Lately, if I have read any book cover-to-cover it would be “The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F**k” by Sarah Knight. This book is gold for people who trouble themselves about—what people think, what they speak, how they perceive them, etc. In short, that’s pretty much a version of me, when I am low. Although I am not a fast learner when it comes to matters of life, what I have learned from this book is, it’s important to define personal policies. I already have one. This article is about winding my way to define the second one.
Six months. That’s what I had told myself while moving away. I had a full-proof and dramatic plan in mind, and knew the distance and six months would set everything right between us. I was slightly paranoid about sharing the idea with anyone, worried it would be jinxed.
Pretty soon I realized six months was too long a time I had considered. The plan got abandoned beyond repair in just three months of me moving out, and I really had no say in it. Well, lesson learned—in plans involving others, you got to keep them in loop.
In the next one year, I fell in love again. This time with my work. I took up work as an antidote to everything bad, ugly, and heart-breaking. I did exceedingly well to my belief and confidence. People loved me and looked up to me. I made new sets of friends, who were quite different from the ones I had—the new people were more fun, more lively, more inclusive, but less invested, mentally. Given the person I was, it did not take long to know many people around. My evenings and weekends were planned and I didn’t have to spend them working. Work made space for life in work-life balance.
Life was kind of back to normal, with new people and places. At times, I missed the ones I had left behind but knew I had to adjust. Or, accommodate? These two words sound similar but when you think of the effort involved, they differ way much.
Gradually, with time and people, my idea of fun evolved—for better or worse, will tell later. My set of acquaintances grew by number. Everyone knew whom to give a call when planning to go out. Every person’s partner to explore new places would be me. Because I would never say no. I happened to be available for everyone. And I thought that’s how it worked for me and others.
As luck would have it, certain events happened back-to-back, and I wanted to pause for a while. I wanted to step out of the mad race of being a social butterfly. Not trying to sound snobbish, by that time some extent of superficiality had also crept in, which started tearing me down within. I started feeling left out among familiar faces and wasn’t able to connect with ‘scenes’. But I would still be there. FOMO.
I began yearning for real times, simple get-togethers, genuine laughs, and peaceful sleeps. The only thing I wanted was to have good conversations. It was time for me to realize, what I thought worked for both me and the others was actually me being part of others’ plans. My availability was taken for granted. When I really needed someone for a basic, honest conversation, I found none. When I needed someone to tell me everything was alright, I didn’t have anyone by my side. When I needed someone to knock down a busy or depressing day, I couldn’t reach out to anyone.
If I had tried I could have made things my way and I knew some of them would comply to it. I also knew that would give rise to unnecessary frills which again, would create further complications. So, I decided it was time for me to frame personal policy no. 2—Be available for people as much or as little as they are available for us.
P.S., for people who wouldn’t know, my personal policy no. 1, which I decided to stick myself to toward the end of 2018, is I am not responsible for others’ behavior. I don’t blame myself for how people behave with me or against me. I started not to engage or entertain all those people whom I had gathered in the last five years and whose presence stopped making me feel good about myself.
I am not a very determined person when it comes to people and there were cases where I fell through, but I tried to stick to it as best as I could. My idea is very simple I don’t care what you do in your life, if your presence in my life is a reason to worry then I will unplug myself. You need not do anything. There were times when people took themselves out saving me the effort. But that’s okay. It’s a mutual thing and I am a difficult person too.
Moments to Stories 