Tag: Psychology

Brownness, Myself, Random

Choices

Sanjay Sabarwal
choice and context
choice and context (Photo credit: Will Lion)

I don’t always do the right thing. I realize that we each face moments every single day of our lives where we have a choice to do the right thing.  We could eat better. We could exercise. We could be better friends, lovers, and the list goes on and one. I know those are choices yet somehow as I get older, I find some choices easier to make than others. There are days I just don’t feel like eating or exercising right, but with people its different. I see now that if I choose wrong then there are consequences. When I choose to ignore my friend’s need to be heard, I take a little piece out of our friendship away. When I say a not very nice thing to a family or a partner, I cut into their trust and love for me.

Choices run my world. And I am lately seeing a pattern that I am not liking about myself. I am less friendly. I make unkind remarks off the cuff. I am not the Sanjay that many have known me for many years.  The only explanation I have is that my recent surgery have made me less certain of who I am. Whats the point of eating and exercise if I still had to get brain surgery? What’s the point of being patient when I see other make the silliest mistakes?  How can I stop loved ones from continuing on the wrong path?  Why are some people continually on the path of getting hurt when all they have to do is step back? On and on in my head, I see so much wrong, and I want to fix it all, but I cannot.

I forgot that it is a choice we make when we are around others. We cannot make others do what we want them to do. Intellectually, I know that but emotionally  I have lost patience. I no longer want to let others be, yet that is not something I should be involved in. I try to remind myself of that everyday.  I know I have to choose the right thing, yet more often than not I am struggling to do that. What was an innate part of my personality is something now I have to struggle to do.  I also know that is my personal battle. I cannot control anything or anyone except myself.

I have to choose to be me even though lately that is the hardest thing to be.

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Life Failed: Love/Family Did Not

Sanjay Sabarwal
By Jemal Yarbrough

I am not Sanjay Sabarwal, co-owner of Ziba Beauty.  I am not a lawyer.  I am not a promoter.  I am not a double major from UCLA.  I am not a columnist.  I am not a former volunteer at the Lexington Juvenile detention center in Kentucky.  I am not a past political intern.  NCTE) I am not a stroke victim.  I am not familiar with cancer.

I am not,  I am not, I am not any of these facts.  All my life, even at this moment, I have believed I was destined to be something greater; more significant, a personality. Focusing only on my desires and wants, I forgot how to be.  Spending energy (and credit cards) to showcase a life imagined by many but afforded by few, I drowned my soul painfully.  Surrounded by many gadgets and the must of my dog (her dog), I became empty, a negative, a compilations of could be’s, would be’s, should-be’s, would’ve’s.

So who am I?  Perhaps that’s not as an interesting a question as what I am.  I am part of a love that I did not think possible, that I had heard of and seen in fiction.  After 4 years, her face is still the first image projected onto my thoughts.  Her eyes an amazing greenish-yellow, rivaling those of cats (domestic and otherwise), her temper and stubbornness exasperating but befitting the queen she has the potential to be.

Then there is my family, my energy trough where I go to replenish myself.  I draw my strength from them like a greedy gambler who can’t get enough. I steal their inspiration and good wishes so I can face the cannot’s and will not’s in my life.  I use their love and faith in me to see myself.  It is then I become Sanjay Sabarwal.

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Dreams

Sanjay Sabarwal
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Image via Wikipedia/ twitter.com/zibasanjay

The images of talking to Preeti’s dad evoked my dread of the long-awaited conversation of what next?  Flash of Gurjit crying reminded me of Tejpal’s as well as the death of the normalcy of my life and of the challenges ahead.  Still I dived in these murky as my heartbeat slowed, well aware that the heat of the blankets told of an intense and long sleep.  The room become brighter as if to mark my awareness.  No longer did I want to ignore the idea that I was awake, instead I fished for more.

I marveled that I only had one drink yesterday yet told everyone I had two.  Why?  I wondered.  What was it about being in certain crowds that made you want to be an overachiever in an activity designed to kill brain cells? What was it about social discomfort that made me want to grasp to the one liquid that could return me back to feeling like everything was ok temporarily. How was it different from my dreams?

Then it hit me.  While I thought about last night, the dreams had made their escape.  It was as if I had been purposefully distracted so they could go to their secret hiding place. My breathing slowed, the blankets cooled, I reached for my phone to get my daily Twitter and Words with Friends fix  and the dreams went further away and suddenly the urge to write feels silly and trite.  I am left holding simplistic words and thoughts rather than the deep implications my dreams carried.  Conned, once again by my mind, I reluctantly came to my page and had nothing to offer except the memory of my dreams gone.

I closed my eyes, and nothing came save for the feeling of betrayal I caused myself.

 

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