I live in a rented room in Gurgaon, Haryana, with my family. Sometimes, when I look at myself and think about the person I have become, I feel that I am nothing more than a mediocre guy. I am not good at studies, mathematics, sports, singing, or dancing. I am not good socially either. I am fucking introverted, and there are times when I feel as though I have somehow been left behind by the rest of the world.
Right now, I am doing a small job in an MNC, a BPO job, earning hardly ₹25,000 per month. I have a BCA degree, and yet I am still stuck in this job, almost three years now. I want to get a better job. I want to earn well. I want to live a good life. But nothing seems to happen.
I don't have a father, nor do I have any relatives to depend on. There is only me, my mother, and my brother. And perhaps this is what frightens me the most: the knowledge that life will not wait for me to become capable, confident, or ready. It will keep moving, whether I am prepared for it or not.
I always think big. I imagine a better future, a better version of myself, a life in which I am no longer struggling over the same things. But when it comes to doing something about it, I do almost nothing. And when I do try, when I put in hard work, I cannot see any improvement. Then I begin to doubt myself. I wonder whether I am simply incapable, whether there is something missing in me that other people seem to possess naturally.
I thought going to the gym and building muscles would be one of the things that could change me. I thought that if I worked hard enough, at least my body would improve, and perhaps, along with it, my confidence would grow. But after going to the gym for one year, I still cannot see much improvement. Even there, where I expected to find some evidence that my efforts mattered, I feel disappointed.
I have a degree, but I cannot seem to build the career I want. I work, but I hardly earn enough to feel secure about the future. I try, but I cannot see the results I expect. And the more I think about all this, the more I become trapped inside my own thoughts.
There is something else, too, something that frightens me and makes me feel even smaller in front of other people. I think I have some disease or something. My hands, head, and legs shake when I am in public. My nervousness becomes visible on my face. Even when I may want to appear normal, calm, and confident, my body seems to betray me. I do not know what is happening to me, and not knowing makes me even more nervous.
Now I am tense. I am stressed. I keep thinking about the future, about what will happen to me, how I will live well, how I will find a good-paying job, and how long I can continue living like this.
Sometimes I feel as though I am wasting my life. I see the person I want to become, and then I look at the person I am today. The distance between them feels enormous. I think about changing my life, but the thought of everything I must change becomes so heavy that I do not know where to begin.
I know nobody is going to come and save me. Nobody is going to appear suddenly and solve my problems. Nobody is going to build my future for me. I understand this. I am not waiting for a hero.
And yet, knowing all this does not make me feel stronger. It only makes me feel the weight of my situation more clearly.
I am writing all this here. I do not know what I expect in return. Maybe I simply needed to put these thoughts somewhere outside my own head, because carrying them alone has become too exhausting.