Life, Goals and Happiness

So I was strolling down the campus road earlier today, and random thoughts started coming to mind. What I’m doing with my life, what I’ve done till now, what I want to do in the future, etc. Not much of active future planning or anything; more like the chilled out back-of-the-mind tension about life. I realized how much I’ve struggled. Not voluntarily, subconsciously. Why? Because I’m so passionate about Music (I want to be a rock-star \,,/ ). Whenever I think about all that I’ve gone through: the endless nights of practicing, endless nights of getting others to practice; just so that we remove that small mistake we were making while covering a song for a competition. Sometimes just a performance, not even a competition. No money involved. And yet I kept on working towards perfection, without giving a single shit about my health, sleep, studies, or anything else. It makes me want to try sometimes, looking at my situation. Whether these are tears of happiness, or me just getting tired, I know not. Mostly a mixture of both. I feel proud of myself for not giving up on myself. Ever. And at the same time, I start feeling scared. Scared because the amount of struggle I have gone through is nothing compared to what’s yet to come, and I may give up later on. I’ve only dipped my finger into the sea of struggling; I have yet to swim across it. Even imagining the difficulties I will come across when I start my real hard life after college scares the shit out of me.

One thing I know for sure is that I can do it. I have it in me. To be a musician. To grab the guitar, get up on stage, and play in front of thousands of people, and get paid for that. Because I love music so much. So much. The sweet sound of the guitar passes through me like electricity, lighting up every bit of me. And it’s not just that. The fame, the feeling of being wanted on stage. All those people loving you and cheering for you like there’s no tomorrow. That feeling, it’s amazing. It’s like an addiction. I cannot imagine a life where I don’t play the guitar and perform as well. But the one case when I will fail, is when I will stop believing in myself; when I will start giving into my fears. And that is when everything will start to seem impossible. It has happened a few times with me; I’ve broken down completely from within. It felt as if the easiest way out would be to just kill myself. But I don’t know how, maybe the support of my family, my passion, and the amazing feel good videos on the Internet; I’ve managed to get out of that phase. I’m glad I did. So as long as I don’t get stuck in the ‘I want to die’ phase for ever, and keep on getting re-motivated, things should be good. And hopefully I will become the person I want to be one day will continue to live life happily as I am doing now.

So yea, that was the first realization, that I have gone through a lot, and have a lot more to go through. The second realization (which is kind of related, and also the reason behind the cancellation in the last paragraph) is a bit more general. It’s about life, goals, and happiness. I’ve realized that when we’re passionate about something, music for instance, our ultimate goals are so big that they’re unachievable. I mean, I don’t want to become a famous musician and stop there. I want to keep on playing music for the rest of my life, keep on learning, keep on making more music as each day passes by. It’s a never ending journey. I want to keep on evolving, never standing still. So that means I will never be satisfied, and thus never find happiness. Which, fortunately or unfortunately, is the truth. We cannot really find complete satisfaction, not forever at least. If we’re satisfied it means we’d have nothing to do. And life would suddenly become pointless. All that we would have achieved in order to get the satisfaction, all of that hard work, just to end up getting bored all day? I don’t want that. On one hand I’m scared that I have to struggle. But struggling is what I love. Struggling is what I live for. I love spending all night practicing the guitar. I love skipping meals to play the guitar. I love getting my mind completely messed up over some stupid problem of physics (How did physics come into the picture? I’ll explain later**). Struggling for what I love is what drives me, keeps my mind and body from getting rusted. So why do I feel scared when I am told that I just have to do more of what I’m doing right now? Honestly, I do not know. But it is stupid nonetheless. There’s no logical reason for me to be scared. I will keep on struggling, keep on working towards my unattainable goal. Because my ultimate objective is to remain the same, ever evolving never stopping person forever.

I’d like to end with a small theory that I devised while thinking about all of this. Life is like the earth. It has an island and water. The land is our comfort zone, it’s where we start off. It’s where we are taught to deal with water; which is the reason for all of the struggle in our lives. But why get in contact with water if it’s so bad? Because water is also the only way to go ahead in life. Our aim is usually to leave this island, cross the harsh seas, and reach our destination; the place where we’ve always wanted to be, become the person we’ve always wanted to become. But that’s where we go wrong. There is no such place. There is only one island surrounded with water. As soon as we leave the water, we’re back to where we started. So instead of aiming to reach our destination, we should aim to go as far as possible. And finally die. But keep going forward till we die. And after every successful struggle, we can jump out of the ocean and enjoy a small waterless joy-filled flight till we fall back in. The more time we spend in water, the less harsh it will get; and the higher we’d be able to jump (because practice almost makes perfect). This way, we’d be enjoying our lives, and at the same time, we’d always be moving forward. That’s about it. Look at fear as a form of excitement, that you’re getting to swim. And jump. It’s so much more fun than sitting on shore and looking at all the others chilling at sea.

**Physics: I’ve developed a lot of interest in physics of late. So along with a rockstar, I also want to be a physicist. Do tons of research, study all my life. I don’t know how I’ll be both together, but I guess going in any one direction would make me happy. I will not leave the other, obviously. But I’m good as long as I’m a physicist who plays the guitar, or a rock-star who solves complex equations and keeps wondering as to why the world is so chaotic (or not).