Perfect Imperfect Life - Zentered Minds

A Blog by Aayushi Tailor

What truly will be considered a perfect life for someone? Will it be having enough money to buy expensive things to fulfil their wants, will it be having a beautiful wife and having kids with her or will it be being well known and famous in the world.? If I get a chance to describe the definition of perfect life, then I would say that a perfect life is where you have moments of imperfection and you still have that perfect attitude to deal with it. A perspective, where even if you have less materialistic things in your life and only few people in your life, you still find a perfect kind of satisfaction with all of it. One should know that perfection is to find satisfaction in quality and not in quantity. Perfection is not in the future, where we imagine ourselves achieving everything we ever wished for, but it is about embracing the present situation with its imperfection but still finding it perfect. To support this, I would like to state my own experience.

It was the starting of my second semester as an architecture student. The first semester had been difficult for me where I was among those few students whose model project got rejected the most. I managed to put in all my hard work in my first semester and got satisfactory grades eventually. Finally, those hardworking sleepless nights had paid off and I was happy.

During the four-hour journey from my hometown to the city where my college is located, I told myself that I will work harder for my second semester. I was quite excited for my second semester and to meet all my friends. The second semester started on a good note. My first idea of model making was approved and I was asked to start working on it. I told myself that this will be my year and I will be making tremendous progress. The days passed and little by little my model was progressing, but something within me was not. I thought that working hard towards my goal always made me feel content, but here I was, with no interest to go back and work on my model. I thought it was just me being lazy, but with every passing day I literally had to push myself to even start working. Despite having worked for only 15 – 20 mins on my model, I felt exhausted with no sense of interest, but then I still pushed myself to work for at least an hour and a half more. Still, at the end of those 2 hours, there was no sense of enjoyment that I felt unlike before where I used to feel proud and satisfied when I worked hard towards my goal. This dissatisfaction started reflecting on my work and all my models got rejected. Despite having scored well in other projects, things still didn’t matter much.

Four months passed with the same state of mind, with no interest and enthusiasm, with me convincing myself that it is just a difficult part of my life. Slowly all this started affecting all my work. I thought that It will all be fine If I gave it some time, but It did not. Instead it kept getting worse and it became difficult for me to even get out of my bed.

It was on one such day where I had to attend a class, but I was not motivated to get up from the bed despite One of my friends calling me and asking me to attend the class. I was lying on the bed, crying, and telling myself that I cannot do this anymore. Then I stood up, packed my bag, and left for home. By the time I reached home it was already night, my parents were shocked and even angry with my impulsive decision. I started crying in front of them and my mom immediately held me.

A month passed with lots of convincing from my family’s side as well as from my friend’s side to continue with my degree, but I still did not have any motivation. I also sought help from a counsellor, crying in front him and expressing how deeply I have disappointed my parents. I remember him telling me, “It is not the end of your life, it’s just about deciding a direction and it completely depends on you, which direction you would want to lead now.” I think that helped me a lot.

Within the coming month, I set on a journey on knowing myself better and also exploring various other fields that might interest me. Soon I found myself reading on a subject called psychology, the various theories by the famous psychologists intrigued me. I kept on digging more and learning more. But there was always a question that kept running in my mind, “why did I quit architecture when it meant everything to me?” It disturbed me a lot.

Finally, I decided to pursue psychology as my major. It was not a difficult choice to make but I was nervous because my life had taken a new direction and I was uncertain about the upcoming challenges. The fear within me asked, “Will you drop psychology the same way you dropped architecture”? I didn’t know the answer then, but I was about to find it soon.

It has been more than two years of studying psychology now and I absolutely love the subject. It intrigues me every single day and I always wish to go back to studying it after a break of having fun with family or friends. My passion towards it has reflected on my grades and I always end up being one of the top five students in my class. Now when I sit back thinking, I know my answer to the question of quitting architecture, it is because architecture was just my interest and psychology is my passion. Also, I think quitting is not the right word, because I didn’t quit on myself, I didn’t quit on my goals. It was just the direction in my life that had changed, and I learnt to let go of things that didn’t make me satisfied. I learnt that you are satisfied when your hard work satisfies you.

