7 Thoughts on My Life on the 7th Blogging anniversary… #324

This week I have officially completed 7 years of blogging and my heart is filled with mixed emotions. After many fruitless attempts of untangling all of my thoughts for the moment, I am trying to answer some of the questions that I pondered upon through-out the last seven years. This place has witnessed many of the ups and downs of my twenties, so this is more like a comparison between “how it started” and “how it is going on” in my life.

#1 Do I (still) aspire to be a writer?
A: If we call everyone who writes a writer, then the answer is yes. But I highly doubt if the writer’s job is to “just write”. From my childhood, I found myself drawn to writing short stories, poems or just about my life. So the question arose naturally in my mind…

At this point in my life, I think I was never drawn to writing in particular but to the idea of sharing my thoughts in a safe space… I was always the quiet kid sitting on the first bench diligently taking notes from blackboard or minding my own business at some corner of my friend’s birthday party. I enjoyed being far away from the people’s eyes and observe everything and everyone. I found it amusing to talk about things that are lying in the plain sight and getting overlooked by people most often.

#2 Do I (still) hope for my blogs to go viral?
A: Few months into blogging I discovered numerous blogger’s communities- a lot of people from around the world were discussing their daily struggles to stay relevant, make money out blogging and what not. And that almost naturally led me to thinking that going viral might be epitome of success for my blogging journey. As the technical nitty gritty of making a worthy post averted me, I kept secretly hoping for some miracle to happen.

Back in the days when I was writing occasionally on Facebook, the amount of engagements on posts drove me. Now I see that, I was just looking for my family, friends and a bunch of strangers to validate my feelings and boost my morale. Over the last many years I taught myself that my feelings and experiences would remain valid and real irrespective of the people’s visible support. So I don’t bother thinking about what people would love to agree with in my blog, I just stick with unravelling my emotions to make sense out of it.

Now, I measure the success of this channel’s by the how I feel while write a post or if it makes a difference when I come across an old blog of mine. I try to keep it as a lane to get back to my own authentic self when life gets too crazy… As long as creating content here feels therapeutic than a chore, I would take it as a win!

#3 Do I want still wish for free goodies/PR packets/dinners at fancy restaurants?
A: Who doesn’t like to get some free gifts around the year be it the beauty-self care products or a new range of spice mixes. I liked them too! Free stuffs don’t start showering from heaven as soon as you start making contents on any platform…

Pandemic in 2020 forced me to take a hard look at my life and I realized that I could choose to live a life with a purpose than living my life wastefully. I became more mindful about the limited resources that I got- time, money, energy. There is no free lunch in this world- everything that we have ever owned had cost us something, even if not money.

This is the reason, I try to avoid taking part into any review campaigns for a product that my family or I don’t need. I don’t long for getting a call for food review session in places that I can’t afford to go with people that I don’t get care to spend my time with… It keeps me grounded to my own reality.

#4 Am I still confused about my career?
A: When I started my blogging journey I was still relatively new to the workforce. I was yet to understand how things work in IT industry. I was very shy and almost afraid to ask for help whenever I needed… I was learning to be a professional, learning how to code and what not.

My family was much confused about what job I should take to make them the most proud! Instead of helping me to widen my horizon and be experimental- they always kept pushing me in multiple directions without giving proper guidance/advice.

I am happy to report that I am not as much clueless as I used to be 7 years back… I am okay with the fact that I don’t have a rigid career plan for next 5 years or 10 years, but at the same time I am not in auto-pilot mode either. I guess I am getting more familiar with my personal style of dealing with life!

It felt really rewarding to be able to work in a field that I felt myself drawn to than simply following someone’s advice blindly to pick up a niche.

#5 Where are my stands on pursuing higher education?
When I freshly graduated I didn’t imagine I would be going back to college again for higher education. Firstly because I thought a bachelor’s degree was good enough and secondly because I was always under-confident in my own capabilities. I was afraid that I would fail miserably in this and also wasn’t too sure about the specialization.

It was deeply connected with the general clueless state of my career at that time-I thought whatever I choose to study further should align with the career of my choice and for the longest time I felt stuck in a dead lock.

Eventually God helped me out finding my own potential, I worked very hard to build confidence to make the first attempt… They say, a bold attempt is half success and it’s not false. So far, my own fear of failure, was the actual peril. As soon as I was able to recognize it, opportunities opened up. Unlike many of my classmates, I didn’t enroll for a full-time program. After all, I had to decide what suited my situation the best.

I wasn’t wrong about the hardships of studying along side a full time job. I am eternally grateful that my family has been extremely supportive now.

#6 Do I still have lack of friends?
A: When I started writing here, I was transitioning to a professional life and I was taken aback by the very few number of people in my age group around me. In class of 50-60 students, I had at most 2-3 close friends. But when the pool reduced to 4-5 people in total- I became open to mingling with people from all age groups and all communities.
I made some friends at work whom I am still in touch with even after changing my job and moving back with my family. The classmates who stayed connected with me after graduation- are mostly married now… but we still catch up sometimes. I still miss my carefree life and friendly banters with them but I have accepted this as the price of “growing up”.

#7 Am I still barely surviving?
A: The answer is both yes and no. When I moved out of home right after graduation, I was in early 20’s … In comparison to my life now, it was so much easier- yet it felt so demanding at that time. The problems of those years might look insignificant to me right now, but they definitely didn’t seem so to my much younger and naive self.

Life and sorrows and joys within it had evolved to be much complicated now… But I have grown to appreciate the little things more. In my everyday life I try to choose what’s good for my physical and mental health, I step away from unnecessary conflicts, I spend less time wishing for people’s love or attention.

I try to be a decent person, be kind to others, patient, and grateful. But sometimes I feel a surge of negativity, rage, jealousy, insecurity in me. I don’t blame myself for the dark corners of my heart. I am learning to be an observer of my own nature and become a better person than what I was the previous day.

Thanks for dropping by! 🙂 <3

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