clock or the calendar, including our lives, it can be quite hard to remember what patience feels like.


Many twenty-somethings are in an existential crisis.

It is almost a need to be somewhere before it escapes us, fulfill something before we run out of gas, a race against time like there isn't enough. Not too long ago, I went through an existential crisis. Just like every twenty-something, I wasn't sure about what I wanted from life. I started flowing with the current of competition, trying my best to be seen, to be heard, to date, to do more, to achieve more, to have more, to travel as many places as I could as soon as I could - however, what I sensed inside me was an immense amount of resistance to this. There was a part of me that sensed that something was clearly wrong, and my homeostasis was muddy. I needed to get a hold of this situation. Why was I running with the crowd when I'd heard a distant drummer all my life ? Some call it the spirit, some call it the emotional GPS, or the guidance - what I did feel was that my guidance had left me bare open to the fact that I was trying to do something that was not "me". I was trying to wind things up, move faster, rush, compete - and this was so far away from the patience I loved and worshipped as a child and a teenager, this was so far away from the peaceful life I dreamt of, the people whose lives I want to touch, the small cottage I want to live in, always being around the friends and family that I want to remain close to; the slower, lesser, simpler life that I craved was slipping away as I got caught up in a world of competition.

Credit : Brene Brown

I was that at a point of disconnect, and the only way I found to move closer to myself was to prioritize myself.

I started putting my career ahead of everything. While my dream is to enjoy what I do for a living, to have a wonderful man for a husband, to be his rock, to raise children who will be a blessing to this planet, I realized I don't need to speed things up, I dont need to be married now. I don't need to have a ring around my finger or a million dollar home I can call mine, and if that's what defines how successful one is, then I'd rather run the risk of being an underdog.

I don't want to treat my life as a checklist. And the same goes for you. Don't run behind a job that pays for your billion dollar mortgage for your home in Beverly Hills but works you like a slave. Wouldn't you rather be with the man or woman you love and spend time with your children in a quiet corner of the world doing what makes your heart light ? Wouldn't you rather teach your children he most valuable lessons - happiness and contentment ? We don't need to do something because everyone does it or when others do it. Even as I say this, there's a big part of my conditioned mind that tells me that the clock is ticking.

Why a sense of the clock ticking ?

As mortals, we have a constant fear of missing out. Brene Brown calls it "FOMO" in her books, 'Daring greatly' and 'Rising strong'. Human beings are subject to constant criticism when they miss out on what is perceived by a majority as successful. They are seen as flawed, as inefficient, as unable to keep up. Then there's the fear of not being able to keep up - so on and so forth, and in the process of a million judgements we lose track of where we come from.

Credit : Brene Brown, author of "daring greatly" and "rising strong"

So is success the acquisition of what the world thinks or the lack thereof ?

To define your success by someone else's definition, or the world's definition, is the surest way to be dissatisfied. Does it even make sense to define your success through someone else's definition? It's hard to define success, but if you can relate it to how content you are, you're not far away from the truth. While striving to be better, do better, let's strive to be better than none but the version of ourselves from yesterday.

Career, friendships, relationships, marriage and children are the most meaningful and beautiful things to happen to us. They are what we create, they are what we put our hearts into, they are what we allow to define us. How dynamic these things are in our world, depends on how dynamic we make them. They blossom with patience.

Wait for whatever it is that makes you know 'this is it'. I promise you, that FOMO is not even real. How young you are when you buy your first house is not a measure of how happy you are. That you did something better than someone else is no way to measure your worth. I promise there's more happiness in holding someone's hand when you tell them that you'll be there for them, there's more contentment in time spent with your parents, among children and older people and playing with your dog than there ever can be in scrambling your way up a ladder that is completely imaginary. Wondering who had the fancier vacation, defeats the very purpose of a a vacation. That you should have a 'someone significant' right here, right now because your best friend is married is no way to live life. It's okay if you're still getting there. It's okay if you're not getting there, if you're nowhere close. Find the career that is right for you, that you love, one that loves you back and treats you well. Patience and love will make you vulnerable, but base your friendships and relationships on them, please. Let your guard down. Let that guy know you want things to work, let that girl know that you'll do what it takes to keep her. If your job takes you three continents and four oceans away from home, so be it. If life is really short, it's only too short to worry about the what ifs or how the world lives. If there's anything you want to win against, win against fear. You'll be better off for it.

