How to discover the zest for life again

The longing to find this zest for life has always made me feel miserable, for I always seem to move ahead with a fear of losing myself within. But I still hope to find it, cause losing myself in an attempt to find myself is a small price to pay in exchange to live in a world filled with this zest for life.

Gaurav Badola

Wrapped up in my blanket, I looked at the stars, remembering the very day seven years ago, the day I decided to live…again.
It’s been seven years, phew…life goes so fast sometimes. And sometimes, it takes a year for a moment to slip by.

So, let’s rewind a bit. It’s the year 2013, and like everyone else, I was aiming to be the best. You know this mad chase for acknowledgment and all. It’s funny how we chase things that don’t matter while losing ourselves within.

It had been a rough year so far. First, I failed in all the sessionals (sort of, like a mid-term test), making me the center of everybody’s ridicule. Secondly, I was obese as hell, and that made me an outcast in a class where almost everyone was in decent shape. So, guess what, I started hating school. I was bullied, laughed at, and made fun of. On top of that, I was an introvert, so that also didn’t help. The struggle to remain myself became so worse that I slowly started losing the zest for life.

But, the biggest struggle wasn’t moving forward. It was remaining sane in a world devoided of any human touch and filled with self-despising inner chatter.

The Inner Struggle

Someone has rightly said, “You can have everyone in the whole world, and still be alone, and you might have no one by your side, and still feel blessed.”

My entire life had been a canvas which others have painted upon based on their beliefs, and I sort of kinda went along with it, until I realized I no longer can. And most of us fall in that category.

We go by with the notion of what we’re accustomed to until it starts to hurt so bad that we have no choice except to change.

I, for one, never liked myself to begin with. I didn’t have a positive body image, nor did I liked what I saw in the mirror. But I didn’t do anything about it. Nor did I called anyone out for help, nor tried to escape from it.
Slowly, every day started to feel like a mountain, and gradually I lost the will to move forward. The path that used to feel like home now felt like a dark meadow devoid of any life. I used to find going to school so refreshing, but now, it felt like a sore needle sticking in, or a nightmare in broad daylight.

But it wasn’t just that.
I realized that the outside world did shove me into darkness, but it was the absence of a home that planted the seeds of doubt within me. I used to come home looking for someone to find me, to hear my sorrows, and to just let me be.

But, I guess it was much of an ask. At that time, I didn’t know anything about mental health, and self-love was not a thing like it is now. Also, my parents didn’t know about the things I was going through.
I never tried to explain it to them, nor did they ever asked.

The fear of being isolated

For all those years, I thought enduring it would be the safest way to not get into trouble. I was a scared kid, afraid of speaking up, fearful of the bullies, nervous about being isolated, afraid of the world.

You know what happens to these kids, they’re left alone. And as kids do, they start believing that they’re wrong somewhere. Like they’re the culprit when all they’ve done is follow the world.
I, too, felt like I’m the problem in the grand scheme of things. I didn’t fit anywhere. Not at home, nor school, nor life. The need to be perfect haunted me. Everyone seemed perfect, except me. People used to laugh, smile, walk hand in hand, while I used to walk, slowly slipping away in silence.
For years, I did this, hoping no one would notice the face that I so forcibly tried to hide.

During all this, I realized one thing, and it was the longing we all have to find someone. Someone to fill our lives with the greatest of joys and happiness, and touch our heart. Someone to hold us down when the winds get rough and the sails go out of control.
Some of us find it, some… well, end up losing themselves.

It’s not just the emotional turmoil which causes pain, it’s an inevitable pain of knowing that you’re alone, and you’ll be alone.

The fall

But life goes on, and pieces you’ve held onto slips away just like sand, leaving you with nothing. That facade too…, broke apart.

I still remember that day so vividly that it feels like yesterday. I was coming back from school. It was crowded and noisy, as usual, but, to me, it felt like the whole world has been devoided of any life.

The air felt heavy, the vision… cloudy, the mind somewhat hazy. The walk felt different that day, my feet felt heavy, and for the first time, it rained.

It just poured, taking away every last of my remaining strength, and my smile. Before that, no matter what happened, I used to keep smiling. In adversity, in pain, happiness, there used to be only one constant, that superficial smile.

