YOU MATTER!
Life is beautiful! Life is amazing! Life is unpredictable and sometimes bitter but aren’t we all used to it?
The journey from the cradle to your grave is nothing less than an Oscar-winning movie with you overcoming all your fears, challenges, and self-doubt. Do you remember the time when you used to ask for supporting wheels on your mountain bike as you feared to fall off the cycle? Well, look at yourself now. You are capable of driving a fully mechanical four-wheeled car, casually cruising at speeds unimagined by the younger you as even speeding on a cycle scared the hell out of you? I used to be worried sick in differentiating between the letters “b” and “d” and look, today, I am writing stories for my friends intending to cheer them up?
You may not be perfect, not the pious saint you once dreamed of as a kid, and honestly may ponder over your deeds after seeing posts like “would the six-year-old you be happy with what you are today?” Has anyone ever congratulated you for reaching this far? After all you have been through? The long sleepless nights, the time your parents thought you’re dieting but in reality you lost your appetite, the tears shed alone, crying over situations you wished never occurred? Ever stood staring at a particular thing having a self-existence crisis and someone shrugs you from behind? Most people of my age have, surviving such problems along with childhood traumas which may have scarred their past but managed to live with it, flourishing over time. At that moment, did you think that you won’t make it past as your whole life seemed to come back to it?
With the closure of one opportunity, you get the keys to open the doors leading to millions of other opportunities. You may not realize at the moment but several years into the future you may ponder over your past with a smirk congratulating yourself for the wise decisions in the past or if they backfired, accepting the fact that they were your mistakes with the vow never to repeat them. Your failures are more likely to improve your personality rather than constant successes. Personally, being the favorite of most teachers, I had an ego obsessed with my intellect, a quality overshadowing my other shortcomings. Then a person called Ahmed Javed entered my life, acting as a battering ram, singling me out on every opportunity, breaking that ego, and revealing my flaws to my brain. There were at least a million occasions where I pondered over changing my section or dropping his subject, but just when I was about to throw the towel, something provoked me to stay as I finessed my way through his lectures, eventually earning his respect.
Sometimes you may feel lonely too but during those times, you look at people around you with a different perspective, helping improve your judgments leading to better friendships in the future. Ever lost your friend with your secrets becoming public property? Ever sat alone on a table eating your sandwich which you would previously cut in two halves for someone you cared? Ever made a friend believing they are truly the ones you sought out only to realize they developed feelings for you and eventually getting yourself bashed by the public after saying “NO”? Saw jealousy and insecurities of friends turn your relations sour? I pray you never face the toxicity associated with such issues. If someone left by taking you for granted, with you sacrificing your self-respect in the process just to cling onto old ties, I can proudly tell you it is their loss as you are MAGNIFICENT and AMAZING. As they say, only a few know the real value of diamonds. YOU ARE A DIAMOND!
You ever felt miserable about yourself after trying your level best for a quiz with a person who partied throughout the week getting better marks than you? Peer pressure gets to the best of us with a toll on our mental health. You don’t have to look at others as your standard. Look at your personal growth. A person gets an ‘A’ by taking an easy-course with memorization of slides the key to success whereas you learn all the things that fascinate you, go through challenging situations to achieve a respectable grade. While in the short term you may believe you are at a loss, in the long run, you will benefit as there is no substitute for dedicated hard work and practical learning. Moreover, you have to realize that getting jealous of those better than you is not something to be proud of. Learn from them in the hope of improving yourself is the way to go about it. I have personally met people with 19 A’s and 16 A’s having the worst possible personalities. While many were tempted to befriend them, they proved to be real-life jerks. In the end, people value you on your manners, personality, and kindness. At university, I have met people with a 4.0 GPA, intentionally sharing wrong notes with their peers, a below the belt attempt to lower the mean for personal gain.
Few amongst us even dared to approach someone they loved, proposing them. While some get a positive response, some don’t with the other one not on the same page in terms of feelings. Do not let rejection make you feel as if you are unimportant, unloved, and useless. You mean a lot to those around you. Look at your friends! Look at your parents! They shower you with unconditional love. While things may not have gone according to plan, one day surely you will find someone who looks at you the way you always imagined, making you feel the most important person. Honestly, with the number of rejections sent by universities abroad, getting rejected shouldn’t be something you take to your heart.
The point being is that YOU should not underestimate yourself or lose hope. In such times where all of you are surrounded with a web of depressive news, praying against hope that the email notification you just received isn’t meant to notify you of another unfortunate death. Hearing news from your friends of how their parents or siblings begged for mercy and relief in their last moments, suffering from Corona, trying their best to gasp some air inside their lungs. To make matters worse, some of us even reimagine the whole scenario, placing yourself and loved ones in the story, speculating your response in such circumstances and suffering from pain mainly through your empathetic side. Every night, I wake up after seeing nightmares where people I care about get infected with Covid-19. LUMS fee hike accompanied by the economic recession with many people getting laid off from their jobs, makes you worry if your peers would even continue studying here? While many suggest “Namaz parho” as the solution for such depression, I believe it doesn’t apply to the same level for everyone. The best solution is to be grateful that till now, none of your immediate family members are affected, and being there for those who have lost their kin. And if you ever feel hopeless, remember your mother kept hope for 9 months until hearing your first scream, making you the priority for the rest of your life, hoping that one day YOU will achieve things that she couldn’t.
*If you ever feel depressive and do not want to let your family members know, I want you all to know that I am always available on call or text, having intriguing stories that would make you have a pearl of laughter, forgetting your sorrows for the time being.