Wishing you so much love and goodness ♥︎

Aarthi

What happens when friends fall in love with each other AKA Koy-no-yokan [+ some thoughts on loss, vulnerability & finding ourselves]

You're friends with someone. For years. What happens when friends fall in love with each other ?

You've known her for years. She's a friend of a friend you became good friends with, the girl you've always wanted to get closer to.
He's the guy you've always wondered what it would be like to be in love with. You know there's familiarity in his arms, but you never tried or gave it a thought, till now.
She dated other people. He dated other people. You had your friendship going.
You spoke to him from time to time. You love the way he thinks.
You love her pictures, they make you smile. You love how she tells you little things about her life.

An occasional thought crossed your mind "He's a nice guy, but..." But, so many things.
But he has different plans, our futures are different. But he probably likes someone. But we probably don't want similar things; are all the thoughts that go through your mind.

You've felt too unprepared o think of a future. Too young. A fleeting thought, one that makes you jump, crosses your mind. "She's wonderful. I wonder what it would be like to have a family with her. But..." The question never arose as to how.  But she probably likes someone more available and closer. But maybe her goals are different and we are different people; are all the thoughts your mind throws at you.

The thought still made you jump.

What happens when friends fall in love with each other ? I don't know.

Right from Don Miguel Ruiz who says "Your mind is dreaming all the time, whether you are awake or asleep and that's all the mind does." to Paulo Coelho who says "And when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.", we live on the "edge of desire" like John Mayer sings. We live in the midst of the swing of a pendulum. Sometimes on the edge, sometimes smack in the middle of it. Contrasting ideas, wise people. Miguel Ruiz and Paulo Coelho state their own truths in very different words and ways, to convey how very uncertain life is.

Ideas and illustrations by yours truly

What happens when you get deeper insight into uncertainty ? What happens when you become vulnerable ? What happens when you love, when you are uncertain about the outcome ?

What I do know is that the certainty of a concrete, existing relationship of any kind might as well be replaced with the uncertainty of a relationship that isn't quite one. We think certainty and uncertainty are at opposite ends of the spectrum, but they are not. There is quite an overlap and coexistence between the two. Certainty is what try to we create - it's against the current. Uncertainty on the other hand, is something we all must get used to. We change with the minute, the moment. We create relationships. We give those relationships meanings. We draw a future in our minds with if's and then's. We end relationships. We create new ones.

I know I fell in love a few years ago and it was with a guy who loved me a lot. A friend of mine saw my picture with him from my final year in med school and said to me that he saw "love" in my eyes, in my smile. I smiled, because I knew it was true. I was in love with life, with myself, with my boyfriend. We called it a relationship. We were together for four years and spoke about a future. We traveled together, we studied together, we went to college together, started a non-profit together, listened to music, enjoyed similar interests, and it was beautiful. It was certain that we spoke about a future, but it came apart over a seemingly short span of time.

Were we scared ? What scared us ? Commitment ? The lack of it ? Youth ? Expectations ? Or the lack thereof ? Did we grow apart ? Did we want similar things before and different things now ? I could never figure. This wasn't heartbreak for me. I moved on from this relationship.

Ideas and illustrations by yours truly

The real heartbreak came when I fell in love with someone who wasn't sure about anything - his life, his present, his future or his feelings. I allowed myself to be in a relationship that made me feel a total loss of value for myself. We only experience what we allow ourselves to experience, and the mind is pretty good at telling itself lies about a hundred reasons you should be stuck in a relationship that fails to serve you. I never realized till recently that there would come a day when I could objectively talk about it.

This experience in my life was so important, because it taught me everything I know about love and myself. I learned that we have been taught to feel ashamed of vulnerability. We recognize the feeling of vulnerability here - being the one to declare love, as a weakness. We refuse to own it, we feel pain when we talk about the sense of loss in uncertainty we felt or a lack of what we perceive as reciprocation. We refuse to own it, not because it defines us - but because we let it define us, we let it define our worth. We disown parts of us that remind us of our vulnerability, little realizing that powerlessness lies in denial of our story. My friends have asked me if ever we can get over longing and heartbreak - the way I see it, 'longing' can in these situations, prolong suffering and prevent us from wholly starting our lives with something new and beautiful. While it's true that rejection can hurt, I will tell you for sure something that is the absolute truth and not a consolation of any kind - it is really not so much a loss for you as you think it might be. When you value yourself you will do whatever it takes to find your power back and be happy again, by the time you have learned what you need to learn about yourself and get to being a very valuable, happy version of yourself, you will not want that person anymore. Chances are, you may never want them again. We always want a reflection of what's going on inside us - and if it's worth and value we feel inside, then that's we seek and find. If didn't receive those in a relationship with someone, it's unlikely that we feel attracted to that person anymore when we recover our sense of worthiness and belonging. It's ironic but it's the hard truth, and I can testify to this.

