Have You Ever Felt Lost, Despite Having it All?

Have you ever gone up to the closest person in the world to you, and exclaimed “hey, I feel lost”? (and not when you’re actually lost, in the geographical sense of the word). I’m sure some of you might’ve. For those of you who haven’t, I’ll tell you how it went in my life, and how it might go in yours if you tell someone you love that you feel lost:

In the textbook sense of the two words, “being lost”, I wasn’t really lost. I had a great job, I had an active social life, I was a “good” kid in my family’s eyes and shared a strong bond with them, I was physically strong. I was, some people would say, at the peak of my twenties. I was far from the definition of the words “being lost”. Which also means that I was supposed to be happy and if I felt any other way, then I was a moron.

Then I guess I was a moron when despite having it all, despite living the dream of earning well and living independently, I was struggling to fix something.

This “wanting to fix something” started out as a small thought every morning, and within a few months snowballed into a constant hum in my mind. All the studying, the working hard, the patience, the promise of “when you’ll become someone, you’ll be happy”; searching for the next goal, the next dopamine rush, that earns you more money, gives you more freedom to travel. One day you have it all, and all your mind can think of, all your head constantly sings in the background is:

“Is this it?”

After many days of my mind humming this song I started to realize that I might actually be lost. Lost in the sense of everything that I was building up to all my life was more or less with me, so why wasn’t I drowning in the sea of ecstasy? The confusion lasted a long time, because it brought with it a sense of self-doubt that maybe something was wrong with me.I mean, look at all the people struggling to get a job, people struggling to make ends meet, struggling with their health(somehow I was supposed to feel better looking at them struggle)and here I was, struggling with what exactly?

This is when I plucked up the courage to go to my sister, because surely she must have gone through this feeling, being four years elder, and say “ Didi, I feel… lost”

Of course it didn’t help that I caught her in unexpected circumstances, she was in the middle of putting out clothes for laundry. But, my face had the extremely effective half-puppy and half “please, sit with me” expression going on, and she decided to push laundry for later.

She sat me down, and heard out the avalanche of feelings that I felt came crashing down. I hadn’t realized the feeling of helplessness had penetrated so deeply in my core and the confusion of why I wasn’t absolutely happy until I spoke to her. I told her about how I should be happy and that I felt like an alien because all my friends were happy, and how I needed to fix this. She heard me out patiently, asking relevant questions in between. And by the time I was done, I was sure that laundry duties would be a thing for tomorrow.

I expected her to tell me, “oh you know look at people who are worse off, that’ll teach you a sense of gratitude for your own life” or “why don’t you do, x, y, z? That’ll fix it for sure” She, thankfully, didn’t tell me anything of the sorts or point me in some generic direction that sounded like a “how to…” from a self-help blog. Instead, she said a sentence that seemed too little to me.

She said, “ I understand”

“That’s it?” I said to her.

“Yeah. I get what you’re going through.” I waited some more for her to say something else, but she looked at me silently, as calm as ever.

And in the moment of silence that we shared, it struck me that maybe I wasn’t supposed to “fix” this situation, just as I “fixed” my life since I was little; “fixing” my study routine, “fixing” my career where I wanted it to be, “fixing” my personal life as I wanted it. Maybe all I had to do was ride out the tide, no, surf on the tide of uncertainty and aimlessness. For once, maybe I needed to let my Type A personality rest, to let it go. Maybe all I had to do was have faith that life was taking me in the bus that was supposed to carry me where it should and the biggest gift that I could give myself, instead of worrying constantly about the future and what to do next was acceptance. Just like my sister had moments ago accepted me for my current emotional state (and also the delay in her doing the laundry!).

Maybe, I just need to stop fixing, and instead accept the ups and down of this tide.

Who am I?

A budding author, writer and fiction lover. I write on an odd range of topics: from mental health, self-care to politics, travel and comedy (and all the weird shades of interests in between). They call me a researcher in my day job.

I would love to read your thoughts and comments on this article. You can find contact me on Instagram at @thesanb, Twitter at @thesanchibhat and e-mail me on [email protected]