what is so wrong in being ‘second’?

Rat race everywhere, everytime, in everything, constantly on and on, not a moment to understand what why where who but just running and running coz have to come first, no other go, why I ask, what is so wrong in being second? 

This is what our culture does to us. It brainwashes people by repeating the same thing over n over again. More money is good. More power is good. More property is good. Husband over wife. More is good. More is good. We repeat it over and over until no body bothers to think otherwise. The average person is so fogged by all this, he has no perspective on what’s really important anymore. Our culture teaches us to be threatened always and in turn to threaten others. Aren’t people only mean when they  are threatened n that’s what our culture does to us. We are always threatened coz we are instilled with this colossal fear of losing. It’s the same for women being not thin or men not being rich enough or women being emotional jokers or men not allowed to cry. We are involved in trillions of small things to keep going, so we don’t get into the habit of standing back and looking at our lives and saying, ‘is this all? is this all i want?’. Please don’t buy in that culture. Create your own mini culture.

Half the problem is that we don’t really experience the world and ourselves coz we are busy doing what we automatically think we have to do. If u r tying to show off for people at the top, forget it, they will look down on u anyhow and if u show off to the people at the bottom, they will only envy u. Part of the problem is everyone is in so much of hurry, we are running all over looking for meaning to our lives, the next car , the next home, the next spouse will have it. We are so hungry for love we accept substitutes and embrace and gobble up materialistic things and expect a hug back from a new car, new job, new house, new watch, phone, but does it ever work?

We don’t know what we want in a partner but rush into getting in a relation, that is because we don’t know who we are.  We have friends but will they be there for all those countless nights when you are coughing n cant sleep and someone has to sit up all night with you to comfort u, n try to be helpful?  We need marriage not because its a to-do in the list provided by our culture. Marriage is one place where we really get tested. Its here that we find out who we are, who the other person is and how we accommodate. This is our training ground. But we run off it the moment the honeymoon period is over and the training starts. For a marriage to work the most important thing to have is the belief in the importance of your marriage. That is the foundation for making it work.

We have to learn how to give out love and to let it come in. Let it come. We think we don’t deserve love, we think if we let it in we ‘ll become too soft. Why do we have to be so embarrassed of silence and what comfort do we find in all the noise? Sometimes you cannot believe what u see, you have to believe what u feel. If you are ever going to have other people trust u, you must feel that u can trust them too even when you are in the dark, even when u r falling. Sure you have friends but it wont be same as someone who will not leave. This is what a family is all about, not just love, but letting others know there’s someone who is watching out for them. If someone leaves you, it cant be the sole fault of them alone, you have pushed them to be able to do that. You can blame them all you want for not trusting you, but did you make yourself trustworthy for them to trust you? Or let me ask you, do you trust them with your life like the way you want them to? Then why are you still sitting alone there biting your loneliness and strife?

How we feel lonely sometimes to the point of tears but we don’t let those tears come because we are not supposed to cry; or how we feel a surge of love for a partner but we don’t say anything coz we’r frozen with the fear of what those words might do the relationship. Why can’t we instead turn on the faucet and let the emotions wash us? It wont hurt, only help us. Grieving is good as it has a healing power. You have to grieve fully to be able to let go it completely. I have been through life ending depression and have been through days when getting up was a punishment coz not been able to wake up seemed to be a better option. I used to mourn over my body, my life, my existence. Mornings I have spent just crying and feeling sorry for myself and all kinds of negative emotions and nights getting scared of shadows of my own mind, and cry for not able to sleep for even a minute to a point where no pill or therapist could help me, trust me the whole process only went through when I let it happen and stopped restraining it, when I let it heal me by feeling it fully. I love myself better and love everyone in my life better after this, my best lessons have come from my worst feelings. It’s healthy to allow yourself to feel self-pity but only to a limit, a few tears that’s all.

We all inherently want the same thing that most people want – someone to notice we are there, that is what makes us indulge into all that we dive in. We are always running, scared, hiding behind our ego’s, at times behind our insecurities, we dive into work coz we can control it, because it’s responsive. Actually it is the tension of opposites, things pulling in different directions. We are all going to die one day, if we accept it then we are better prepared for it as that would mean you are more involved in life while you are living. There is no such thing as too late in life as long as u r alive, u can change until u say d final goodbye. It feels sad when I see lives getting ruined because of sheer ignorance, greed and anger. There’s nothing wrong in being second, you only have to participate well and true. Love well or perish before your body perishes.

P.S. Thanks to the awesome book, Tuesdays with Morrie, for refreshing the correct morals of happy and peaceful dying, which will only come from a regret free and selfless living.