After much insight into my own reactions and emotions, and plenty of reading and reflecting on my own relationships, I realized that certainty and uncertainty overlap tremendously; that time is a factor in everything, that the only thing differentiating between them is our perspective.

Ideas and illustrations by yours truly

What had seemed certain in my life at one point ended, and a fairly uncertain relationship made me gravitate with certainty and clarity towards things I wanted to see in my life partner - a rooted person, someone who works hard and sees the little joys of life, who wants a lot from their life, someone who is honest, intelligent, who believes they are worthy of love and belonging. I recognized that these are the qualities I love in myself and hence they are the very qualities I would also love in the opposite person. Heartbreak brings earth shattering reality and clarity to our minds and hearts and gives birth to us as a fresh blossom.

What love will turn out to be, is unpredictable. It is a different experience for each one of us and try as we may, we can never know the experience of another, we can only know our own. What it is therefore, is perspective.

What changes when friends fall in love with each other ? Perspective. Perspective changes expectations, behavior, feelings toward ourselves. And what you perceived with an objective mind and heart when you were just friends, you now see through rose-tinted glasses. To begin with, it's never them, it's you.

What I also know is that I can fall in love again. Bigger and deeper. With the wisdom that it is okay to love and let be. The certainty of a "relationship" cannot be guaranteed and the uncertainty of what isn't a "relationship" cannot be guaranteed.

Uncertainty, change, keeping our hearts open, wanting to give someone our love - these are inevitable once you blossom. These feelings are what vulnerability is made of. And as Brene Brown beautifully writes, this vulnerability is the birthplace for love, happiness, belonging, creativity, human connection, potential relationships. It is also the birthplace for fears, shame, confusion, questioning, doubt. I wouldn't bet by certainty, but I would boldly say that if you can learn to live happily and lean into that uncertainty, you will inevitably end up with joy and love.

Vulnerability in love is a lot of yin and yang. You risk not having reciprocation, but you also have a big, beautiful chance at the experience of love and human connection.

Now for the really, really beautiful part.

I can tell you that someday you may discover this sense of Koi no yokan. I recently came across this Japanese term, which really has no good substitute in English but I can tell you that it's a familiar instinct, an inner knowing.

It might happen with someone you just met. With a stranger. And what's scary is, it might happen with someone you've known for a long time - with a friend. What happens when friends fall in love with each other ? I don't know.

I'm a sucker for all things magic. I will tell you that rum in your coffee is crazy but it tastes great. I will tell you that you do infact receive what you truly believe in, provided it serves your higher good. I think love is scary, but I also think it's phenomenal - I wish you experience all of the beauty that life has to offer.

Much love + many hugs ♥︎
Aarthi

What are thoughts? [A.K.A. Why love starts from within + Some thoughts on what it means to find ourselves]

I sat in my car for a long time this evening, in the parking lot thinking to myself what had made this day remarkably different. I could hear myself think in the quiet warmth of my car as it snowed outside. I couldn't tell if it was the most beautiful snow I've seen or if it was the most moving conversation I've had about post traumatic growth earlier today with my boss or whether it was about hearing from a friend about how she is doing really well taking it one day at a time through a difficult time in her life. I could tell it's a beautiful day, but that's not what was overwhelming me.

"I learned the most beautiful thing today - the power of human resilience." I texted my friend.

I spent some time today recreating Lynda Barry's sketch on 'What are thoughts?'

'What are thoughts ?' the question echoed ironically in my mind as I had a realization that the question itself was a thought. Before I dizzied into an inception (dream in a dream syndrome), I quickly went back to the question. 'Why do people go through situations that demand depression and post traumatic stress?'

What are thoughts?

Thoughts are everything. Thoughts are our reality. They are what make us happy. They are what make us satisfied, angry, sad, joyful. You may have everything that makes life 'ideal' by the book - but what you choose to think of it is the very thing that decides whether you are happy or not.  You may not have what is conventionally perceived as a requisite for happiness and your happiness is still decided by your choice. Often we arrive at a crossroad in life where the things that our our heart's north and the things that are perceived as those that 'generally give us happiness' do not fall in a common space. At that crossroad, we are confused, we are in some kind of search. Maybe a soul-search. Some of us may take the road of what generally is perceived as satisfaction - a well paying job, a family, great vacations, a beautiful house. And this is wonderful - IF it is truly what makes you happy. So it is not the object outside or the person outside who makes you happy. It is a choice and a conscious decision to choose happiness that creates it.