Why did I wear that smile?

To protect something, to look happy, to maintain status-quo, to not be seen less of a man…, the answer, I didn’t know. It seems silly, I know, but aren’t we all the same.

We go by, facing our darkest days without letting the world get a glimpse of the nightmares we face every day and night. Trying to force a smile so much that as soon as the door closes, our inner world falls apart.
It’s like we’re trying to protect something, but what that something is, we don’t know.

For me, the smile was a way to not let others in, to not let them see what I see.., a spirit that has broken apart. I thought I’ll lose all that I’ve gained over the years, all the superficial friends that I’ve made, and left alone.

But it’s more than that. People wear a smile not just to show to the world, but also to keep themselves from falling apart.

The light at the end of the tunnel (finding that lost spark)

The road less traveled has always scared me, and yet I long to walk it, for the answers I want are not words, but scars waiting to be unearthed, scars that usually appear on a rainy day, bringing with them a new zest for life.

Gaurav Badola

As I reached home, I sat outside for quite a while. It was dark, and the clouds had enveloped the entire sky. There was chaos outside, the same way it was within. I had lost. No, that would be wrong.

I had lost ages ago. I just realized it now.

Slowly, my mind started to grasp all that had happened, and for the first time, it hurt so badly that I just sat there, speechless, confused, and numb. Oblivious to the sound of my mother calling me, the bike passing by, and the blood coursing through my veins, I just sat there, letting the droplets of rain ease out the pain somehow.

I don’t remember how long I sat there, but for the first time in years, I found the clouds finally scattering up, and saw a flicker of light, piercing the clouds, finding its way through.

And, from that day, I haven’t looked behind again. To be more precise, I stopped playing the victim card.

Does it mean you found the answer you were looking for?

No, no, not by any means. Things haven’t changed by any means, neither did I miraculously found the answer to every problem I was going through.

I was still the same person, wary of others, anxious, and sometimes afraid of the future. But, I’d realized I’ve been stuck here for too long, and it’s time to move on.

The question is not, ‘Will I ever reach there?’, it’s more along the lines of, ‘Am I promised tomorrow and all that I worry about really matter?’

I know you might be thinking that it really matters, and to a child, it really does. The world prioritizes social validation over everything else. If you have got a prominent social profile, you’re safe, and if not, oh man, you’re screwed. You’ll be made to feel guilty and left alone.

The Difference Between Wanting and Needing

For the most part, we want things to change. Yet ‘wanting‘ something to change doesn’t necessarily change em. There is a thin line between wanting and needing. We all want things to be different, a good job, an offbeat life, an ideal partner, fame, and whatnot. But wanting things doesn’t make them come true, it only makes you uneasy and depressed.

Now, ‘needing‘ is an entirely different thing. It has a genuine reason behind it. We need love to feel like we matter, we need care for survival. ‘Needs‘ are limited, ‘Wants‘ never are.

The higher the expectations we set for ourselves, the higher the anxiety we go through.

We may feel like we’ll never be able to survive it, that we’re worthless in the grand scheme of things, but every one of us has a spark within us that resides deep within us. I know it sounds too philosophical, and that it might seem like a cliche, but it’s what I have come to know during the amount of time I have lived.

No one can replace anyone. It’s just how it is, your existence cannot be replaced by anyone else.

But if you’ll live your entire life through someone else’s eyes, you’ll never find yourself good enough. And that’s what we all do. We feel we’re good enough if someone says we are, we think we’re vital if we’re called out to an event, or have friends to hang out with.
And if for some reason we don’t fit the bill, we’re left to dry alone.

Life will always come around, and those painful struggles will pave the door to limitless skies. Skies that shine, filled with warmth and joy. It’s up to us to look up and live. The light will always be there.

Finding the zest for life again…

In bad times and in good I’ve never lost my sense of zest for life.

Walt Disney

If I look at my life right now, it seems complete to me. It just feels right, although nothing much changed physically. But I’ve become a completely different person.

After all of the years tying myself up and pitying myself, I finally found the will to move ahead. And that, in turn, has fueled this zest for life within me.

You might be in the darkest place possible where there’s no hope, not even a tiny ray of light. It might seem foolish to even think about a day filled with happiness and joy. I know for a fact that it’s right cause if I would have been told this five years ago, I would’ve beaten the guy left and right.

