My family was kept in a shelf aside and in order, whatever issues needed to be addressed would be addressed and nothing would touch them and no one needed to be dragged into it, it just made it all more simple and organized, after all, all of them already have too many opinions about themselves, the last thing i needed was outsiders barging in with their own thoughts. My childhood friends always held a special wing of my heart and i had a very meticulous system for keeping in touch with all of them and making sure they were all in the loop of whatever was going on in my life. My professional life went full throttle, and without stomping over anyone i managed to move up and move fast. My love life on the other hand didn't matter too much, even though i loved to think it did; but it was never a major focus of my day and didn't mean much, as i preferred to focus on other things, after all, who needs a commited relationship at twenty three years of age anyway? Time and fate would take care of that one thing for me eventually, as long as everything else was under control, love would find its way into my heart.
Well, the obsession with control was the only thing out of order, and i never relized that. My insistence on always keeping things organized and making lists and trying to not come off as if i were obsessing too much about everything, rather than just letting life carry its sweet course, started to drive me crazy. The minute one thing got done, it was then time to move on to the next, and to find all the answers to all the questions at once and immediately was a must. Well, it wasn't acceptable to me that i would start working on a project today and then have to wait another six months or a year to start seeing any results. No, results had to be immediate, and by the moment i touched something it had to turn into gold, otherwise it was rotten, or even worse, people could think i was rotten, and that i would absolutely not accept!
Well, here we are, in this fast-paced new millennium, and i am a product of all the technological advances and the quest to have more and be perfect. Well, guess what, the times may have changed, technology may have advanced, but there are some very simple and basic things that haven't. Instant gratification still isn't the answer to any of our problems, immediate results hardly ever exist and can never be trusted and anxiety only gets in the way. What's the point of rushing through life and trying to run away from the obstacles and the emotions if that is precisely what life is all about? Isn't that how we learn and evolve? When did the world stopped having twenty four hours that we can't even find the time to live on trial and error anymore?
While watching Woody Allen's new movie, "Midnight in Paris", i realized that the constant search for something different than what those characters had was also my own, and in those characters i saw myself for a moment, because i had finally realized a couple of weeks ago that i had to learn to accept my life as it is, with its ups and downs and all the feelings packed into it. Acceptance is key. Just like Owen Wilson's character learned that he had to embrace life instead of simply choosing the easiest path, i had realized the same thing a couple weeks back, and when i did it hit me like a bullet train.
I have now started to understand that we need to take it all in, the easy way around things is most of the times not the best way to go, because eventually it will come back to haunt us, as it always does. i don't know the answers to all the questions, but i know that with some patience and hard work i will be able to find the tools within myself to solve the puzzle and move on to some more complicated and bigger one. Being in control of life is impossible, because life is in control of me, and the more i try to make it change, the more it will hit me in the head to show me the fool that i am.
It's not like i have become the Dalai Lama all of a sudden, but to understand this tiny little thing has changed my perspective about it all and made me a much more relaxed person. To accept that life sometimes moves in mysterious - and at times annoying - ways has been the most liberating experience i have ever been through, and I hope it sticks with me.
