Hello Sangat Ji,
I hope everyone is doing well
I am not, so I will just dive nose-first into it:
My entire life, I've felt like I need to be in control of everything- from school, to work, to goals and relationships. I would make lists of what was important to me/what I wanted, and outline steps to getting what I desired. And it worked great, up until a few weeks ago.
I have now realized that my future is one big blur, I have no idea what is going to happen. I know it sounds silly, none of us know what is going to happen in the future, but what I mean is that I don't have the faintest of ideas what I want, where I am going to be years down the line, how I am going to get there etc... And so I have felt like one big wreck for the past few weeks. The feeling isn't new, I usually find something to stress myself over big time every couple of months, but this is different. The last one was 2 months ago, I quit my part-time job because I couldn't juggle it along with my schoolwork, and I am already in so much debt, quitting my job meant it was going to keep piling on until I was out of school (3 years) and started Residency. And like every time before that, my BF was able to calm me down and talk sense into me. But it isn't working this time.
You see, beyond finishing school, getting a real job and marrying my BF when life slows down enough to let me breathe, I don't know what is going to happen. Beyond those three things, I have no goals, nothing to look forward to, I don't know where I'm going, what I want to accomplish, nothing! I have talked about this with my BF, he has tried his best to comfort me but to no avail. I think most of you know that he is Sikh. The interesting thing is that over the past couple of months, as a result of my time spent on this site and other avenues of researching Sikhi, I have come to know more about the philosophy of the religion than he does. I have all this wonderful knowledge stored in my head, but that is where it stays. If someone quizzed us on Sikhi teachings, I would most likely end up with a higher mark. But I have a hard time applying what I learned. He, on the other hand, lives like a Sikh. He is always in Chardi Kala, I don't know how, but nothing seems to bring him down. He spends his free time mingling with others, has his volunteer/charity work, and if it isn't that, he's at the Gurdwara (he knows everyone there). We will walk down the street on the other side of the city and it isn't uncommon to run into someone he knows, and he will spend 20 minutes talking to that person when we need to be somewhere else. I am worrying about being late, and he is lost in the conversation.
He is one of those people who feels like the best way to live is in the present, that the best way to learn is through experience. When I told him about my worries, he told me to relax, that we would figure things out as we went along, that it was okay to make mistakes because you learn something from each one, and sometimes it is fun to screw up, because being perfect and having everything figured out is boring. I really do admire those qualities in him, I wish I could have them, but I can't. He never seems to be worried about anything, while I am always worried about everything, he is only concerned with the present, while I spend more time thinking about the past and future, he wants to learn through experience, I want to learn through foresight, he laughs at everything, and I am usually stressed out over things, he doesn't care care about making mistakes and actually thinks there is something humorous about being in a pile of sh1t, about being backed into a corner, having a major screw up because you can laugh about how dumb you were to get yourself into a situation like that, whereas I do everything possible to avoid doing something wrong. When we told our parents about our relationship last year, and they flipped, I was terrified it would break us up, he was having a laugh over how mad they were. When I told him that my brothers might be looking for him, he thought it was funny that he could get beaten up. Sometimes I wonder how we have even made it this far, our personalities are so different, he probably thinks I am a party-pooper, I don't know how he puts up with me.
I guess I could say that I am having a quarter-life crisis, if such a thing exists. I am 23 years old and feel like I have done nothing, that my life up until now has been a waste. All I have done is racked up a pile of debt (that is still getting bigger), I got no job, I'm still in school, I haven't travelled or done anything worthwhile. And my biggest fear of all is that I will wake up in another 23 years and feel the exact same way, that everything was a waste, that I was wrong about what was important and what was not, that I will have accomplished very little, and the worst feeling of all, knowing that there is nothing I can do to change any of it.
I believe that "foresight teaches gently, error teaches brutally". Which is why I am posting this on here. Over the past couple of months, I have really come to love SPN, the sangat here is wonderful, everyone is really open-minded, people respect one another, and most importantly, I feel like every one of you has a wealth of knowledge and experience to share with the younger members, I am not aware of any other threads on here of this nature, so I wanted to create one of my own.
Please do not feel like you need to reply directly to what I said above, more than anything else, it was just me venting, I feel better now that I have let it out hahaha
So imagine this: you go back in time, to when you were a late teen/early 20's, when you've just stepped out into the real world and are learning to stand on your own two feet. You take with you all the experiences and lessons you have learned up until now, all the knowledge and all the wisdom, back into the past, getting to do everything all over again.
I really want to know what you guys feel is important in life, what is meaningless, what pitfalls there are to avoid etc... And if there is one lesson, one truth you would drum into the mind of every young Singh/Kaur on here, what would it be?
I hope that your knowledge will clear the fog for me a little bit, so I can at least figure out what to focus on and what to disregard. And do not worry about long stories, I quite enjoy reading them lol.
