The alternate self

People read stories to wade off the egos of isolation, the pangs of desolation and the hinges of aloofness. I thought of writing one….

A story very engrossing, very real, very tragic and equally depressing.

The story of my life….

After enjoying the comforts of my childhood, relishing the youthful days of my college, I had landed in this small institute to do my Post Graduation in Management. I can’t recollect the date, though I remember it was spring and the name (of the institute) doesn’t really matter here.

The initial days within this small institute had to be a struggle. Considering that I have always been an individual who has showcased inertia towards change. Be it going to a new school, trying a new restaurant, talking to new people, or leaving home and joining a boarding institute, I hated it when things changed. I hated it when people drew me out of my comfort zone and put me into a totally new environment making me search for things, search for people and life to live in.

For me, it was more difficult cause I was always comfortable living in the “past”, that possibly never gave enough room for the “present” to settle in….I should not be questioned either for doing the same, cause the past was too eventful and too recent and I couldn’t afford to forget it, be it at the cost of the present, be it at the cost of the future.

My new endeavor of doing an MBA was more a consequence of a compulsion of life and definitely was not an outcome by choice. I had quenched my desire to read and excel back in my graduation days and had nothing much to prove to myself. Was just wondering as to how would I bide time in my newfound place, how would I keep myself motivated.

There were too many things in my mind, I wouldn’t call them botherations but they were discomforting memories that kind of fractured my rationality, never allowed me to be the same person before. The only solution in hand was to “make new friends, invite new challenges and create new opportunities” I realized I had to carry on with life, though it wasn’t going to be easy.

Supposedly an extroverted person, I should not have had problems making new friends and developing relationships with people. It was here again, that I started making comparisons. Whenever I met someone, I had to compare him/her with the people I knew already and I would immediately find them short on comparison, short on expectations and finally rue interacting with them, even talking to them.

It was a group of 120, and all of them were creating small families of their own. Not that I was a loner, but I still was searching for someone, someone equivalent to those I know, someone who can stand tall amongst those I already trust. Someone who could be compared to my friends. Guess, it wasn’t going to be easy finding them…

Somehow, I tried to maintain a good enough relationship with all. Tried to get to know as many of them as I could. Be it unwontedly, but still I had to compare them all, and they obviously had to falter.

Just to give an instance of the quality of mankind I am referring to, I sit next to a 31 year old man, when it comes to the age, he is old enough to be married and probably nurse a couple of kids, but when it comes to mental maturity and behaviour, he was as kiddish as a new born baby, would not even share his eraser with others.

He was easily 3650 days elder to me, but had a lot to learn still from life. Probably he was faking out his character to fit into the groove of youngsters born ages after his entry into this world, even if he was doing that believe me, he wasn’t good at it either.

I knew generalizing the entire population on the basis of one disturbed individual would be an unpardonable mistake, but I was far more comfortable committing the same mistake rather than litmus testing another sample of mankind.

From then on, I seldom did personalize with people, though unknowingly, people kept getting closer to me. I did find a set of friends with whom I was comfortable with; I would hesitate to say close though.

Life in itself is an education, and during this phase of my existence I realized as to how important it is for oneself to be flexible with his/her personality. I realized that I had to have many selves within my inner self without losing my foundational character and nature. I realized that I had to graduate from searching for people who could understand me to accommodating myself within the class of people surrounding me.

People say that by disguising my real character and showcasing artificial multiple personalities, I run the risk of losing my real self and foundational qualities somewhere in the near future.

However the irony remains that these disguised personalities come as a consequence of me not being able to forget my past and the people who helped me shape my real character.
It is said that, life is all about searching for and acclimatizing the available alternatives. Though the sad part of it is that, life, for itself doesn’t have any other available substitute or acclimatizing alternative. I guess, I have to carry on sometime by being myself, sometimes pretending to be myself !!