On october and its weather

Book: The ministry of utmost happiness 

October is one the most beautiful times around the world. The weather is gorgeous, neither too hot nor too cold. This shift in the mood of weather is palpable in plants which like a loyal lover obey this change and alter their colors too. They let go of old grieves and prepare to welcome snow. Winds add a tinge of dopamine to this love affair and take away pale aged leaves. In short, its fall and everyone is out, uplifted and happy. However, there are some people who are actually falling this time of the year, as quietly as those poor leaves and they are not even part of a love story. They are medical students. For them, October is all about staying indoor surrounded by their books and drowning in a sea of anxiety. For past five years, I happen to be a part of this marginalized community and I can empathize with those abandoned leaves. However, five years of practice teach you some detoxing tricks. I’m sure everyone has his own therapies developed over the years to add a bit of dopamine to this time. I have developed a love-hate relationship with this part of my year because although my social life ceases to exist, my sleep cycle gets a mid-life crisis and I whine like no end, there are things that I enjoy doing. Oh, those silver linings!

1) These days make me eat more and better. Being an underweight person, I have a very dysfunctional relationship with food. My satiety threshold can be compared to an ant's and my motivation to make myself something to eat is even lesser than a panda's motivation to procreate. But these days help me push limits effortlessly because first, cooking serves as a nice escape from the study and second, it’s an amazing therapy. A nice meal is a powerful mood lighter for me. Since I'm mostly too broke to have a personal stash of chocolates; it’s a cheap and convenient way to find some happiness in my otherwise miserable state of life!

2) It helps me plan my life. As silly as it sounds the hours I spend daydreaming during exam preps are incredibly productive in a long run. I plan my career, travel destinations, ways to save money for future endeavors (money that will come after I pass those exams though), bucket list I'm going to follow, before 30 goals, blah blah; the list is endlessly unrealistic! Don’t think It’s all happy and nice. These thoughts soon get darker and fill my head with the sadness of closures I never had, the guilts I couldn’t let go and embarrassments I had to endure in past life. This is where I go back to point no. 1 and make myself a sandwich! Anyway, although they are daydreams, they help me narrow down a few realistic goals that I put down in my notepad and follow afterward.

3) They make me write more because somehow, these are most creative days. It has something to do with the alertness of brain or perhaps the introvert-ness that comes with these days. In any case, I sit down to think and ideas come rushing! Even right now, all I sat down to write was a caption for a photograph of breakfast that I made myself (and It wasn’t even a very nice picture) but I've written a huge essay effortlessly. I love it though so, I realize my real passion is writing now. So, reality checks, way to go!

4) They increase my productivity in every way. Although I sleep A LOT to cope up with the stress and also generally I'm a sleepy person (Another way I believe I can compete with pandas) these days are comparatively more productive even in a non-study sense. The main reason is the realization of time I spend on social media. Every minute I spend on social media gives me a guilt trip so, I try to do something productive in that time. When I don't feel like studying (which is a lot, to be honest), I read a book or watch something fun. So, that consistent useless scrolling of Facebook and Instagram is replaced by new things I discover!

5) These days tend to give a significant level of self-awareness. You observe how your body reacts to stress and how your mind deals with various situations. These self-realizations, disappointing most of the times though, help you trace your future strategies and life choices. Because let's not kid ourselves, life is going to get harder and blind optimism serves no good in long run. These days bring us closer to reality and help us take a more pragmatic approach. Since this is my last year, I have gotten a fair idea about the career path that will suit me in life which is a major decision in most of the doctors’ lives. See, it's not all terrible!

So, somehow if I don’t fall in love with October due to its weather, I love it for a strange kind of discipline it brings in my life. I experience it in peace and silence of final hours of the night that most people miss out. This is the part where you might be expecting me to say I will miss these days next year. Well, the truth is that I won’t! Because no matter how amazing a love-hate relationship sounds, It’s always a good riddance when it ends!

On misplaced egos and broken friendships.

I have met very few people in my life with tandency to stay objective in a situation that had transpired because of their own flaws. Most of the times, we resort to blame game and choose to see perspective that validates our beliefs about our inner goodness or at least the will to be good intentioned. Then our brain looks for little things that could validate our version of story. It seeks out anything that could fill in spaces. It filters anything that could corroborate our narrative while subtly ignoring the opposite account.  People choose to be biased or emotional because its hardwired and doesn't take any effort that is usually involved in being objective or in accepting that they could be wrong. Perhaps it's easy to live with sense of being a victim of someone else's actions than to be perpetrator following his inner darkness. In fact, it's a defense mechanism we use to alleviate guilt that could splurge every now and then, and make us miserable. Its how we sleep at night satisfied that whatever damage had happened, wasn't our doing. It was because of other people, circumstances, life phases, age issues or anything that could fill the puzzle for us. Anything that could dim the red light of responsibility. It's true these thing have their own roles to play but a lot of times mistakes of individuals cannot be hidden under these tags. When we say to err is human, at the same time we need to accept that to realize is human too. In fact, realization is the first step to wash away mistakes without even leaving scars.  Realization is important because only those who have guts to even consider for once that they might be on flaw and reflect on their own wrong doings can grow in life. Those who choose to sideline their subjectivity,  negate their ego and see everything through window of different perspectives can become persons who are better than what they were yesterday.  If that could happen more frquently, there would be lesser ruined relationships, broken friendships and dysfunctional families.