Being ok with not being ok

My life is rarely picture perfect. The glossy ads on TV that show smiling happy and contented families without any blemishes. The man who excels both at work and at play, equally at home while explaining a crucial decision to his team who gape at him in admiration. Or him again at home, effortlessly smiling and happily contributing to household chores, playing with the kids or being the epitome of a husband and anticipating his wife’s every need. That’s not me.

I am at many times in my life, grumpy and despondent. Life is never a bed of roses, at the best of times. Mostly it feels that Life is one never ending challenge after another. Barely do I figure out a way to take care of a daily expense that another one blows up, ready to consume my attention again. Managing expenses take up a lot of my daily life — plotting how to reduce them while at the same time trying to balance out my desires to do more with my life and sometimes also to have more.

For while I am a proponent of minimalist living, I often succumb to the lure of the flashy gadgets and things-to-own that invade my mind space relentlessly through social media. Yes, I want to live life on my own terms, unencumbered by what my neighbour is buying or having — that flashy villa or the next big electric SUV. So I need to be constantly battling against my self — those millions of tiny thoughts that keep pricking my mind, saying “ you need have to have this car/TV/ house/gadget” ad infinitum.

If I look at my relationships, there are times when all of them seem to be going downhill or if not, seem to be stuck in quicksand, pulling me down with the weight of their expectations.

Family means everything to me, yet there are times when I feel myself pulling away from the constant attention that my loved ones demand of me. Whether looking for the next house to move into or planning the next vacation (because everyone else has already gone on 3 vacations and here we are still stuck with our nose to the grindstone everyday!), sometimes I just feel like withdrawing from all the drama. At times like these, I don’t feel ok and so feel the need to disconnect with my family as well.

Work life is another area which is a source of irritation and tension. Nothing really goes the way I have planned it. The review gets bungled because I trusted my myself to deliver and didn’t or someone came up with a clever idea that I had been mulling over for the past weeks and gets the credit while I sulk in a corner, wishing I were somewhere else.

With friends as well, the story remains the same. The ideal friends that we long for, the ones who are always there for you, to lift you up when you are low, to lend a sympathetic ear or to lend that much needed loan to a friend who is in dire straits, they don’t exist. What does exist is a friendship that often traverses choppy waters, where everyone is busy living their own lives and struggling with the mundane. Deadlines to be met at work, families to be taken care of and bills to be paid. At the end of the day, who has the strength to call on a good friend and ask him how he is ?

Life is a never ending roller-coaster of ups and downs, a continuous battle with challenges and hurdles to be overcome, decisions to be made and relationships that need to be nurtured everyday. Very often all of this becomes overwhelming and I feel my internal rhythm go haywire and my thoughts turn dark and depressing. There are days when it seems nothing is working and hell is a place on earth.

It is on days like these that I turn to sources of inspiration to heal my mind and stabilise my thoughts. Words of wisdom from authors who have gone to similar dark places and have seen the light. But the light doesn’t appear at the throw of a switch. Sometimes it takes a while for the light to shine on me, to show me that I have nothing to worry about, that all my fears are just that (false evidence appearing real).

I have now come to the realisation that there will always be such days and times in my Life. For Life isn’t always smooth sailing. The times when I struggle with my deficiencies and see my numerous failures are the (many) times I am not ok.

And that is fine. Because I see that the day after the storm subsides, the sun does come up and the sea becomes placid and calm. All my worries and fretting subside in the face of morning positivity and the warm rays of early sunshine wash away my doubts and fears.

Until then, its ok to be fighting your battles and feeling gloomy sometimes only to perk up at other times. I now know ….. it’s absolutely ok not to be ok.