The reason behind my why 

Time and tide wait for no one. Life is a sprinting race of the survival of the fittest, you have to hustle your way to the top. We all have heard this haven't we, while existence is over-commodified and hyper-fixated on the materialistic drawls we achieve and external praise that is showered upon us on striding on the contingencies of the timeline that is presented to us, we often forget living with intent and gratitude for all that we have and run in the rat race of proving our worth and accomplishing what we need to, essentially not even wanting to be a part of this glorified way of living, yet doing so to be validated and accepted as someone worthy. If you have been through this or are going through this, I want to remind you that you are not alone. 

Navigating the ecstasies of being alive through its phases of darkness and light, pleasure and plight can be overwhelming especially if we are taught and conditioned from our childhood to have it all together, to know what the next steps are and where your long-term and short-term goals lie. We are constantly programmed to be in control of the certainty of our lives, to have the best grades and to be the level best in everything we do. While the glimmer of success is put on a pedestal, the true narrative of the somberness and toil of a downfall is less known.

Everyone knows how to be successful but only a few know how to deal with and handle failure. The crux of all of it is that we mostly have no insight into how we should sail our boats through the times and tides of failing, of failing to get into the dream university or being constantly rejected from our desired jobs, people and places. I have failed in many endeavours I have wholeheartedly strived in and as heart-wrenching it was to not know how to deal with it, as time stridden in its slow footsteps, I am slowly embracing that every rejection or victory, every praise or every foul criticism, every opinion of others, does not make me unworthy of my dreams. I am enough simply as I exist, even when I am not achieving massive milestones or having my life all figured out. I am at peace with all that erred, I am at peace with where I am now and I am at peace with where I am headed.

As a 21-year-old who graduated from Uni, I had gigantic visions of how my life should have been. In our early years, we had gigantic and grandiose visions of our dream life, while it is optimistic to have a clear vision of the bigger picture in life, we shouldn't be rigid in our plans for how every second of our existence should feel like. Life has its ways of reminding you to be adaptable, to be like water, changing your course when the roadblocks seem insurmountable. In my grandiose schemes of lifely affairs, I had firm visions of existential benchmarks that I wanted to set for myself and in due course of time some of them did manifest and some led to me humbling in the face of existence and affirming, Everything that is meant for me will simply find me in its due divine timeline.

While that does not mean I do not strive to learn more or achieve insight into self-improvement every single day, as a young adult the notion of letting things go that are beyond my control has made me realize the importance of appreciating the journey I have stridden to be the person I am today. 

If you are someone who is struggling to hold their self-worth akin or feeling lost in life, I hope you realise that everything you want is on its way to you and everything you need is already within the depths of your soul. 

While the light seems to have lost its way in the incessant gloom,

I hope you dare to look within, search through the radiance in your crevices 

And let the hope within you foster its permanent bloom 

-Hridya Sharma