The need to do and be everything..

Work has been pretty exhausting lately. Meetings from sun up till sun down and I honestly am too exhausted even with the thought of getting my gear and going out these days. I then open up some social media instance and see all the wonderful images and videos out there and am reminded of the many photos and videos that are still in the raw and I have not even sorted through them yet! I’m not even talking about the watercolor paintings I wanted to do on some of the pictures I captured.

I cannot help feeling like I’m not doing enough or that I’m not good enough to be or do stuff like the population out there. Which is totally unfair to me. I literally work from sun up till down somedays, and everything in between at home also is work, yet I feel guilty for lying around not doing anything at times. I have gotten better at letting myself be these days, but I will not lie.. it isn’t easy.

Comes the question as to why I feel the need to do and be everything. I guess it goes back to the younger days where I was always looking for appreciation or kind words saying that I’m doing great, not be greater mind you. But mostly, it has been that.. be greater, be better, be faster, be this, be that. No one appreciated me for just being me. Not that they did not want to. It was mostly because well, in the race to survive, you really cannot be too fussy about the not so great. Be the greater, I’ll appreciate you, else well, there are many forgotten greats out there, no big deal if you aren’t appreciated. I wonder if the world has changed much in that regard, And granted, I was messed up as a kid and there was nothing great about me anyways. I myself might not have called me great, but going back to the haunting feelings of never being good enough stems from those younger self’s insecurities. Everything is so interlinked. We think we grow up, we think we crossed a chasm or an ocean only to realize maybe it was just a narrative we tell ourselves. The hurt, the pain, the young child waiting for someone to come tell them they did a wonderful job.. I guess at least for me I’m still waiting. No one is going to come. No one is going to say it. And you know what, with age, it becomes so ingrained that you become a cynic. Even if someone did complement you now, that you were doing great, you will be like, sure, thanks and not even take a moment to believe it. They say some people cannot take compliments. Huh, easy to judge, but ever wonder that maybe that is what they ever really wanted all their lives and then in their search for it they even forgot what one sounded like, or even if they heard one, could never believe it? How cruel is that?

Not really sure there is any answer to this other than perhaps making peace with what you can and cannot do at a given point in time. There will always I guess be people around us who are better at something we do and we might end up feeling totally useless at times. I’m not trying to be depressing here, but well, it is a fact. Comparison is the thief of joy for sure and whether we like it or not, every platform out there pitches you subtly or overtly, against someone else and its not just a version of your older self. It would help to remember at such times that no one is irreplaceable and no one is truly the best. It is a cycle. Everything begins, ebbs and flows and eventually drains out.. We rarely ever are always in the best performing zones. Yes, perhaps some people have the genetics, the environment, the guidance, the luck, will and everything else playing for them for a longer period of time. But it is true that it is an interplay of all such factors. If it was sheer willpower alone, the world would have many of these absolute bests, including me. I honestly have a hard time even accepting that last statement :) but I have to give myself that..

For most of us, life is either black or white while 99.9999% of the time we live in the grays, never stopping to acknowledge that. We prefer focusing on ends or highs and lows and do not give value to the life lived in between, which is where I believe true wealth exists. I often think it is these grays that are the most overlooked. Because it is so unimaginative firstly to say between black and white exists only grays :) I for one, imagine an open watercolor paintbox. All the colors in the spectrum arranged between my white and black paints. It is such a colorful life to live, if we stopped focusing so much on the blacks and whites and what others say exist between them. There is so much to see, do and live, on your own terms, on your own colors. Not on someone else’s definition of achievement or the poorly unimaginative color spectrum of grays that exists between black and white.

I have to remind myself most days when I feel down that it is my life, my colors, and that it is ok to do and be nothing, and give the body and mind the rest it seeks. Sometimes perhaps all the appreciation we need, need only come from within us. I know, it is not easy, but is necessary. Keep that chin up. Keep moving. For if we cannot do that for ourselves, no one else will, and if we begin to appreciate ourselves, we will not wait for someone else’s. Rest and be at peace with your grays or colors however you choose them be.