On Believing
One of the most difficult thing to do as a human being, according to me, is ‘to believe’. To believe someone loves you, to believe you will excel in your career, to believe your family is a tad bit better than what you thought it was or to just purely believe you’re at least not good for nothing.
Hello, fellow readers, this newsletter was dead for awhile, because I was finding reasons to be alive, where I forgot that writing was always one of them. Day by day, I received random subscriptions on this newsletter, that humbled me in finally publishing my thoughts again. This a short & beautiful one because I promised to publish at least once a month from 2022 & well, the first month of the year is ending tomorrow.
Ever since, people have asked me why did I do so? What do I really mean by it. For starters, it literally means what you read – ‘I am taking space’, but the next question arises, from what? And my answer would be – everything. When life is filled with a new challenge everyday, what is the one reaction people always have? The common answers known and felt by me range from – ‘I want to run away somewhere far’, ‘I want to stay in my room and don’t want to face the world’, ‘Can I be somewhere no one really knows me?’ and a series of responses filled with the emotion to vanish from the face of Earth. This is where I want you to stop & tell you, that this world needs a little bit more of you than you think. Maybe you feel you don’t have much to offer now, but if you are simply reading this, you’re giving a random person and her love for writing, a chance. This way, even the tiniest drops will make the ocean. Don’t run, don’t go, don’t leave, or this ocean will go dry.
I miss the mountains. Last year, the only month I really felt alive was those 30 days in Dharamkot, Himachal. I went up to Triund snowline with four amazing people who made this happen for me. To be honest, first 30 mins of the trek, I was breathing so heavily at 5:30 am and had to pass my bag to a friend. 6:00 am & I was already questioning my decision to climb up. I started with only one thought – You’ve come this far, why go back again? When I say this, it’s not the distance covered from the base of the trek, its coming this far to living this life. To constantly write freelance on random projects during lockdown, to be able to save up & come here. It’s to be in the last year of law school and ditch the path taken by my peers. To be extremely nervous about every action you take because you feel being watched & judged. When at 6:15 we started, all my friends including me doubted if I would be able to make it. The thought that helped me kept going was – If I reach the top, this would be the first thing I would do purely for myself. It was not to please anyone, take someone’s approval, to be liked by a particular human being, it was just for me & my willingness to do something for myself. Initially, I also felt the guilt of slowing the group down, so I let them go ahead. I learned that moment, to let people go ahead in life is you not losing something but just waiting to be found by them all over again. The entire trek I was walking alone, I broke down multiple times. I was blamed myself of not being able to catch up with the rest of them. I vomited twice and didn’t have water on myself to drink or clean myself. I fell and hurt my knees countless times to slow my pace even more. I cursed my heart which pumped slow from the rest of the world. Every time I decided if I wanted to go back, I saw the route behind me and ahead of me. One was the comfortable, certain, predictable route back to my room and other one extremely uncertain, highly uncomfortable and which took all my mental and physical energy. At one point, I sat on a rock while the horses pass by to actually think why I am putting myself through it? Why is it so important for me to go up there? Is it really worth it?
It is. To do something purely because it makes you feel alive, to go back to nature, to experience the high of cold breeze, to see clouds clearing and stargazing. To be on top. Not of a university, not in the career, not on social media, not financially. To understand that you have to walk slow, on your own pace. That sometimes it would mean to walk alone. To be on top of all your life’s challenges and to finally learn to ‘take space’ in this world. To me, chasing nature is way better than escaping life.
Sharing some beautiful memories with you
