4:17 AM

It’s 4:17 AM. Life is still at 4:17 AM.

The ceiling fan whirrs leisurely in my room, Apart from this, its deadly quiet. Even the crickets aren’t bothered.

The parents are asleep on the second floor. Nobody is watching me.

I’m supposed to be studying. Wait…no, not really, I'm not SUPPOSED to be doing anything. I’ve been convinced.

Convinced by my fears.

Convinced that I need to be competitive again….(compete with who?)

Convinced of how my acquaintances, who have been reduced to nothing more than a screen on a messaging app in this lockdown, are somehow concerned about what I’m up to.

Convinced that I’m supposed to care about their opinions in the first place.

Who’s convinced me then? After all, I’m in complete solitude, in a room on the outskirts of a big city, far from city life. No friend nor foe in sight, no social media to view their virtual realities, no contact, no nothing. Then why do I have this feeling of urgency? Of inadequacy?

Well there is only one logical suspect here. Yup, you guessed it, as I'm sure you would, It's me.

They say, you should never be alone with your thoughts. Keep busy, and eventually you’ll sleep content. Problem is, I’m an efficient worker and an insomniac. Meaning, I get work done quick and then have the whole night to either try to sleep and waste my time, or make use of it. All it takes is one stray thought, and next thing you know, I’m writing an article just to have something to do.

And I've done this before. Every time I write here, it is exactly this. Just a thing I choose to do, not to improve myself, not to “build my brand”, not for your likes and not for your views. I write to express. I write not to teach you a moral, for there are many people way more qualified and experienced than me to do so.

I write because I want to. I write so I can make sense of how I feel. and learn from it myself. Imagine a civilian, lost in a forest, with nobody but himself for company. This is what it’s like, my mind is cluttered and treacherous, like the forest, and this, this piece of writing will be my map. A path unravelling as I type every word.

There is no coherence. No eloquent introduction, no detailed body and no impactful conclusion. Just a series of narrow pathways, meandering in different directions, sometimes ending on the edge of cliff, sometimes impeded by a waterfall.

Sometimes, almost always unintentionally, revealing something profound.

I read online that doubting one-self is a very common phenomenon. Feeling how things are worse than they actually are is another. Another article mentioned how people “back in the day” just worked, earned, ate, slept and weren’t overly sensitive about things and how the discussion around mental health has been blown out of proportion, so that every small sadness is interpreted as depression. Leaving that debate to the wise, let’s get back to the situation at hand.

It is now 5:06 AM. The ceiling fan still whirrs. The crickets are still silent. However there is one change, my mind feels lighter. I have a lot of things to do, a lot of things to give, and a lot I want to accomplish. It wont happen in the next hour, the next week, maybe even the next year. But it will happen. I realized this in the past hour, that to believe IN yourself, you must first believe yourself. Believe that you’re not lying, believe your definitions of success and then believe your ability to achieve them.

The world may be asleep right now, but when it wakes up, it’ll sprint, and sprint fast.

Better get a head start while I still can.