Figure things out as you go, Life is a marathon, not a race.

Simple does not mean easy. Life is simple. Take care of yourself, be disciplined, love yourself, listen to your emotions, don’t give up and live—for yourself.

Pick any one out of this and you will see mountains of content describing “techniques” that worked for them. What exactly are those and how do I definitively know that what worked for them will work for me? Those living on hard mode will understand. Those slopes of ‘Self-Development’ content piling up on your feed like the dirty laundry in the corner of your room, hoping out of sight would at least mean out of mind but what do you do when your mind is the problem?

You have given up, given up on trying to improve because you always fall back and when you do you feel worse than before, given up on love because no one ever ends up being the one and you feel betrayed. Why aren’t your efforts paying off? You see other people, people who did not choose themselves move forward in life, living the societally successful life while you end up feeling like a failure both by the society and yourself.

You dread holidays, you dread meeting with people, you dread looking at the mirror because you are afraid of looking at how much of a failure you have become. Your brain is overdrive with the amount of information it is processing every second while the rest of the world believes you to be lazy and incompetent. You are anxious, you are depressed, sometimes both at the same time. Life seems to be playing a joke on you by leaving that pause button on for a little too long.

You find it hard to love yourself, you treat yourself like garbage and loathe yourself for having human emotions and needs. Your shame, guilt and embarrassment almost paralyses you from moving forward while staying in the same place feels like being fried in oil virtually. Your coping mechanisms have become outdated and your escapism techniques are the only ones keeping you sane. Good for you. But, rest okay? Rest your brain, your heart. Allow yourself to breathe and do the things you love without guilt. It is okay, you are still growing, transforming in places you cannot see.

We don’t get second chances in life. If we did, we will not chose to live the way we do. Unfortunate yet freeing. You do not go about life wanting to be the worst person alive. I am not here to tell you whether you are right or wrong but, that decision, which led to you becoming the person you hate to see now came from a place of wishing the best for you. When nobody’s watching, you would not choose to give up the best of things for that sibling who only knows how to take advantage of you.

You don’t have a way, you are the way. Just working does not promise you results, doing the right work will. Your dream life is not one decision away from you, it is hundreds of small decisions away. If after the first step, you refuse to take a second, you will stay where you landed. Growth is a continuous cyclical process, you are spiralling upwards, not in a circle. Trust yourself and maybe the universe (the power you believe in – could even be yourself), you have got no one else. Do things for yourself that other people refuse to engage in. The world does not care about efforts, they only care about the results. Do not let your ego get in the way. If everything we thought was the truth, the world would be a much worse place to live in. Sometimes bad things happen, and when they do, learn your lessons and move on. Your past failures are not evidence that you will continue to fail in the future. Be brave, you will require courage to tread through this self-sacrificing society.

Such truths are cruel, aren’t they? Nobody has any good advice, instead they ask you to let go of the heavy burden on your shoulders and rest your frail self. You ask yourself, how I can rest when I am surrounded by all things and people that remind me of my very problems. You feel stuck, helpless and drained. “Why me?” you wonder.

But who told us life has to be lived in just one way. How many people in history have regularly gone to school, worked jobs and reached fifty before they could be happy. Who told us that ages are milestones for tasks to be achieved? And why would you listen to the people who for a matter of fact seem to ignore your desires for “your” higher good. We are not stuck, we are paralysed. Paralysed by our wounds, our fears, our trauma, our depression and our triggers. What fuels these demons are our dreams. We refuse to look at the person we are right now hoping for miracles to happen that would change us into our dream self. That distance between our current self and the person we want to be is draining, that you fail before you even start. After two days of motivated effort, consistency fails to keep up so we let go and rot. Rot in our comfort zone, once again getting entangled in our escapism techniques and coping mechanisms. What if I tell you that is okay? It is okay for us to let go and shut down, but then we get up and do it again regardless of our past efforts. Because your comfort zone is not that comfortable either. It’s the proof of your incompetence, the very one you refuse to accept. Your repeated efforts prove yourself that no matter how many times you let go, unless you stop making efforts you are not truly giving up. It is okay, not every day is the same. It is already very brave of you to take on this challenge and go against the norm.

It is okay for you to fail, okay for you to try again no matter what the world around you feels like, it is okay to not be the most ‘successful’ one in the room. It is okay to not take the advice of people whose life you do not wish to live. To create a path for yourself, brave your heart for the lonely yet rewarding journey, many times at which you may lose the basic hope for survival. You will be told you need to break in order to be refined and you may also resent the world for the unfair circumstances. To those in that journey, the very one filled with darkness, uncertainty and unpredictability, if everything around you seems dark, look closely you may be the light.

People will judge you, they will hate you, criticise you. It’s okay. It is okay to not be understood. It is okay to be lonely, I guess.