Journal entry – on the driving seat on darker days

Life isn’t too considerate while throwing hardballs at us and leaving us knocked out and clueless at times. It gets us questioning the whole point of existence and the significance of every little thing that we assumed made our lives what they are. No matter the number of options our conscience might present to us at such moments to distract ourselves from whatever the source of our lament might be; the only thing that truly works is looking up at the sky, letting it all sink in, feeling the pain in silence and isolation and allowing it to consume us until it gets bored of us. And then slowly, we muster the strength to pick ourselves up from the place, physically move and get on with our newfound (perhaps hopeless) idea of life.

I do not mean to sound so sombre. This happens to me a lot and lately, it’s been more than a lot. No matter how aware of the problem I am and how inspired I am to pull myself out of the said dark spot, certain moments and their impacts turn out to be stronger than me and I have to give in at the moment – else I’ll be giving in, in parts, for days. The only lesson I’ve learnt from this is the importance of self discipline at moments when everything seems fine. If not for the routine that I have set for myself, the deadlines that I am keen on meeting or the social identity that is important to keep up, the isolation would consume me completely.

We procrastinate on practicing self discipline for multiple reasons ranging from laziness to the pursuit of perfection. But at times where the going gets tough, whatever self discipline we have managed to garner becomes the one steady anchor that keeps us going. No one, no distraction and no sense of fake positivity can achieve this. Its the self discipline that’ll let us feel it out and get up – to complete a deadline, clean the kitchen or perhaps finish that book instead.  Its the self discipline that stops us from making hasty decisions that we might end up regretting later. So even through the days where all I want is to sit in isolation and feel the pain until it can let me go, I am yet thankful for the days where I pushed myself to complete tasks and meet deadlines – because today, when I cannot take the driving seat, they take it for me.