Dear Jasmine #11: Do the Cha-Cha-Cha
"Don’t procrastinate living your life because of the thoughts in your head."
Question #11
Dear Jasmine,
I have been thinking and feeling a lot lately about all the events that happen in my life. I have been through a lot (heartbreaks, illness in family and my own health, and career issues) in past few years. I tend to overthink about anything and everything. I feel too much for my own good. For instance, I feel guilty that a child who is begging does not have the resources I have access to even though he is equally human and deserving of all the comforts. I am not able to enjoy life and be free of inhibitions and guilt. Many unfortunate events that transpire in my life lead me to think about how life is a punishment for all of us and we have to suffer and wait a lot for a tiny bit of happiness to come along. All of this existential thinking leads to inaction and I tend to procrastinate things a lot till a point where it gets over the head. How should I make most of the life as it comes?
- Overthinker in Gurgaon
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Dear Jasmine,
I don't know, I am so fearful of my life. I have attained the epitome of failure all because of fear. I fear and a lot. I know I am good, but don't know in what. I have an alter persona and that too is fading. I now am comfortable in my failure.
- A from Mumbai
Answer #11: Do the Cha-Cha-Cha
Dear Overthinker and A,
As I am an anonymous columnist, no one in my social circle knows I write this column. Of course, for obvious reasons, only Rohini knows who I am. The rest of me and the work I do here in this space is known to me alone. A couple of weeks ago, another columnist wrote to the Jasmine email ID and sent in questions for a piece they were working on. One of the questions they asked was how I came upon the opportunity to write this column. I started writing this column because I felt that we, as a generation, needed a voice of reassurance to tell us that everything hadn’t gone to hell on a handcart. I sought a voice like this for two years of the pandemic and then, having found none, I decided to take matters in my own hands. Thus, ‘Dear Jasmine’ was born.
Having done so, I still seek a measured, reassuring voice in my own circles — workplace and family and friends — who still ‘believes’ and radiates faith like a beam of moonshine. I seek out smarter folks, experienced people, ‘elders and leaders’, or even the old souls in my peer group so that they can tell me we can still be redeemed as people and as society. So that they can comfort my weary soul and inspire me to look at the bright side and I can wear cool sunglasses while I do so. I am afraid, but I can’t say I’ve found many people who are able to still ‘believe’.
All said and done, I still come here and seek out the sliver of hope from my own heart-bottom and give it to you. I try to become what I am unable to find. I am not sure how well I have done so far, but the only thing in my control is to try, and I try with all my might.
I want you both to be able to live without overthinking and without fear. In the over-stimulated world we live in, it is hard to not fall into these traps. I am a victim of overthinking myself, and I fear many things, sometimes way too much. I say this to validate how you’re feeling. You’re not out on an island on your own. Many people are consumed by their thoughts and beset with fear. Many of these people are reading this column right now. The prison of your mind cages you and makes you feel you’re by yourself. Nothing can be further from the truth. If you will allow me, I want to tug on your hand and bring you out from the prison to sit among similar folks for some time. Come out of that cage for a while. Sit here, with all of us.
Truth be told, Overthinker and A, I worry too much about the things I write here, but I hope that this column is a conversation of our times and not a sermon. I am not wise, certainly don’t have my act together. I don’t stand on a pulpit. I sit in the circle with all of us and say all these things I hope to make true — that we be brave with our actions, we pour kindness on ourselves, we choose the words we say in anger and in routine, we rally after change, we pluck courage and use it, and above all, we control our thoughts before they wreck us all.
Control your thoughts, dear florets, before they wreck you both. If there is an imagination you want to run away with, make sure it serves you well. Make sure that the imagination you indulge in constructs positive images in your head instead of negative ones. After all, why would you run away with something that is not well-dressed and doesn’t look like a million bucks? Apply this to everything in your life — accept only those energies, music, movies, friends, family members who add a positive spin to your interactions. When I realised I was stuck in a negative thinking pattern, every time I caught myself imagining bad outcomes, I started creating outlandish, out of the ordinary scenarios on purpose. What if I fall into the sea? A huge white whale glittering with diamonds will scoop me up and take me to the Goddess of the sea who will give me magical powers. What if my lead hates the project I have submitted? I will be approached by a person in a position of power while I am getting coffee and they will offer me a huge payout for the work I have done. So on and so forth. I tricked my brain into constructing the largest, grandest, positive theories about my own life until I stopped believing the bad stuff. If I can scare myself with the negative, why can’t I comfort myself with the positive?
