Hope

Things have not been great of late. There was a struggle of a kind which I had never have to face till now. It was on a cerebral level and hence, tougher. I was (and am) doing bad financially. I am totally broke and even. I was unable to find a link between things I loved to do, and things that pay. I could easily do better financially. But that would have meant doing things I didn't like. In the end, there was a mental struggle every waking second of the day to choose between enjoying one's work and lose the last ounce of self-respect left by asking for money at home, or enjoying the financial security provided by a well-paid job that you hate.

Add to that, your peers doing so well. I never wished bad for my buddies, on the contrary I always wished them the best and was always genuinely happy for them on their achievements. Just that I didn't feel so good about my own situation. There were several moments in the end when I thought I should give up. Going through bank statements gave me panic attacks.

I dragged myself through it though. The worst thing was I didn't know for how long this situation will last, and I was more or less sure that it's gonna be sooner than later that I have to ask for a straw to cling onto. I could always go back home (which I eventually did when I ran out of money), so I thought let me make a judicial use of money I have, let me not give up, let me finish my work efficiently and properly, and let me live here and do things I like doing as long as I can. So I just stopped thinking of money. I stopped thinking of luxuries, and vacations and dreams (which usually cost a great deal) like owning a house in the middle of patch of land to have my own small forest.

But I didn't give up. For all my fallacies as a human being, I am glad to be stubborn and hopeful. If I believe in something, I keep at it. It is foolish and impractical, but it is who I am and I can't help it. And things have always worked. This time it took long though, but it did work. I found something I could do and which will pay my bills, and help me to save a bit for the next rainy day :)

This all sounds a bit self-congratulatory I know, but that's not the purpose. The intention to write it all here is to empathise with people who are going through a similar situation, and to make them feel hopeful. If it works for me, it can work for anyone.

I would never have written it all candidly but for a chance encounter across a poem by Emily Dickinson. This sums up my 2012. Really. It hasn't been as full of romanticism as the poem is, but if there's one thing that kept me going, it was hope. So three cheers to it!

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.