Live a day in your mind
By: Meghna Ravi
Tags: Find Yourself, Beyourself, Live Free, Life

It cannot be easy being a woman just starting off in your 20s with so many choices in this world. All the way from starting your career — to having stable friendships and relationships — to being independent and learning how to adult. How are people suddenly expected to do this from knowing nothing? Can you imagine? That too with almost no room for anyone to mess up and have a “perfect life” in this new age.

There are so many times in life where you feel like you’re at a crossroads between what your mind and heart say. If you’re anything like me, you know that’s almost the worst thing that could happen to you. Knowing what to choose and what the right thing is? Oh, the dread! What do you do? What can you do? Especially when everyone has so many opinions about your life, you just can’t decide what the right thing to do is. They might be coming from a place of concern and love, but sometimes that can be suffocating too! You know there’s something in particular you want to hear, but you keep asking for everyone’s thoughts until someone aligns with your thought process. I’ve come to understand that the fact that I want someone to think the way I do and agree with me only means one thing — I know what I really want, but am scared to admit it.

Having come to that realization wasn’t easy for me. That only made me dig deeper into why I was a certain way and why I needed that constant need to please everyone with my actions. As you guessed, that did NOT end well. That took me down a whole spiral that only led me to more and more questions about myself. Now came the bigger question — am I going to let myself stay this way and let everyone’s opinions matter and play a role in my decision making or am I going to turn that around and do what I really want?

Facing the consequences of your actions and hearing someone say “I told you so” must easily be the worst thing to hear when you’re already down. And that has been my whole life. That’s probably why I feel the constant need to listen to everyone and for everyone to be happy with my choices, so that if there’s a time when I screw up, I always have someone in my corner. Looking back, that’s a sad place to come from, but only until I make the conscious choice to change that and live life differently.

There’s so much I learn about myself on a regular basis, especially because of the kind of person I am with constantly needing to know why things are a certain way or how they’re going to turn out or even just wondering about things like fate and destiny playing such a huge role in our collective future. But that’s just me. If there’s anyone out there scared of being themselves, honestly ask yourself — who’s really living this life and your experiences — you or them? That makes me feel a whole lot better on so many days. I don’t always need someone in my corner. There are probably so many people out there that I’ll meet who think so differently from the way I do and knowing myself, I will make sure to encourage them to be their most authentic self without letting other people or their opinions get in the way. And sometimes, that’s all you need to remind yourself of — think of what you would say to someone else you care about and say the exact same thing to yourself.