If worrying had brought anything to life, our world would be a smorgasbord of horrific manifestations of every single person around you. Thank the stars, not everything we think comes true. Can you imagine what would happen if it did? The best antidote to overthinking and fear is action. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Of course, overworking tires you out, so please be mindful of that. Action always has a way of dispelling fear and thoughts that run amok.
If you’ve seen the show This Is Us, you will know that Beth and Randall have a worst-case-scenario game they play every time they’re confronted with a tough situation. For those who don’t know, I will summarise: as a couple who is each others’ safe space, when Beth and Randall are facing a tough situation, they stand across each other and rattle out their worst fears aloud. In doing this, they come away feeling a little lighter and more equipped to handle the situation now that they’ve emptied their minds of horrors. Empty the horrors of your mind, Overthinker and A. Empty them to a safe space friend, partner, or best of all to your journal. Say the things out loud with the intent of blowing them off and it takes their power away. Say them too often, and you give them power over you.
If you worry too much about failing, find out if you’re failing at things you genuinely enjoy or if you’re failing at the rat race. If it is the former, then it’s going to be fine in the long run. If it is the latter, pluck courage and go fail at something you like. At least that way, you’ll have fun while sliding down the society-constructed ladder of success.
Don’t procrastinate living your life because of the thoughts in your head. You have given these thoughts life. You can end them. It is hard, yes. But it must be done. You owe it to yourself to protect your mind. Growing a tree is also hard. Do you think that the earth waits for conditions to be perfect before growing anything? Nature just keeps going whether it is having a bad-sprout-day or not. Control your thoughts and be a little hard on yourself for your own good. Your ideas about your own success or failure are supplied to you by yourself. Believe in something other than the binary of winning or losing. Believe in smearing your life with a spectrum of experiences rather than having to constantly weigh them against a score board or against a book of philosophy. Constantly measuring your life takes the fun away from living.
Being existential about the world is hella cool when you’re 25 and in love with a boy or a girl who wears their hair a little too long and listens to death metal music. Being existential after that phase is plain indifference to participating in your own life. The boy or girl has outgrown the hair, the music, the ideology, and so should you.
Your life is not a punishment. I have said it before and I will say it again. Your life is a gift given to you to savour and enjoy provided that you have the courage to do so. Fight for joy. Fight for well-being. Fight for positive spaces. Fight for kind words in your head and on your lips. Fight for reassurance.
If reassurance and comfort doesn’t exist in your life, create it. Give yourself the gift of encouragement that was not provided by others. Control your demons. Comfort your angels. Your imagination is worth running away with, but before you do, make sure it looks hella cool and shines like a moonbeam on a lazing river.
Dance away with it into the night. Turn the music up loud. Put one step after another.
Put one step after another.
Love,
Jasmine
Dear Jasmine is a fortnightly column by an anonymous writer. If any of you want to send in questions, please send them to Jasmine here.
Dear Jasmine, I love this and not only appreciate but gain support from your format of question/answer. Brilliant, well considered, kind, and useful, thank you! To a fellow off/on procrastinator, I get it and yes, action is the answer for me at least and sometimes very hard to get myself there. It's true that acceptance with action is helpful in living with ruminations of suffering of others and our own. That is, for me to gently say to myself, yes, I would have done such and such differently and there is sadness or loss or "fill in the blank there" but it is one experience among many. The key for me is to recognize it and allow the other many thoughts and possibilities.
I think most of us do what we can to improve the world most often in very small but meaningful ways.
To balance longing for change with doing, I can remember to give myself permission as you said to reach for aliveness and that my chance at this brief existence is an honor. I define god as unassigned free floating goodness " To know "God" we must welcome everything" Rabidranath Tragore