As I observed the sunset today, I felt lost in it. I mean it’s no secret that I have a “thing” for sunsets and they make me so happy but today was totally different. It was as if the world had come to a standstill. Everything and everyone made no sense to me. There was peace and quietness, sort of. I realized that what sunsets give me are more than I’ve even been thinking of. They give me that solace nothing and nobody is able to give me.
There and then, I asked myself, so what happens after the sun is done setting? Do I just crawl into my shell to avoid judging eyes, pointing fingers, criticisms? Do I crawl into my shell because there’s no sunset to give me that shield that I need? Part of me wanted to say yes because I realized that’s exactly what I’ve been doing for a while now. I’m so quick to crawl back into my crevice the moment I feel I’m not “enough” for something.
Realizing and putting everything together, it dawned on me that no! It doesn’t have to be so. I don’t have to “hide” when I have no “sunset” to shield me from critics, judgements and societal pressure. I could just keep being myself and give the world space and time because in a long run, people will adjust.
Wait, but before the adjustment, criticisms of all manner of magnitude will be thrown at you. You will experience the worse of the worse. As if that’s not enough, people will take pen and mark and analyze your life as if their own lives depend on it. Guess what? That’s for only a period of time, they will adjust. It’s fine to run to whatever gives you solace, just like how I always find my way to the sunsets. Yours might not be sunset.
Your happy place in which you find solace could be a person, a movie, a thing, an activity. It’s fine to get lost in that thing which gives you solace. It’s even okay to get comfortable over there. But what is not okay is you hiding yourself, your true self from the world due to what people will say. Hiding your true self to impress people, to impress society and bleeding terribly at the end of the day.
No! Not anymore! After finding solace in the sunset, we will be whatever we want to be no matter what people say or do. The world will never be satisfied with you, what you do and the kind of person you are but at the end of the day, people will adjust. So you know what? Just do you.
Image is mine