Twenty Three and Adulting, Hopefully the Healthy Way

“I do not want to talk to people, even though a samajik keeda inside my system fills me with guilt for my lack of civility. I am drowned by the forced need to message at times, but then, I do not text simply because I feel that the talk will lead to no productivity. It hasn't in all these years.”

Image source: Personal chats for public use.

One fine night I sent a message to a couple of my friends asking them, “what is it called when you know you have to do certain things and you cannot make time for it because you are doing other things?” They said, “Life” and “Priorities.” Each word made sense to the situation in its own way. My every day life has changed in last nine months (no, not child birth), in a good way irrespective of what people have to say. I fancy describing my current state of being as “twenty three and 'adult'ing” because I felt some time back that twenty three is the age when you begin to feel like an ‘adult’, by my definition ‘responsible’ (Of course, there are cheat days). I wish to generalise it, but I cannot as everyone has their own way of growing up. 

Various factors led to the changes in my life in 2017 so far, some of them leading me back to my childhood and making me contemplate certain incidents in a brighter light with a better understanding. A major factor is my medical condition of being a borderline diabetic. A transition from Sambalpur to Delhi to Hyderabad leading to an exposure of mindsets so distant yet somewhere quite similar that made me question, “Do I want to discover myself?” or “Do I want to be the cool girl to fit in the crowd that I think is ‘cool’ without really knowing anything about it?” When people  complain about their days, I feel I have nothing wrong in my life right now. I am at peace if not happy; I am quite sorted today if not tomorrow. Sometimes it does feel like the calm before the storm, but then who knows, I might be truly growing up in what feels like a healthy way.

v  Sleeping and waking up early: There are times when I muse about not listening to my parents when they asked me to sleep early. I am pretty sure I got into the habit of sleeping and waking up early because I got a room of my own where there is silence during the day, so I do not have to wait for night when everyone is asleep to use my time productively with no disturbances. Also, because I had to follow the time chart in my diet chart. It worked so well for me that now when I oversleep in the morning, it feels like a waste. I am the kind of person who doesn’t heart the posts on social media that talk about 'sleeping, the only thing one wants to do.' I put my phone on DND before sleeping at 11PM or midnight till my alarm rings at 5.30AM. Also, I cannot stay up as a zombie to finish a TV Series. No more.

v  Walking and Exercising: My doctor had been advising me to exercise regularly to increase the good cholesterol in my body without any medicines. I didn't do it for years, but then finally when a friend forced me into the 30-Day Fitness Challenge app, things changed. Exercise did not exhaust me but stimulated my brain activity directly affecting my concentration levels. Productivity increased, and laziness went down tremendously. Also, walking at 6 in the morning, breathing air that's yet to be visibly polluted by the traffic gives me a fresh start to the day. 

v  Food habits: From enjoying samosas and kachoris everyday in college after the first class to feeling guilty of having one ‘chinna’ (tiny, in Telugu) samosa this morning because I skipped breakfast in a hurry is a huge change. My diet chart transformed my overload-self-with-junk-food diet into a balanced diet. After the first hand experience in the ‘healthy’ food world, I have become one of those people who keep bugging others about their food habits and how they should control on the quantity of consumption of even the ‘healthy’ food. Yes, I know I am annoying to most of the people around me. I am so happy with my body, that I just cannot help spreading it.

v  Social Media: I never really thought it could happen to me, but it did. I realised that I am addicted to social media because posting on it helps me validate my existence as at least good by the number of likes I get assuming that people agree with my thoughts, and of course the way I look. So much for all those years of saying, “I don’t care about what people think.” I haven’t really worked out how to get rid of the addiction, if it is addiction, but at least I have realised that I have to take care of it to save my time. One step at a time, I guess. Also,  I haven't even paid attention to the people who like/react to my posts recently. It seems like I do not care, I just have to rant 'out' there. No, I cannot deactivate my Facebook account forever, where will I post this blog post then?

Image source: Forbes

v  Social Life: From always having a friends’ circle to dealing with not having one because with every passing year I realised that it isn’t easy to find like minded people. In my case, it’s worse. I would rather go to a seminar to chill, than to a bar. I do not know why it happens, but I find people talking about my fields of interest quite intriguing and satisfying, while passively validating my chain of thoughts. It is probably the one place where I am not said, “You over-think.” That’s the kind of people I want in my life, instead of the ones who say, “Take a chill pill.” It took months to get out of the self induced compulsion to be a cool girl, because honestly I am not.  Also, a big realisation, the lesser people you have in life, the greater peace your mind has. If one has to be picky about things, it should be in this field. Just saying.

v  Focus on one thing at a time: In September 2016, I went to one of my professors to talk about “what to do next in life”. I was nervous because my classmates had already decided what they ‘have to do’ after graduating, and I was still trying to figure out what I “want to do.” With conflict filling my head, I said it all to the professor. He simply asked me“Why aren’t you focusing on your semester exams?” I was puzzled, wasn’t I supposed to achieve at least three things at once unrealistically given the competition around? He advised me to focus on one thing at a time, take a short term goal and perfect it before moving on. These words motivate me every time I feel I am lagging in life.

                       Of course there is nothing new in this listicle. My parents have bugged me all my life with it. When I was seventeen, I had told them to not tell me what I should do in life and more specifically, what not to do in life. I would rather carry the blame of ruining my life than blaming it on anyone else. Somehow, the baggage and the sense of helplessness are lighter when you cannot blame others. So, I lived a spoiled student life with no discipline for five years, I enjoyed it without regrets. The thought of that life ages me right now. I feel older. And irrespective of what my younger self believed in, or rather did not believe in, discipline makes life easier in many ways if not all. 

I am proud of the person I am this year when I look back at the person I was last year. And, that's a first because I am always disappointed with myself. So here’s to moving on, to adulthood, priorities, and life. Like I said, “Twenty three and adulting”, hopefully the healthy way. 

Also, please look forward to the post named "Screw adulting" in the upcoming months, because I will be having a job then, hopefully.