Insecurity - uncertainty or anxiety about oneself; lack of confidence.
Lets consider the following cases :
1) Anil loves to paint. It is the only thing that lifts up his spirits during the bad days. He has graduated from a reputed Engineering college. He got an IT job from campus placement. Over next 10 years, he moved from one position to another and whenever he wanted to take painting seriously, he thought it would affect his IT career beyond repair. So he suppressed his passion for painting for ever!!
2) Sameera is doing her Internship in a reputed hospital after completing MBBS. She wants to do specialization from a UK medical college. However, her parents found a suitable match and wants to get her married before 25 yrs of age. She consulted her best friends and most of them suggested her to get married for better life while she was young and not nearing 30. She decided that marriage was a safer choice than taking the chance for specialization abroad. She learned to live with regrets in years to come.
3) Irfan was studying in class 11 in a UP village when he started working. His teachers were confident that he could get scholarship after 12 to complete his graduation. But all his class mates started working at Class 10/11 so that they could get jobs with better salary at 22. Irfan started having second thoughts and he finally joined a part time job. He never had enough time to focus on studies and did not meet the cutoff for the scholarship.
4) Rachelle fell in love with George in college. They got married right after graduation and settled in a suburb near Los Angeles. Rachelle never had a family of her own and raised in a home with 20 girls. Her happiness did not last long though as George turned into an alcoholic over time. It made her life measurable. She tried everything to make their lives better but all in vain. She slowly accepts this life as she has nowhere else to go.
5) Purab has been working in a multinational company for 5 years. He is not yet married and every now & then, thinks about travelling around the world. He has decent savings to support his own travels for at least 1-2 yrs. But travelling may mean to leave the job and a break in his career. With the job scenarios, he keeps postponing this plan and his bucket list is never ticked.
6) Namita is a lawyer by profession and people at workplace admires her court presence a lot. She is considered among the hard-hitting lawyers in that area. At home, the situation is different. She is a mother of two married with Sathish. Their marriage was arranged by common friends and kids happened. They both know that it is a failed marriage. Sathish has been hitting her time to time since marriage. He believes it is the right thing to do to control her arrogance. But she never takes any serious steps against that as it may make their marriage even more difficult. Sathish threatened her many times that he would leave her and the kids if she tried to talk to anyone about it. She stays silent to save the marriage, even after knowing the laws protecting a woman against an abusive husband.
7) Piya and Rahul are more than friends. Rahul's company is sending him to UK for a year. Piya does not like this and gives Rahul a deadline whether to engage before flying to UK or break up with her. Rahul is clueless about the reasons to rush their relationship. But Piya being adamant, he breaks up with her with lots of regrets.
Do you see anything common in these common stories??
Weakness - Yes!!
But the root cause of weakness >> Insecurity!!
I understand the insecurity of a farmer (who is extremely dependent on rains) after a bad monsoon season. I understand the insecurity of a student who has barely passed and may have to compete with millions of other graduate to get a decent job. I understand the insecurity of an orphan girl who has to leave the orphanage after she turns 15 and she has nowhere else to go. I understand the insecurity of a family who lost everything in a flood and has to migrate to a mega-city looking for jobs.
What I do not understand is the insecurity deep-routed inside people who are doing well and more or less not in a crisis situation. Still let me try to get to the bottom of it and share some remedies from my personal experiences !!
Why Insecurity?? - Five top reasons
1) Lack of Self confidence - Yes, you do not believe in yourself enough. Even if there is a 10 pct risk involved of some temporary struggle, people do not sign up for it.
2) Influence of NO - There are more people in the world who tell us what we can not do than ones who tell us what we can do. That may include our parents, close friends, life partners or siblings. It is not their fault. This is a deep-routed habit that unless we consciously fix, it wont go.
3) Money-driven decisions - Most people forget to invest in their happiness than to invest for more money. When you let the money rule most of your decisions, where is the scope of dreamer and the free mind?
4) Fear of unknown - Even if almost nothing happens as we plan, we still go with a settled plan than an unsettling wish.
