At the time of writing this, I have been in therapy for two years, happiness meds for a little over a year, and continue to be stressed out, with my job being my primary source of stress, or should I say the primary trigger. This is my first blog, and this comes after a lot of prodding from my wife and my therapist. At this point I’m not sure if I’m writing for myself, or I’m writing for the benefit of others; many can relate to a lot of what I go through at work, at home, and in my mind.
Just to set things straight- this is not a sob story- I don’t have one. This is not guidance to better mental health, which is something I myself am working towards. This is not about how to excel and succeed in life- I don’t know if my successes and failures can be attributed to a specific method.
My idea is that this will be a series of blogs, in which I write about what’s on my mind, which could be about work, my family, my dog, or just myself.
I’ve always wanted to write; publish a book. I’ve imagined myself several times sitting on the countryside, staring at nature, and either writing a book, or painting on an easel. As you can see, quite the dramatized view of what I would like my life to be. I write a lot at work; it’s part of my job profile. Not the literary kind of writing. I work in technology and I write decision documents, marketing content, design documents, and other narratives in general. Talking about my artistic pursuits, I’m also trying my hand at painting and music. However, every time I think about becoming an expert at any of these, or say publishing a book, the first thing I can think of is how much money I can make. If I can’t make millions, there is no point. I might as well just continue being a salaried employee. I wonder— am I looking at everything as purely an avenue to escape my job? The job that helps me live a comfortable life, helps my family live a comfortable life, helps keep my brain active? I work in a great company, a great domain, and with really nice colleagues. So, I keep wondering, why do I want to escape my job. One of the theories I had is that while my job feeds my analytical brain, it does not fuel my creative side; there is no scope for creative expression. That is when I started learning to draw and paint. I vaguely remember myself painting as a child, and through a horrendous phase of schooling, I lost all confidence to the point of believing strongly that I could not draw. My drawing classes proved otherwise. I found a great teacher, who continues to believe that I have great potential, and has stuck with me through my phases of ups and downs; I’ve taken breaks from classes for months together as the practice between sessions would stress me out. After one such break of six months, I just restarted my art class yesterday. Music practice also stresses me out, but I learn from my wife and thereby it allows for some leniency, especially since she knows my relationship with anything that requires practice and discipline. I’m now looking at three avenues for creative expression- painting, music, and writing. Am I doing this for the sake of creative expression, and not with a view of making money in the long term; art for art’s sake as they say? No. However, I’ve let go of the guilt of wanting to make money. Yes, I would like to make money off my creative pursuits. Yes, I dream of a day when my creating pursuits will make me enough money that I could do it full time and quit my day job. I’m not obsessing about it now though. My job pays me well and lets me pursue these creative interests. I’m not going to take the stress of imagining where I will get to with my writing, my painting, or my music. I’m not in a hurry. I’m 40, and the next 10 years, I’m going to write as much as possible without wondering how I am going to make money off it; I’m going to learn music without thinking if there will ever be any use of it, and I’m going to build expertise in the craft of drawing and painting without worrying if I’ll ever sell a painting for a thousand dollars. We will see what happens when I’m 50.
What about my frustration with my job? I go through so many highs and lows that it’s difficult to point out where I am mentally when it comes to my work. One thing I believe is that every low brings some new learning, and there is some part of me, even if it is a miniscule part, which is born anew. I cannot relate to the person I was two years ago, before I started my therapy. I am a completely new person. My thinking, my beliefs about right and wrong, what I’ve been told by the society, by my parents, my siblings, my relatives; I’ve questioned everything over the last two years, and when I look back at some of the conversations I’ve had with my wife when we got married, for example how we should confirm to the society so that we can live a conflict-free life; I sometimes cringe, sometimes laugh, sometimes feel sad, and sometimes feel ashamed. However, I’m so grateful that I went through significant lows for me to take my wife’s advice about taking help seriously. For if I had not taken therapy, I wouldn’t be the person I am today. Sometimes I think how my life would have been, and how my wife’s life would have been, if I was where I am now, mentally, when we got married. Sometimes I feel we’ve started living only now; I understand her only now. I’ve even thought of secretly renewing our vows again! Of course, I should not be saying renewing; only God knows what vows I took in Sanskrit when I got married, Lol! Coming back to what I was originally going to say, I’m still stressed about work. It is the biggest trigger for my highs and lows. I keep asking my therapist; I came to you to address my work stress, and except that, everything else about me is changing. I love his onion analogy; inner work heals you from the inside. When the inner layers of the onion heal, the outer skin will one day just fall off. Just like that, in one moment, you’ll be free. I strongly believe that’s coming. I’ve also come to a realization that my work is not my source of stress, it’s just the perfect medium to trigger all the patterns in me that I need to become aware of. My therapist asked me to start writing in my first session. That I’m starting to do it now, after two years, is probably a sign of the onion peeling.
More to come.
PS: Apparently, the sweet spot for length of a blog is ~2500 words, if you want to be successful with making your blog popular. I don’t care. Today I feel like writing only 1239 words.