'You have to do this for yourself', this was not the first time this little voice inside my brain miraculously grew loud and screamed at me these exact words. As a child, I was always expected to do more than my caliber, and I grew up in a family where, if I didn't, I was looked down upon and was made to realise that until and unless I push my limits, I was good for nothing. Being a naïve child with no sense of understanding of I want for myself, all decisions were taken by my mother and I always stood by them; and unsurprisingly they always turned out great! I had everything - perfect scores, always ahead in assemblies, appreciated by teachers, won prizes in debates and had a lots of friends. Only if people approaching me when they needed help was called 'friendship'. I even had a boyfriend for a while. I was leading a life, as I would like to say, 'of a princess carrying a very heavy crown, not of jewels but of responsibilities'.
I was good at everything, but perfect at only one thing - multitasking! Ironically, the reason I was not perfect at anything else was because I multi-tasked. I was 'everywhere', yet nowhere. Ever felt you have no place to call home? It felt like that to me. There were so many activities I did. I was always occupied with work and had so many things to do. I guess that became the reason why I never felt stable or settled, and it was not too late until every activity became a hurdle for another. Every morning became a morning of no sunshine, every night, a nightmare and everyday, a task to accomplish, and that is when I got a little invisible company of my mind. As weird as it may sound, the voices in my head seemed to have little conversations of their own, but the end of that conversation would always be - 'you have to do this for yourself'. Which was nothing but a reminder of my mother's words - "if you don't keep pushing your limits, try experimenting everything, and be included in every activity, be an expert at the art of multitasking, you will be able to achieve nothing, especially recognition, which is the one thing that can get you anywhere. Keep that in mind and you will have a fabulous future". These words echoing in my brain soon became extremely exhausting and tiring, so I decided to suppress these voices and stop working all together, take some rest and don't work for a while. But unsurprisingly, I couldn't pull that off either, cause rather than suppressing it, I gave it new doors and windows to enter. They would now enter while eating, bathing and mostly while sleeping. I used to think that working on several things was a requirement forced onto me, but after this, I realised that it was not a requirement anymore, it had become my obsession which stressed me out and took all the fun from everything I did.
But simple events possess the most powers to change your life around, and mine lay in a simple quote that I woke up to one morning - 'The key is not to prioritise what you schedule but to schedule your priorities" by Stephen Covey. Just a few words made me realise that I spent my whole life scheduling event after event and never took a moment to see if those events really even matter?! It took me a few days after that to understand the difference between owning up to your work and owning up to yourself. It took me a few months to realise that what I really want is not rest or escape from work, but to have stability. Even a few more days to work out where my stability lies, which obviously includes giving myself a short 'chill' break every now and then. But do you wanna make a guess where it actually lies? Cause it's pretty simple, and the answer to that is writing.
Playing with words , expressing emotions, imagining characters, situations and weaving stories is my place of peace and solace. Maybe never having time to share or talk to anybody resulted in writing as a form of stability in my life, and maybe one day, this will become unstable too. After all, I am used to trying out new things, and it's not easy to give up on who you have been for so long.
Nonetheless...
Let's just say that I still have a schedule, but now, it's a schedule of my priorities as well.