Butterflies and Hurricanes

Sometimes as you go about your busy lives, running around in office attending meetings, calls and trying to be satisfactorily productive while staying abreast with every trending piece of information, video, hashtag, campaign, and ad, it suddenly hits you. You realise how tired you already are.

Technically, you’ve just starting adulting, you’ve only just learnt how to deal with the blizzard of bills at the beginning of every month. You’ve just started accepting that expectations don’t always meet reality when it comes to your work, and all those rosy-cheeked, idealistic aspirations are quietly settling in the background. You’ve only begun to understand the value of weekends, more importantly, extended weekends, and you’re taking baby steps at finding your aim, or your calling, or whatever it is you may want to be. Even though when you are asked about your future goals or your career path, you draw a blank, and even though the idea of marriage horrifies you, you’ve pretty much understood that the next few years of your life (at least) are going to be about putting up appearances, pretending to know exactly what you’re talking about in presentations, and finding your foothold in organisations where you are a replaceable resource. And I’m… exhausted.

I’m exhausted when I think about how I’m living an average life like an average person in an average city. I don’t know what I want to do, but I do know what I don’t. I feel confused and agitated at the lives we have created around us. So vividly similar to each other. As if we are all handed a perfunctory guide-book in our hands somewhere between college and professional life, and we simply abide by the rules. I feel exhausted by my own inability to take a ‘leap of faith’ or have the courage to break free from the clutter.

Somewhere during the humdrum of a busy week, between shuffling from one overcrowded bus to another, from staring vacantly at my laptop screen, from holding my breath while crossing the road, ignoring the stench of human waste and destruction, covering my nose to prevent the dust and smoke from violating my lungs, and shaking my head silently at the man peeing, and then spitting on a wall that reads ‘Clean is Beautiful’, it suddenly hits me like a train. And what do I do? Nothing. I sigh, and move on. I swing from one mood to another like a monkey in a forest.

Such is life. Smile through it all. Be tough. Be bold. Be beautiful. Right? Right. It’s the end of another day, another TV show, another book, and another year.

I’m exhausted.

P.S. I love this song from Juno. Reminds me of an innocent time from the Land of Ago.