Sometimes I wonder – is it common for people to take extended retreats from the things that they’re working on, as I do?
Of course, I don’t leave things behind; I return to most of them at a later date. But I do enjoy the act of completely switching off a part of my life and then revisiting it a few months later. I wonder if other people do that.
Not many might agree, but I find it to be a fantastic way of bringing a fresh perspective to something you’re deeply involved in.
First of all, it helps you avoid getting narrowed down in your thought process. When you detach yourself and take a break from something, you also let go of certain biases that may have unconsciously crept into your mind.
Secondly, when you detach yourself from something, you make a conscious effort to not let your emotions overpower you. Emotions love playing with our logic and getting the best of us to cave in to making terrible decisions.
These breaks serve as the regulators of my life.
Nevertheless, life has been pretty busy – and actually in a good way.
Last year in September, I moved to Los Angeles, US to start my graduate program at UCLA, and I’ve been loving it!
LA is amazing, the weather is amazing, the course is great, and I just started my internship which is going awesome as well!
While it feels good to be in the present, I also feel grateful when I think about the past and realize where I was a year ago.
The graph of life has truly been moving like a sinusoidal curve – six months after I hit the trough in 2020, things bounced back and I got thrown into a storm of some of the most ecstatic experiences.
There was luck involved – yes – but it wasn’t a miracle. The noteworthy lesson from this event was that each one of those tough decisions that I made during the six months following the trough, played a key role in deciding the direction my life would be taking in 2021.
This goes a long way in showing that it is our actions when we are at our worst that govern our lives – and are hence far more critical – than our actions when we are at our best.
For now, all I can do is relish the fact that I’m at a crest. Or maybe this is not even the crest; maybe there’s something even better that is set to arrive in the future.
Regardless, however, I know that once the crest passes, there will be a trough again. That’s just the nature of life.
But this time the thought is not depressing. In fact, it amuses me to think: what an interesting challenge it would be to exceed the levels of resilience and focus demonstrated the last time – while surfin’ through the wave of life. 🙂