5) Stability is over-rated - Recipe of stability - education> job > marriage > kids > retirement. None of these assures a security or stability. May be there are higher chances of someone taking care of you when you are down with fever but how many days you will have fever in your lives. Most people decide based on few days of instability.
(Clarification - I am just talking about changes in life when you are ready for it. A major decision taken out of insecurity is not good for anyone).
How to Break the Chains of Insecurity?
Remember the quote from "Pursuit of Happiness"
A father to his son - "Don't ever let somebody tell you... You can't do something. Not even me. All right?"
Other ways to ward off insecurity in my humble opinion:
1) Balance between practical self of yours and the dreamer - Yes. Be practical most of the times. But do not live your life being practical all the times. You are killing the kid in you and slowly turning the dreamer in you to a machine. Successful people are already practical. The obsession to take the right decisions can be a burden after some time.
2) Do not fall under peer pressure. It is absolutely ok to have many interests and to do justice to them at different points in life. Everyone has a different shoe to fit in. As long as you are comfortable with yours, walk ahead and after some time, run. Run in the direction that makes you - the best possible you, not someone else.
3) Decide what you can not live without? Yes, It is important. Ask yourself every day what you want from your life and work towards it in a positive way.
4) Frustration is good if you are working towards getting rid of it. So many times I have heard people complaining about their jobs and not doing anything about it. You change your field if you do not like it. Dedication pays most of the times. Luck favors those who do not completely depend on luck.
5) Focus on creating memories than amassing things in your house. Remember life is short.and happiness wont come from piled up cash. There is no fear of losing when you fill your bag with wonderful moments.
6) Do not use family card. It is completely unfair to use their well being for justifying your every weakness. You should go extra mile to help your loved ones achieve their dream and they will understand/help when you follow yours.
7) Never surrender your soul to things. Understand the standard of living is relative.When you are sixty, that extra money spent for 4 bhk flat may not matter so much but the things you wanted to do and missed out , may matter!! A life with less insecurities is a life with less regrets.
8) Avoid the spiral of negative thoughts.The successful businessman fears of making a wrong decision that will hamper his/her plan to expand business. A happy family man suffers from the fear of bad times. Yes you can make yourself weak by thinking about worst possible scenarios or you can give your best shot and accept whatever comes. I can assure you nothing good ever came out of negative thoughts and anxiety.
9) Trust is important. A mother may fear from factors that may affect the well being of her children. A father may get scared of bad exam results of his son/daughter. A lover may do stupid things in fear of losing the special bonding of love. The list will go on. Such insecurities can be fixed by increasing the trust on your beloved. Yes, trust on others' intelligence, decision making power and emotional strength.
10) Finally, BELIEVE in YOURSELF. You are not alone to suffer from insecurities. Every human being suffers from them. The nature of insecurities may change but it exists for everyone. Only if you believe in your strength, you can let go of the weaknesses deeply routed in your mind.
What worked for me?
I expressed most of my feelings in a previous blog of mine:
http://padmanavasen.blogspot.in/2016/10/the-life-after.html
However, the equation is simple. Four-step process
i) Get used to friends and families but never get used to comfort and laziness. Never underestimate the adaptive nature of human beings. We survived so far in this universe for our adaptive nature.
ii) Keep your passions and interests alive even during the 16-hr-work days and specially when you realize that you are spending way too much time for things that are not important to you or the world.
iii) Give your practical self , the control of the financials and logistics for a week and then take the control from that (if the answer is GOOD to GO). Give the control to your heart after that.
iv) Take the first leap. After that, it is easy to follow your heart and mind. When you free yourself from insecurity, your regular chores will do wonders.
Once you say your insecurities bye bye, you will first enjoy the emptiness of thoughts in your mind and slowly it will be filled with positive happy thoughts. Put them into actions and you will smile more than before:-)
The more you are ruled by your insecurities, the farther you are going from your true self. Embrace your self with all its craziness, impractical decisions and irregularities. Only then the human inside you will win over the machine. A mind, free of insecurities can see the true beauty of the world.
The only thing I wish to do in life is to spread my wings and set myself free...
