Dear Mayank,
When I came to know that I am the sole writer in your diary I felt it’s a kind of big responsibility and it’s my moral obligation to be as much honest and transparent as I could be. Both of us have filled lots of diaries in past few days, diaries of people we know very well, diaries of people we are familiar with and diaries of people who we haven’t noticed in past 4 years. We tend to be very sweet when we fill a diary; we write only the good stuff in fact we exaggerate the good stuff. We write all the sweet memories and all the stuff that would make the diary owner feel very good when he will read it later. Even if we want to be completely honest and say bad things, we won’t. Obviously, it’s the end; we don’t want to create any controversy in the end or to make someone unhappy. So, at times, it’s more like faking stuff.
Obviously, both you and me, we are not against this whole diary writing stuff. It’s a very good thing; in fact it’s something that will make anyone feel very nice about himself and capturing some of the best moments and feedback together. So initially I know you were quite tempted about this diary making stuff and later you realized that though it will give you temporary happiness it is not something that you want right now. In fact lots of people asked you to them your diary so that they can fill it up. You can easily guess all the good and nice things people would write in your diary, which, as a matter of fact, you are getting a lot these days.
All those people who have judged you behind your back, have thought only ill about you in past 4 years and even propagated it almost everywhere, people who hated you for no reason and people who intensely disliked you for some reasons whether valid or invalid, everyone will write only good stuff about you. No one will dare to say even a single bad thing and obviously it’s not plausible or reasonable to write something bad in someone’s diary so all in all you won’t have the honest feedback you require and it will create an illusion that everybody loved you throughout the college life and you were a nice guy.
Enough context making now, I would begin my feedback and I hope you won’t mind if I am harsh or rude because it’s the need of the hour. First, I would like you to retrospect where you wanted to be at the end of your college life and are you standing there right now? Is it the life you dreamt of? Have you achieved all you wanted to achieve in college life? I would like you to retrospect and introspect how much you have changed and whether all the changes are good? See, when the college started you were this guy who thought of adding values into your life instead of running behind grades, jobs and secure future. Have you added all those values into your life and if not then why? You were the guy who was always anti system and believed in the absolute definition of excellence and potential and always thought that no system can truly judge an individual’s potential. Only we can determine our own potential, our worth and what we can accomplish in this life. Then I wonder why in the latter half of your college life you were running behind certificates of approval from the system.
You wasted lots of time in chasing hallucinations and then further wasted lots of time in regret that you had wasted lots of time. You were dormant most of the time and keep on escaping by saying let it past and I will start afresh next time. You started defining yourself by people’s definition and in process you lost the single most crucial entity which used to define you, your faith in yourself. Never ever in your life you have gone through successive phases where you doubted yourself again and again and keep on looking towards people and the system to approve of you instead of regenerating the confidence by yourself. You started believing in bad luck, you left yourself on the mercy of destiny and you forgot the concept of “bigger success after smaller failure”. For a while, you labeled yourself as a loser who would never rise again and fight back for his pride and honor. You surrendered to fate, deeply wounded by the cruel claws of destiny, looking for sympathy and support from people for temporary relief and self satisfaction. You enjoyed being weak for a while, which I would say was necessary for that time, but still you should have been mentally prepared for almost everything that would come into your way but you weren’t.
Looking for a safe, secure, risk free, world approved future was not something you had in your mind when you started college but as it happens, you panicked, you were smothered and finally you quit. The ‘being different’ philosophy was slowly taken over by ‘being better’ philosophy and hence all the insecurities, worries, tension and eventually degradation of a beautiful mind. As one of your friend has aptly quoted “ Earlier you reflected intelligence but now it looks like you are putting effort to appear intelligent, you have lost that sheen in yourself”. How true are these words, when you didn’t care, you appear intelligent but for most of the time in college you were so concerned about appearing intelligent, you were making futile and worthless efforts to be in the league of intelligent which is more or less a false security.
Anyway, enough criticism, though you indeed lost your care free attitude, you started thinking about what people will think which earlier you never gave a damn about, still, as a person you have done remarkable progress. You don’t harm people now as you used to do earlier, you can understand and relate with everyone’s struggle, and you now know what to say and when to say and where to draw a boundary. You started respecting people’s individuality, limitations and perspectives which earlier you used to discard very brutally. In short, you stopped being a jerk which earlier you were so proud of being one.
You started forgiving people which you never did. You started listening to and understanding and then giving context wise suggestion instead of imposing your perspective. You started respecting the differences and accepting the flaws and you also learned about your own flaws. But I think, the most important lesson was that, wherever you go, there would be some people who will always hate you. You can’t be loved or accepted by all. People will hate for multiple reasons or at times solely because other people hate you and they just want to follow the trend. There is no such thing as universal acceptance, even if you don’t care about anyone and has zilch interest in someone’s life then also people would like to interfere and gossip about your life. To go unnoticed, you have to be harmless and by being harmless means you have to stop excelling and act like a dump average person who is no threat to anyone’s ambitions. If you can accept and adapt such life then you won’t be hated else prepare yourself for newer challenges, intense dislike and stark criticism by almost every irrelevant person.
There are no plausible reasons to hate. Hatred is something that doesn’t require any logic. People can even hate you if you are not hated. They will hate you for your facebook statuses. They will hate you for your leg pulling. They will hate you for talking to other people. They will hate you if some people love you. They will hate you if you try to appear different, confident and carefree. They will even hate you for posting this post as to them instead of a philosophical introspect it’s an act of flamboyancy. It’s an act to impress other and it’s an act to show your superiority even if your sole intention to write such a post is to write something for yourself. So, in short, accept being hated because that is something you can’t stop. As Pheobe convinces Chandler in 1st season that since he is the boss now he can’t be friends with other people and he should accept this. In the same way, accept being disliked, hated and boycotted and I think you have got yourself a nice exposure of all this in college life.On the other side, you got immense appreciation, acknowledgement and respect from many people. There were people who stood for you in every situation and keep on reminding you about yourself. You should be grateful to all those people who have given you a special place in their heart.
Though, you could have cleared the fog by communicating and making your stand known. It’s good to put your ego aside at times and bow down if it’s for greater good. Any misunderstanding can be cleared by proper and polite communication and that is something you should have done quite often instead of being stubborn about your silence. Anyway, doesn’t matter, what has happened has happened. No one can change it and in fact it was a nice thing going through all kind of experience. Being loved and being hated, being respected and being insulted, being recognized and being ignored, getting success and getting failed, falling and rising, helping and being helped, it was a wonderful journey filled with almost all kind of experience, something that was needed to transform you into the kind of person you are.
From an arrogant, egoist, over optimistic, over enthusiastic, carefree child you have been transformed into a practical, realistic, balanced, hopeful youth and I hope you will continue on the right track. I don’t have any wishes but only advises for your future. The most crucial phase of your life is going to begin, do not and under any circumstances bow down and surrender to situations. Buckle up, brace yourself and set your mind to defend your identity because the world you are entering is well known to either make you so much comfortable or so much uncomfortable that you lose yourself. You become a representative of the physical world and you led a life which everyone is living. A mirage of security, trapped into a cage of crystal which is as beautiful as it is fragile. Don’t settle for temporary relief, keep up the inner fire burning and chose the path that is not only different but hard, harsh, rough, painful because it’s not just a philosophy, when you choose the road less travelled by, you can hear yourself much better instead of the commotion created by the crown on the road more travelled by. I hope " acche din aane wale hai " !!
Regards,
Mayank Sharma