Also, I apologize if the above post is poorly written or seems all-over-the-place, I haven't slept in almost 36 hours and am surviving off of caffeine. I needed to get this out
I hope everyone is doing well
I am not, so I will just dive nose-first into it:My entire life, I've felt like I need to be in control of everything- from school, to work, to goals and relationships. I would make lists of what was important to me/what I wanted, and outline steps to getting what I desired. And it worked great, up until a few weeks ago.
I have now realized that my future is one big blur, I have no idea what is going to happen. I know it sounds silly, none of us know what is going to happen in the future, but what I mean is that I don't have the faintest of ideas what I want, where I am going to be years down the line, how I am going to get there etc... And so I have felt like one big wreck for the past few weeks. The feeling isn't new, I usually find something to stress myself over big time every couple of months, but this is different. The last one was 2 months ago, I quit my part-time job because I couldn't juggle it along with my schoolwork, and I am already in so much debt, quitting my job meant it was going to keep piling on until I was out of school (3 years) and started Residency. And like every time before that, my BF was able to calm me down and talk sense into me. But it isn't working this time.
You see, beyond finishing school, getting a real job and marrying my BF when life slows down enough to let me breathe, I don't know what is going to happen. Beyond those three things, I have no goals, nothing to look forward to, I don't know where I'm going, what I want to accomplish, nothing! I have talked about this with my BF, he has tried his best to comfort me but to no avail. I think most of you know that he is Sikh. The interesting thing is that over the past couple of months, as a result of my time spent on this site and other avenues of researching Sikhi, I have come to know more about the philosophy of the religion than he does. I have all this wonderful knowledge stored in my head, but that is where it stays. If someone quizzed us on Sikhi teachings, I would most likely end up with a higher mark. But I have a hard time applying what I learned. He, on the other hand, lives like a Sikh. He is always in Chardi Kala, I don't know how, but nothing seems to bring him down. He spends his free time mingling with others, has his volunteer/charity work, and if it isn't that, he's at the Gurdwara (he knows everyone there). We will walk down the street on the other side of the city and it isn't uncommon to run into someone he knows, and he will spend 20 minutes talking to that person when we need to be somewhere else. I am worrying about being late, and he is lost in the conversation.
He is one of those people who feels like the best way to live is in the present, that the best way to learn is through experience. When I told him about my worries, he told me to relax, that we would figure things out as we went along, that it was okay to make mistakes because you learn something from each one, and sometimes it is fun to screw up, because being perfect and having everything figured out is boring. I really do admire those qualities in him, I wish I could have them, but I can't. He never seems to be worried about anything, while I am always worried about everything, he is only concerned with the present, while I spend more time thinking about the past and future, he wants to learn through experience, I want to learn through foresight, he laughs at everything, and I am usually stressed out over things, he doesn't care care about making mistakes and actually thinks there is something humorous about being in a pile of sh1t, about being backed into a corner, having a major screw up because you can laugh about how dumb you were to get yourself into a situation like that, whereas I do everything possible to avoid doing something wrong. When we told our parents about our relationship last year, and they flipped, I was terrified it would break us up, he was having a laugh over how mad they were. When I told him that my brothers might be looking for him, he thought it was funny that he could get beaten up. Sometimes I wonder how we have even made it this far, our personalities are so different, he probably thinks I am a party-pooper, I don't know how he puts up with me.
I guess I could say that I am having a quarter-life crisis, if such a thing exists. I am 23 years old and feel like I have done nothing, that my life up until now has been a waste. All I have done is racked up a pile of debt (that is still getting bigger), I got no job, I'm still in school, I haven't travelled or done anything worthwhile. And my biggest fear of all is that I will wake up in another 23 years and feel the exact same way, that everything was a waste, that I was wrong about what was important and what was not, that I will have accomplished very little, and the worst feeling of all, knowing that there is nothing I can do to change any of it.
I believe that "foresight teaches gently, error teaches brutally". Which is why I am posting this on here. Over the past couple of months, I have really come to love SPN, the sangat here is wonderful, everyone is really open-minded, people respect one another, and most importantly, I feel like every one of you has a wealth of knowledge and experience to share with the younger members, I am not aware of any other threads on here of this nature, so I wanted to create one of my own.
Please do not feel like you need to reply directly to what I said above, more than anything else, it was just me venting, I feel better now that I have let it out hahaha
So imagine this: you go back in time, to when you were a late teen/early 20's, when you've just stepped out into the real world and are learning to stand on your own two feet. You take with you all the experiences and lessons you have learned up until now, all the knowledge and all the wisdom, back into the past, getting to do everything all over again.
I really want to know what you guys feel is important in life, what is meaningless, what pitfalls there are to avoid etc... And if there is one lesson, one truth you would drum into the mind of every young Singh/Kaur on here, what would it be?
I hope that your knowledge will clear the fog for me a little bit, so I can at least figure out what to focus on and what to disregard. And do not worry about long stories, I quite enjoy reading them lol.
Also, I apologize if the above post is poorly written or seems all-over-the-place, I haven't slept in almost 36 hours and am surviving off of caffeine. I needed to get this out