But, here’s the thing.
Most of us have a way out. It’s just that we’re so lost and confined in our own world that we feel that we don’t deserve a second chance, that we don’t deserve happiness. It’s true, we’re not happy because we’re afraid to be happy.

No, no, no… that cannot be true

But it is. We’re so afraid to be happy that along with happiness comes a string of questions in our head that aims at our self-worth. In my case, the fear of not being good enough always haunted me. I used to be so skeptical of anything good happening around me that I never allowed myself to feel truly happy. I used to brush away good stuff in my life as incidental, while the bad things used to stick around a long time.

Every time I felt like being happy, the inner chatter always used to ask me, ‘Are you allowed to be happy?’ My answer always used to be a resounding no.

It took me a lot of time to finally become comfortable with myself and my thoughts. After beating myself up for many years, one day it just clicked, and I asked myself who the hell am I doing this all for. To look good in the eyes of someone who doesn’t give a damn, the compulsion to look good, in turn, made me miserable.

It took me quite a lot of time, which included days filled with agony and nights spend on tearing myself apart. Eventually, I was able to separate myself from all of the patterns that I’d accumulated over the years. It was a constant road of ups-and-downs, more bad days than the good. But I did come around, and now I don’t amount my happiness to others (mostly). I started finding meaning in the small things life has to offer, and that contributed a lot in finding this zest for life again. I realized that everyone is searching for their own inner truth and that every one of us, like me, is either lost or trying to start anew.

But I feel stuck in here…

I was there too. And I know how frustrating and difficult it is, but if you’re in this place, I have only one thing to tell you. Stop looking down and give life a chance again. It might hurt in the beginning, but soon there won’t be any pain. You will find it… the zest for life again. You will find the reason for your existence, and even if you don’t, you’ll realize life has so much to offer if we just start moving ahead.

Remember, there’s no joy in winning if you’ve never failed, for the one who has lost over and over again, only truly knows the essence of success. And, we’re the strongest when it comes to suffering, aren’t we? We’ve seen it, experienced it, have been consumed by it, and yet, we’re still here.

It all starts with you, do you have the necessary courage to start looking up again, not shackled by the chains of the society, and willing to discover yourself again. Are you ready to get hurt again… just in the hopes of finding yourself?

Even if you’re afraid right now, one day you’ll have to give in or walk again, the day it’ll hurt so much that you won’t have any choice. I hope you choose the latter. There will always be holes in the story we want to write for us, and sometimes people will walk all over it, and throw it all away. But instead of losing your heart and giving in to the negative inner chatter, I hope you take a new page and start all over again. No matter how many pages it takes.

The goal shouldn’t be to find yourself huddled among the noise, it’s to find your silent voice. The voice only you hear, and make sure it has a gentle, soothing, mellow tone.

Become compassionate of yourself, and you’ll find all the reasons you need to move ahead. Step out of the maze you’ve confined yourself in, and look out, I’m sure you’ll find the zest for life again…

Final Thoughts

Nothing quite brings out the zest for life in a person like the thought of their impending death.

Jhonen Vasquez

Fight. If all that’s left is a bleak end, and hopelessness, fight. Fight to protect your dreams (even if you have tricked yourself into believing they’ll never fulfill), to protect your vision, and to protect your smile.

In the words of Wilhelm Van Astrea, “Even if you have regrets, even if you have remorse, you must fight. If you have made the decision for yourself to fight, to struggle, then fight with all you have. Do not give up for one second, one moment, or one instant. Cling greedily to the victory you have within your sight.If you can still stand, if your fingers still move, if all your teeth have not broken, stand and fight. You must fight!”

And, if you feel like giving up again, just look at the stars, pat yourself on the back on making this far, and stand back up once more. Even if it all falls apart, it’ll all be still worth it. To be alive, yes, that’s a luxury, and to live that life, is a gift only a few have understood the significance of. I hope you’re one of them now too.

If you’ve stumbled upon this article by chance, welcome to my blog. I’m so grateful you took your time out and read my post.
Before I sign off, Happy 2020, everyone. Let’s make this new year and this decade more productive by living more out of our screens into the real world.

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