Apparently, There Is a Timeline
People are successful entrepreneurs at 25, somebody has a Forbes listing at 35, and someone is life all figured out at 40.
Yet, here I am trying to gather all my random 2 a.m. thoughts and turn them into an article that’s interesting.
To be honest, I have tried a few times to give all kinds of prompts to AI and find a direction to my thoughts, but AI isn’t really that smart. It often admits that it got something or the other wrong and then it retries, but the answers are never fully satisfactory.
So I finally decided to keep AI aside for a while and give my rusting brain a little task.
Wait, my brain isn’t rusted, it’s just that it’s tired.
Tired because it’s playing referee between two kids who are eight years apart and also juggling the ten different tabs that are open in my head.
The mind is exhausted because everyday it’s dealing with a body that is recovering from critical illness surgery and also trying to figure out my future!
The Part Nobody Puts on Instagram
I have nothing against these people on social media who seem to have everything figured out.
Yes, it’s about starting somewhere, yes it’s about putting in that effort, and making plans and sticking to them.
But it’s also about having support, it’s also about life not sweeping you off your feet, and dropping you off on an unknown island.
And perhaps that’s the part we don’t talk about enough.
We see the result.
We don’t see the circumstances that made the result possible.
We see the business.
We don’t see who was picking up the kids but we definitely complain about certain roles being glorified. Everyone talks about how a little time and effort can help schedule things. We celebrate a promotion but we rarely celebrate daily chores being successfully accomplished at home.
We see the perfectly timed career move.
We don’t see the five things that went completely off schedule and the humongous guilt that came with it.
Maybe that’s why comparison is such a strange thing. We are comparing our behind-the-scenes footage to somebody else’s carefully selected trailer.
The Human Mind Has a Funny Way of Moving the Goalpost
I wonder if the human mind will ever be content?
Like today I want something and I achieve it, but given the overthinking person I am, I’ll still find something that is missing and then go after it.
I’ll hardly wait to celebrate what I have achieved, I soon find something that feels wrong and my mind is immediately looking for seven different ways to fix it.
It’s almost funny.
Almost.
You spend so much time wanting something, you finally get it, and your brain goes:
Okay. What’s next?
No congratulations.
No confetti.
Just another problem statement.
And Then Everyone Wants to Help
On some days, I am even tired of trying to make people understand this struggle that I am going through.
Like I wonder, what would they even do if they found out what anxiousness or palpitation feel like. Maybe I’ll feel better that at least someone understood, or maybe I’ll judge myself for over sharing!
Often, people want to help when they care. Someone will probably send me five different reels and posts on Instagram on how to make it better. Someone will suggest seeing a therapist and someone will say feeling this way is a normal part of my recovery.
I know they care, and they are only trying to help, but is it really helping?
I guess maybe, maybe not.
Then there is a small voice in my head that says, it’s ok to not have everything figured out.
But then there is another voice that says people thrive on schedules, and time is running out.
I too have plans, calendars and schedules written down.
There is a content calendar that is divided into sections and each section has a pointer on what I should write about, but somehow I never get to that point.
Which is, of course, another thing I can add to the list of things I should probably be fixing
The Ten Thousand Things in My Head
I really wish I could scream out loud, and everything that is weighing me down would just simply vanish, but it doesn’t.
Screaming ten thousand times at a pre-teen who has a fierce mind of his own doesn’t help.
Just when I think my thoughts have a structure and my writing is coming to a point where it will turn into an article that intrigues someone, my toddler wants to pretend play!
And just like that, whatever profound thought I was having disappears somewhere between pretending to cook an imaginary meal and finding a missing toy.
Maybe this is why my mind feels so scattered.
There is always something.
Something that needs attention.
Something that needs fixing.
Something that needs planning.
Something that needs remembering.
I instantly feel guilty on how I am making such a huge deal about all of this. And somewhere in between all of that, there is also me
Trying to remember what it was that I wanted to do, and also trying to figure out if writing really is my calling.
Surely, Someone Has Written a Book About This
How come all the self-help books don’t have a solution for all of this?
They have ideas and suggestions and to-do lists, but they just don’t have a definite solution.
My mind is a like a season of the famous sitcom F.R.I.E.N.D.S, every episode has a new situation. Every season, the characters grow, progress, but so do their issues.
And perhaps someone reading this will think, haan, sounds good on paper.
Because real life isn’t an essay.
People have things to do.
Bills to pay. Children to raise. Parents to look after. Work to finish. Meals to make. Messages to answer. Doctors to visit. Deadlines to meet.
Nobody really has the time to sit around analysing ten different clustered thoughts in their head.
And perhaps someone will read this and think, Why does she sound so unsure? Why is she constantly anxious? Why does she keep trying to calm herself down by saying it’s okay to not have everything figured out?
Fair question.
I sometimes ask myself the same thing.
So Who Decided?
Who decided we should have life figured out by 40?
Who decided that by a certain age, we should know exactly what we want, exactly where we are going and exactly how we’re going to get there?
I don’t know.
Maybe there isn’t an answer.
Maybe there was never a memo.
Maybe we just keep writing our own rules, then spend half our lives worrying because we aren’t following them properly.
And perhaps that is the funny part.
I started writing this because I thought I had too many thoughts and needed to put them somewhere.
I thought somewhere between the career questions, the motherhood, the schedules, the plans, the comparison, the overthinking and the endless “what next?”, I would eventually arrive at a conclusion.
I haven’t.
Which, considering the title of this article, is probably the most honest ending I could have written.
Because tomorrow morning, life will still need me to get up.
There will be breakfast.
There will be school.
There will be work.
There will be another thing to worry about and another thing to fix.
And somewhere between all of that, I will probably have another thought about where my life is going.
Maybe I’ll write it down.
Maybe I’ll ignore it.
Maybe I’ll make another schedule for it.
And maybe, in a few years, I’ll read this again and laugh at the woman who thought she was running late.
Or maybe I’ll realise she was never late at all.
Maybe she was just standing at a different point on the road, looking at everyone else and wondering why their destination looked so much clearer from where she was standing.
Or maybe even that is just another thought I have at 2 a.m.
