Stressed

Another week went by and it feels like that was so long ago. The week went by and now it’s gone. I did the calculations and I have 451 weeks till I’m 30. Only 451 weeks left. This past week wasn’t so good. I had a severe headache on sunday and I had to take the day off. When I was sitting in my car, the odometer was a little blurry. Monday was still pretty tough, I didn’t get much done the next day either. I went to the doctor and she said my health was great, but the headaches are just from stress. Sometime two weeks ago I woke up bright and early, went on my run, took a shower and felt ready to take on the world. I sat down for a moment, and my heart just sank, it felt like someone was putting all their weight on my chest. I was still able to breath, but even my deepest breaths felt shallow, since then I was a little bit worried about stress.

I must admit I am stressed out, but I’ve examined my mind and there is no obvious marker that things will go wrong, even if they do. I know I can still bounce back. I’m too young to fail right now, even if I fail all my classes this year and waste this entire year getting drunk and partying. I could still take classes again, still stumble through my degree, by taking shortcuts with assignments and barely passing classes. So worst case scenario I graduate as an engineer in 3-4 years instead of 2 years, and then start my life. Now barring that I could safely fail and still be fine, I shouldn’t be stressed out at all, so then I believe I’m stressed out about a deeper issue.

I feel like the culprit might be the relationship I have with work, or I guess with life, because are we supposed to have fun? outside of virtue, namely outside of anything that makes me a good human. I just feel guilty about not working hard enough, not being enough in general. I feel like I got extremely lucky with my parents, coming to Canada, my life is terrific. My parents are great, I grow up in such a loving household, had plenty of great friends, and I’m even more lucky to have a healthy body and sound mind capable of understanding the great minds before me. Not many people can say that, not many kings in history have the luxuries I possess. Narrowing down on my main worry, I just don’t want to mess it all up, if I received all these gifts through sheer luck, all I have to do is put a little bit of hard work in and maybe I can even make the world a better place. I don’t want to paint a picture of me being some sort altruistic, ready to die to save the world person, but isn’t that what we are called to do? thats whats really confusing me, but then what’s the point of me, if I’m enabling someone else to live a happier life, and my definition of a good life isn’t really all sunshine and rainbows, then what does that person do with the life I’ve tried to create for them? do they, also pay it forward instead of enjoying the fruits of my labour? Because to be honest, thats what my parents did for me, they set me up with a good life, so then who does the enjoying? I guess the answer unfortunately lies in the middle, like everything. I hate that things boil down to this but Aristotle didn’t miss when he said “Virtue lies in the middle”.

However, that is not my only concern that stresses me out, in the same vain, maybe this selfish greedy part of me, is worried that I am not enough. Am I even working hard enough to be a good man? what about all the bad habits that I have? the ones I haven’t been able to shake for the better part of 5 years. What about my lustful eyes? Am I a good son? Am I the best student I can be? Am I even a good friend? All these problems have to be resolved so I could be a better man. What concerns me isn’t that I haven’t reached these things, but am I trying hard enough, because if I try hard enough, maybe I can be a good man. Will I ever know if I tried hard enough to be a good man, even the analysis of being good breaks down at one point.

Furthermore, this isn’t the first time I’ve written or talked about this. It’s a challenging issue, it hard to hit a moving a target, dead center. Maybe instead of deliberating so much I should live and reflect on the choices I make, specifically take risks to make me a better man, but am I not doing that? You might ask why I’m so hung up on trying to be a better man? or the best man, the reason is I don’t even know. We only have one life, why not try to be the best man I can be? My law professor said the bar for the reasonable man is high, because if it was low, then people wouldn’t really try to be reasonable ( Honestly that’s an inference, I should ask him why the the bar for being reasonable is so high). To conclude, we all have good weeks and bad weeks, but I’m pretty pumped that theres a chance I wake up tomorrow, and get to try again.

To finally conclude, I want to share a story of my childhood, maybe I shared this a couple weeks ago, but I asked my mom what I should be when I grow up. This was when I was around 5-6 (maybe even 6-7, [shoutout Jeric]) I didn’t really know anything. I asked her what type of ക്കാരൻ (Karan, person) I should be. Should I be a ബിസിനസ്‌ക്കാരൻ (businessperson) or a ഓട്ടക്കാരൻ (Runner),etc. She told me I should try to be a good person. I thought my mom was underestimating me, because I thought I’m going to be a good person and more. However, now I realize the weight of those words. (if my kids are reading, I’m so glad you guys can read)

Thanks for reading, ( Karan just means person basically, like saying “er”, eg: runner, singer, dancer)