Self-improvement

I've never been a huge fan of the self-help genre of books, primarily due to 2 reasons: one, I am too entrenched in my own set of beliefs to yield to any external pressure, and two, they have this tendency to further their cause by propagating the idea that there is definitely something wrong with you and that the way to change that is ridiculously simple. The catch is that you are probably not smart enough to figure it out by yourself. Hence you need help, you need sugar-coated words of consolation, you need elaborate thought channels wherein you delude yourself with some peculiar thoughts, all in the name of healing and improvement.

As I grow older, and with my relocation to the US, I've become more aware of the weaknesses in people's mental make-up that these works target. As long as you're in a close-knit society of any sort, be it your group of friends in class, your mates in the hostel, or best of all, in a caring, understanding family, you get to observe people at very close quarters, and for considerable lengths of time. You get to appreciate the goodness in them, but more importantly, you regularly come face-to-face with the fact that nobody is even close to perfect.

It seems to alleviate the frustration that builds up inside at your own shortcomings, and you take a more realistic look at yourself. What's more, you don't spend hours mulling over these things and feeling a growing sense of desperation at the state of affairs in your life.

If I were to make a list of the things that I would like to remove from my psychology, then it would undoubtedly make very gloomy reading. And in my case, the step up to the next level of education has been accompanied by more isolation, which is partly due to circumstances, and partly due to the time it takes to adjust oneself to the new circumstances, provided an adjustment is possible, and you want to make it.

In such a scenario, I've fallen into the trap of excessive introspection more than once, and knowing how useless it is, I guess it should be unlikely that I would walk down the same road again. But the point is that, sometimes you are so fed up with trying to work out things by yourself, that you wish there were easy answers. That feeling is impressed further when you look around and see people ostensibly happy, occupied and leading 'normal' lives. And you ask, is there something drastically wrong with me?

Truth is, there probably isn't. You are no more sad, or confused, or weird, or crazy than the next person. But how do you know that with certainty? You don't, because you don't spend enough time in the company of people to be wiser. You end up feeling despondent, and it's something that arises out of almost nothing tangible. It's considerably worse if you have a slightly dim opinion of your abilities and your skills, because low self-esteem makes you feel like you're slowly sinking into anonymity, nothingness. Nobody cares for you, and even if you were to scream out in panic, you wouldn't be heard.

It's here that self-help gurus step in, and give you what seem to be the elixir: personalized solutions to all your issues. Prioritizing the scattered elements which sting like the thorns in a bush. Most of the people I'm in touch with seem to be affected by a pervasive loneliness. People look for support and attention from complete strangers, while traveling in a bus or at some get-together. It might even be possible that they speak to folks they don't know, more than they speak to people they do know. There are scores of general courtesies which the average person observes, such as saying thank you at every possible instance, or wishing each other a good day and many more. But I have no doubt that inspite of these gestures of civility, they can never make one feel at home or wanted in a way that our people in India can.

It is ironic that while you won't have any interaction with a person performing a certain function on a daily basis In India, as compared to that with his counterpart in the US, but still, the forced smiles and machine-like sweet nothings, thrust your own loneliness in your face. I concede that it's not the only factor that makes one feel a certain way, but it is so glaring, that I couldn't help noticing it, like most of the other Indians I've spoken to.

So! Are we all destined to finding all our solutions in the proverbial teacup? The cup with the magic concoction that cures all ills? I would like to think not. I'm still going to heal myself with the magic mixture of a willingness to fight the odds, and plain, simple, effective passage of time.

Adios!