Chapter 1/4…The SeLf Search

The one thing that majority struggle with is trying to fit in. We leave high school and somehow life changes. The walls that were built to keep you in line become invisible and you are allowed to make certain choices including who you want to be.Yes we make choices even before we are adults but the real stuff begins when the walls are no more and the rules don’t apply. We struggle to cope with the transition from having your headmistress tell you what to do and getting punished if you don’t cooperate, to making our decisions and not expecting any punishment.

It’s like we gain total control of what we do and how we live our lives. It’s all roses and chocolates until we lose ourselves as we struggle to find where we belong. We struggle to figure out who we want to be in every aspect of life. It’s like life throws everything at you all at once. The lucky ones get to go to tertiary institutions and some get delayed but nevertheless, both parties face challenges of their own. We try to balance everything at once because we get lost not knowing what to choose or what to ignore.

It’s like you’ve entered a new world and you get to be a baby all over again as you get to figure out who you are and where you fit in, in this new world. That’s where majority of us get stuck. You don’t know who you are and you are confused about who you want to be because for some unexplained reasons you get this feeling that you want to be more than just one person. You want to hang with the cool kids, you want to keep your grades up, you want to be the girl that everyone talks about and you want to be the guy that every girl throws herself at.

It gets worse because you have to be careful about who you decide to be because that is what will determine your future, so basically trying to find yourself in the new world is another way of saying you are trying to find your way in a maze field, only this one has no way out.

Some make it out of the complicated maze but some get lost on their first try.Life becomes screwed up and everything becomes confusing so much that you forget who you are and you jump from one personality to another trying to find the one that fits.

Meanwhile as you try on different personalities your peers seem to have it all under control and seem to be doing just great and even if they weren’t, the fact that you are still working on who you are and who you want to be blinds you from seeing the reality of other people’s lives. You begin to think that everyone has moved on and you are the only one that is struggling with the very first stage of being a grown up but the truth is you are not but because you get confused just by thinking that’s the way it is you fail to see the truth.

It then comes to a point where you just live for the sake of living but the truth is you feel like you have no purpose and the only reason you are living is because you haven’t died yet. The pressure of feeling like you have no purpose in life gets to you so much that you fail to notice even just the smallest differences you bring to the people around you. You become an anxious being who has nothing to say but negative thoughts about his or her life. In short… you become A TRAIN WRECK

You then begin to wonder if you are ever going to feel like you have moved in any direction at all. You look back and you get this feeling like you are still in square one and it begins to feel like it has been a lifetime. You give up and start hoping the ugly thoughts will just pass and that someday you will wake up as a different person, one whose focus is not blurred and one who knows exactly what they are doing. You start hoping that someday you will be someone who knows exactly who they are. You continue wishing and hoping someday you will know what to do.

As if having your self confidence broken is not enough, life throws you a low self esteem. You become prey to all the ugly things in life because you have lost the confidence to stand up for yourself so much that you believe everything everyone says about you including a random 3year old kid shouting the word stupid out loud at the mall and you think they are referring to you

…YOU BECOME A LOST SHEEP,

one that is looking for a way out and even when you know the way out, you get that frightening feeling that you won’t be able to handle what awaits you on the other side. You realize you are not stuck where you are because you want to, but because the thought of moving from that point to the next is even more frightening.

At that point you realize you are not complaining anymore and that the point you thought was your lowest, actually became your comfort zone. Despite the agony you refuse to move on because for some reason you’ve adapted to the pain that it’s not even painful any more. The fear to move on then leads you into making certain choices you never thought you would do. You turn down opportunities, you slam shut the doors opened for you and you ignore any presenting opportunities coming your way.

Your lack of self knowledge becomes the end of you.

You try to reach out at times but no one seems to listen or hear you call for help and even if people wanted to help, you fail to notice them behind the barriers you’ve built around yourself.

Eventually you realize you only have one item that’s not checked on your to do list…

“What do I do” you ask yourself

If you are the type that runs to google for everything you begin by doing just that…you google “How to find myself”

You stay there fixated on your iPad trying to figure out which link to follow. You get exhausted because nothing seems to work so you go back to being you, the lost soul that you are. You watch your friends live life to the fullest living each day like it’s their last meanwhile you’re still working on your first day of life. You tell yourself there’s no need to live like it’s the last day because you haven’t lived your first day yet. You then decide to just keep pushing yourself through each day and waking up everyday surprised you made it to the next day.

Life becomes a war, not between two parties but you begin to fight with yourself. You create a battle field in your head and yet no one seems to win.

You begin to sort of isolate yourself from your friends and family. You become a loner and your headsets and phone become your new best friend. For a slight second you start having flashbacks of life when you didn’t have to make major choices and had everything handed to you and you realize in those few seconds life is perfect, until someone calls your name and realize you were just dreaming. So you go back to your life of misery and misfortunes and unwrap the gum you found in one of your jackets that you last wore the previous winter season and continue hoping.

It doesn’t have to be like that though,most of us didn’t have a manual but maybe these following sentences can help you…if you still feel like you are stuck in square one.

You don’t have to live like a slave to yourself. You can find your way out like others and you can figure out who you are. You should never make the mistake of pushing people away in your time of need. It is during this phase of your life that you need the ones that care for you most and pushing them away will only make things worse for you.

You need to figure out a way to unleash your inner strength and gain back your self confidence and at times self worth and value. You need to know that you are not a lost course at this moment in your life. You need to know that you are not the first to go through such a phase and need to remember that it doesn’t have to be permanent. It’s all part of growing up and it’s normal to ask for help when you find yourself struggling to find who you are in life.

The moment you realize you don’t know who you are anymore or what your purpose in life is should be the moment you gather all your strength, put your pride aside and go looking for help from someone . There’s always someone out there willing to give you a helping hand. You just need to ask for it.

If you start building up walls for yourself, you will have trouble breaking them down because you get used to keeping everything inside and doing everything for yourself. If you find yourself reading this and are facing the same challenges know it’s not too late for you.

“Asking for help is not a sign of weakness; it’s actually a sign of strength. You are human enough to admit that you need help every now and then”

You can still find yourself and you too can move on from square one to the next stage.