Raw Thoughts: A Walk through my brain
Procrastination, High functioning anxiety, Addiction and hope?
It’s been a month now since I’ve been telling myself I should write something on medium. I found my old articles, found them so poorly written, lacking soul, I wanted to start over, be better. Write something meaningful, structured, visually pleasing. So here I am, This is me starting over.
But I’m struggling. Not just with writing, but doing anything that holds value to me. I’m 33 year old, married, highly successful professional as per typical standards. I’m currently doing my Ph.D which I’m not sure if I will finish or not. I think I am still interested in my thesis once I was so passionate about, I’m not sure anymore.
Yesterday I had decided, that I will start fresh from tomorrow. I’ve done this thousands of times at this point, but still doesn’t feel like it’s a a lie I’m telling myself. I’ll eat better, be perfectly productive and go cold turkey on all my bad habits from tomorrow. Be the guy I used to be when I was younger, Be the man I always pictured myself to be. But what I’ve done so far, throughout the day has been, far from productive.
Morning I woke up before my wife, as usual, spent an hour online looking for cricket gear I needed to buy for winter cricket training I’ve just joined. I haven’t played cricket in 10 years. But it’s the only memory of genuine happiness I felt in my life. Made me jump out of my bed at 2 am to see a cricket match played overseas or play till late night under the lights and never feel exhausted. So joining winter training was a step towards starting to play again with community teams, hopefully next summer. But to avoid falling over, being laughed or make a joke of myself in front of younger players who are much fitter and more talented than me. I haven’t met any of them, But I’m confident they are all better. I’m not.
The feeling of thinking every other is smarter or better than me until proven otherwise, is not just limited to Cricket. It’s how I live my life. When I got my first job after my university as a graduate engineer, I thought it was a fluke. It took me a while to realise, I may have actually deserved the job. But by then I was already feeling like an imposter in my next position as a Senior Engineer. It was 12 years ago. Now a days they call me Subject matter expert (SME). I still feel like an imposter. If I get complimented for a task I’ve done that was relatively easy, I feel it’s because other person doesn’t know what I’ve done. If I do finish something complicated, I still can’t accept the credit for it. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the applause, in fact I live for it. My entire self esteem depends on people liking me, my reputation in society. Reputation which is built by conforming to the societys typical definition of success. A definition which looks nothing like what it means to me to be successful. or more importantly, what it means for me to be happy.
Problem with reputation is its fragile. It can go down anytime if you stop missing the milestones set by people you crave approval from. Or an embrassing event and everything can come crashing in a single moment. So my day depends on how people treat me. This inevitably leads to some days where I feel worthless. So much so that I need escape from reality, may be even just for a little bit. I do what I need to do to feel numb.
Addiction. I have no shame to share what it is, but it doesn’t matter. Addiction is something that affects your daily life, fills you with guilt and regret, and you find yourself back in the same place where you now need more of it. Then a little more. I’m not into substance abuse, so atleast I’m not loosing money on this addiction or its not affecting my health. Not my physical health atleast. I cannot say the same about my mental health.
I also proscrastinate a lot. They say its easier if you fail at something after not trying, rather than giving your best and then fail. I have failed when I put in no real effort and it still felt horrible, just as much it did when I tried my best. If not more.The reason why I’ve writing this is, by just sharing what I’m thinking right now, I’ve managed to write something. I’ve achieved something by sharing why I’m able to do nothing. Tomorrow is another new day, fresh 24 hours, I plan to do better, avoid excuses I give myself in order to justify me being succumed to distractions.
One thing that makes me thing I will be better because I have faith. I have faith on the 33 year old body and mind which has put up through so much and still here, pretending to be succesful. Faith on judgement of all the people who have faith on me. And on my ability to adapt and survive. I have Hope. Hope I will be back writing soon. Hopefully more cheerful, light hearted, or even motivational.
Thanks for reading my dairy.
02.05.2021
Somehwere in Australia.