Happiness is an inside job and no one and nothing can do it for you but yourself.

Time is often an important factor in unlearning the damage that society has done to us - the damage by making us believe that love and vulnerability are weaknesses - which is something I hear often but find ridiculous. Open yourself up and be receptive to the best feelings you want to have for yourself - you will receive them.

It isn't so hard to love yourself and want nothing but the best for yourself. Want the best job - create it. Create beautiful relationships around you. Do things you love for yourself - pamper yourself with a massage, get into a regular fitness regime, catch a drink with a friend and speak your heart out. Listen to good music. Dance. Paint. Stand in the snow. Get away to a mountain. Drive to the countryside. Immerse yourself in your work and your purpose. Don't let a minute go by that doesn't serve you.

Why are you in the job that doesn't make you happy ? Start over.

Why do you want people who don't value you ? Remove them from your life.

Why do you want lovers who don't meet you halfway ? Wipe them off the surface of your soul. Decide that you are worthy of true love and deep commitment.

Decide that you are worth friends that love you and add to your joy.

Decide that you deserve a job that makes you function at your best.

'Why do people go through situations that demand depression and post traumatic stress?' 

Everything we experience in life is a choice we make. We choose to notice something. We choose to obsess and imagine and make a story out of it that it probably isn't. Everytime we think of it, we choose it. While it's hard to hear, the extent to which we allow our adversities to take a toll on us is our choice. Circumstances aren't always ideal in life, but whether we choose to press forward and experience what is in store for us is a choice we make. And it is important to be aware that this is a choice. Then we reclaim our power and recognize that we have the option to choose something different - like a good thought that serves us. Thoughts - happy or sad, are both habits. The mind works by telling itself lies. Obsession is a function of the mind - once we recognize this, we begin to set ourselves free of patterns. One thought slowly improves and then the next and the next, and one day you will look back and wish someone had said this to you a long time ago.

Time is crucial in helping us discover our patterns and where we get stuck.

Pain will often make time freeze - but this will pass. Nothing is permanent, not joy, nor sadness. 

This pain will make you worry that people will recognize the pain in your eyes and stay the heck away from you - but that's not true. A small act of kindness will move you, a little joke will crack you up, a small gesture will fill you with gratitude. You will smile, you will laugh and you will feel a joy so deep that it will make all your past happiness and laughter feel shallow. 

Resilience is part decision, part journey. Your part is the decision. The journey will happen. It is certainly the most beautiful thing - for resilience is the road you take when you choose your worth over everything else.

What is love ?

"The whole world can love you, but that love will not make you happy. What will make you happy is the love coming out of you." ~ Don Miguel Ruiz

Love makes us happy, we all think of it to be something - maybe it carries the same meaning for all of us. Maybe not. We'll never know. What I do know is that I truly found myself and the very north that my heart points to when I learned to love who I am. Love yourself for the card you gave someone that put a smile on their face. Love yourself for someone who smiles back at your contagious smile. Don't you see how far you've come, all these years through all those tough times ? Don't you see what a beautiful lover you are ? Don't you see how beautiful you are when you laugh ? Don't you see how lovable you are when you're so immersed in your work ? Don't you see how thoughtful it is of you to call your parents and let them know they always, always have you ?

When you're really busy finding yourself and loving yourself and building a life that you love, making friends you cherish and finding relationships you love, you will not find time for hatred, or for people who indulge in a life of comparison and bothersome things that pull you below your best self.

"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it" ~ Rumi

You will find a job that lights up, that makes you want to work, a world around you that you create with friends who lift you higher, when you find a person who's presence makes you as happy as your presence and spirit does to you, you know you're at the right place. This, is your heart's true north - your real worth.

Make a fun checklist of all the things you wish to see come true and decide in your heart this is what you love + want, and it will find you.

You will let things ebb and flow to you, you will not chase them down or compete - you will be a steady ship on calm waters, and you will become an unshakeable powerful force of love and life and an eternal source of joy for people who see the light in you.

Your peace + happiness trumps everything else.

Much love ♥︎

Aarthi

(Photo credits : #1,5 - made by tours truly. #3,4 -Lynda Barry #2-istock)