In our lives we all have our own imperfect moments of failure, disappointment, rejection, and it is these imperfect moments that gives us all an equal opportunity to learn the perfect lesson of our lives. At the end it all depends on us, on how we learn this lesson, Perfectly or Imperfectly.

– A Blog by Aayushi Tailor

A Blog by Antara Jain

There is immense amount of pain in the world, there are people struggling every single day and most of them are not open enough about the way they feel due to the generic thought that “I know what people are going to say so what’s the point?”. This is exactly where the problem lies – we as individuals fail to recognise the way we put across our words, the way we use our words towards another individual who may be at their lowest point. We are trained to believe that Mental Health Issues and even experiencing any kind of negative emotion is “just a phase”, is just a person being “too sensitive” or being too “dramatic”. We may not recognise this but we tend to invalidate an individual’s feelings to an extent that they become self-critical of their own emotions, they begin to feel how they are or were feeling is irrelevant and somehow their fault, they jump into the cycle of self-blame and eventually begin to believe that there is something wrong with them. There are several things to keep in mind when you are trying to be there for someone – we believe that giving someone advice or comparing their emotions and problems to those of other people who “have it much worse” means being there for someone but it’s literally the opposite. In fact, when you start telling a person who is already falling apart that they indirectly don’t deserve to fall apart or feel so negatively about a certain aspect of their lives because “other people have it much worse”, you’re basically claiming that just because their problems aren’t as bad as those of others, they are not allowed to feel upset. This will lead to nothing but a downward spiral in terms of the individual’s Mental Health.

When someone is sharing about how they’re feeling regarding something you may have done or said to hurt them or just some aspect of their lives which is making them feel low and upset – most of us have a tendency to start talking about ourselves, our problems and how we are feeling. Now imagine being in a situation like that. This person trusted you enough to open up to you, they probably opened up to you because they felt that you would understand – however, if you begin to take away their perception towards the situation and how they felt by making it all about yourself, chances are this individual will never open up to you. It’s imperative to remember that it’s not a competition, it’s not about you in that very moment – it’s about the person who was strong enough to be honest and vulnerable with you. There are also instances where our automatic response is to tell someone how they should feel and how they should not feel: “be positive”, “chill out” , “don’t overreact and over-analyze, just let it go”, “stop overthinking” – such terms are toxic to use when you’re trying to be there for someone, how can we tell someone how to feel?

You’re basically taking away their power to experience their emotions completely, you’re taking away their response to a situation or a thought. In such instances, the individual does not even want your advice, they just want you to be present, they want you to listen to them in a space which is created to be non-judgemental and non-bias – that’s all that people are looking for, a safe space where they can express themselves without being made to feel invalidated or criticised.

After reflecting on our misconceptions and mistakes, let’s throw light on the effective ways to genuinely be there for people who are struggling. Let’s keep in mind that you don’t know the extent of someone’s suffering and you never will but you have the power to use your words in an appropriate manner to instil a sense of courage and hope within the individual – “I can’t imagine what you’re going through but I want you to know that I am here to listen to you”, “I know it’s hard to see strength in oneself when you feel hopeless and this may not matter, but I do see strength and resilience in you”, “Don’t feel bad for feeling the way you’re feeling but I want you to know that you will get through this and I will be here”. Such words are validating and depicts the idea of you being present with the person. Regardless – focus on their positive qualities, focus on their courage and their strength, help them find hope again amidst the words that you use while you’re trying to help. Don’t project your “sympathy” towards them, instead practice empathy – try to understand what the other individual may genuinely be feeling and how this feeling could be affecting their emotional well-being – don’t jump to conclusions and don’t make assumptions. Just be there for them empathetically. A person who is heard and understood is a person who will begin to heal.

Tag: Perfect Imperfect Life

Perfection Of An Imperfect Life