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A perspective on life at 25

I turned 25 last month and its not often that birthdays make you
introspect so much. Sure, you might have a quiet moment or two
every birthday when you think about how far youve come and
how short youve fallen in terms of your own expectations. It
usually lasts a few minutes before you get drowned by the
adulation and good wishes pouring in and eventually fades away
into the background. But this year was different. Something about
the number 25 makes it much more significant than it is.
Approaching this age is either magical, exciting or plain dreadful
(was mostly dreadful for me) depending on your current mood.
Ok, maybe magical is stretching it a bit (PLEASE CONTACT ME
IMMEDIATELY TO OFFER SAGE ADVICE IF YOU DISAGREE).
A lot of people I know, who have crossed this number are either
indifferent or have at least a tinge of sadness on getting old which
I thought was completely normal based on what I was
experiencing this year. I was going through an existential crisis.

Im not young enough to know everythingOscar Wilde


Ive always wondered what this feeling is, that makes people long
for their youth. I have a few friends who attribute this feeling to a
fear of death. Seems like a reasonable explanation even if we
might not admit it openly. Perhaps we feel less of the need to
celebrate our lives as we age because it will eventually peter out.
No one wants to die and we all want to live as long as possible.
This is a human instinct and its completely normal. In fact, the
human instinct for survival is the most enduring spirit thatll ever
exist. Yet, it would suit us better if we could just make peace with
the fact that we had no control over our birth and we will not have
any control over our death. But its compelling to know that
humans are the only species to measure time. Animals do not.
Plants do not. Its because of this we are paralysed by fear. A fear
of time running out.

A life has a length and a breadth

A few weeks back, something my Iranian friend told, changed my


way of thinking forever. Its something Ive believed in
subconsciously but couldnt possibly put it as eloquently as he
did. He pointed out that the normal way we measure our
existence is by length. Days, weeks, months, years and decades. It
doesnt matter whether you are poor or rich or religious or atheist
or intelligent or dumb, life is always measured using the same
yardstick of lengthTime. He believes that maybe we ought to
look at life not as a one-dimensional timeline but as something
which has a length and breadth. The breadth of life he was
referring was the way we live, the things we want to do in life. He
says everything we do out of our own volition adds to our width.
I dont know if he came up with it by himself, but whichever way
you look at it, it makes so much SENSE. All along my life Ive
derived so much happiness by doing things I like, things that
some people around me would never approve of at first. But I did
them anyway because I felt fulfilled and I did it without knowing
that I was unconsciously adding to the width of my life every time.
Safe to say he absolutely nailed it.

Most often we tend to have a narrow outlook of life (at least where
I come from), for various reasons good or bad. Study hard, get
into a good college either home or abroad, get a job, get married,
have kids, raise those kids as you were raised, get your kids
married in time, retire and then peacefully die in old age
surrounded by grandkids. Its a grand self-sustaining ritual. Im
not suggesting that this is a bad way to live your life but we are
taught to be this way by our society (parents, teachers, relatives
etc). We hardly have time to think it through let alone question it.
Even if youre convinced that this is an absolutely rubbish way to
lead your life and bold enough to revolt against the establishment,
the treatment youre meted out is an absolute joke. To give an
example of what its like in my place to go against the normal, in
extreme cases your parents think the nuts and bolts in your head
need tightening. Amidst this almost robotic process, we try to
squeeze in as much of our personal desires as possible. In fact, its
such a struggle to rebel against this way of life that most people
just give in. Its easier that way and you really cant blame them.

By some miracle, Im blessed with people who are much more


understanding than what I would have expected in this society.
As for my part, I try to be as responsible as possible and not be a
nuisance to them. Despite my folks sympathising with me for my
cause, when I do try to explore the widths of life, they try their
best to convince me to veer towards the narrow right path. I
really cant blame them as this is the only way they know and I
can understand that they do their best with whatever they have
got. Im slowly getting more of what I want, but boy am I
exhausted!! I belong to a fortunate bunch of people to have my
wishes heard most of the time and Im extremely grateful for it.
As a part of this privileged group, I feel responsible to try my best
to make my society much more tolerable towards other ways of
living. It starts here.

We would be better off trying to live and teach life as something


to be experienced in its entirety along its two dimensions. So it
doesnt really matter how long youve lived as long as youve lived
a life that you wanted to live.

I really wanted to get this off my chest and I think Ive come a far
way in overcoming my existential crisis and my fear of time
running out because ultimately, in the eternal words of a personal
hero of mine, Chester Bennington, In the end it doesnt even
matter .

Peace.

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