How to Unfriend Sadness

Just like every other person, I’ve been through difficult situations, I too have lost a few people who were dear to me, I too have had heart breaks, I too have been so sad at times that, tears wouldn’t stop pouring out and also have been kicked out of certain groups where the people in it saw me as unfit for that collective. We have all been there right? I surely had a tough time dealing with most of these situations... how have you dealt with your situations so far? Sometimes it is easy for us to forget about it and let go, but there are times when the situations take a toll on our emotional well-being.

Let me tell you about two of my friends- Rita and Rahul (obviously names are changed!). This girl Rita like many teenagers fell for someone in her school days. As a teenager she has no real understanding what being in a relationship really means.  Supposedly, this girl is “unconditionally” in love with a guy, who she soon finds out, has cheated on her, secretly being involved with another girl. Rita loses her mind, goes crazy, starts smoking, starts drinking and goes as far as to playing and hurting herself with blades! scary right? Now consider Rahul’s case, he is a good and intelligent boy, but is socially awkward; what I mean by that is that he talks rarely, gets nervous too often, has no close friends and everyone in his class finds him really weird.  Such a situation would be very sad and depressing right? Indeed an unimaginable situation for us talkative folks! Sadly Rahul went through a lot and suffered a period of chronic depression, almost flunking his 12^th for that very reason.

The above two cases mainly consider heartbreaks and social acceptance issues, but there are still more issues such as inferiority complex, academic failure depressions, job loss,  family issues, depression pertaining physical as well as mental harassment (ragging being a prime example), misunderstanding between friends or loved ones, loss of someone dear to us and so on.. Now that we have spoken about all the causes and effects, let us look at the other side of things, a new hope, getting back on track, finding a solution and searching for  a new path to follow altogether.

 When we fall in a deep pit or ever get stuck somewhere or we just trip and fall, we often reach out for a hand to get us back up on our feet, but sometimes we are so badly stuck or the pit is so deep that we fail to see the light above, lose our conscious thought process and don’t attempt to reach out for a hand any further. This is when we need just one, just one! of all people that we trust, to reach out to us, lend a hand and show us where the light is. Another alternative for us is to develop a will so strong that we feel confident that there is surely light above and we need to only hop and stretch a little to find it and escape the pit. The later comes to us only through experience, but what if our first experience itself is horrific, that too, of the highest degree? Those are the times we need a hope, a friend, a loved one who will rescue us from the clutches of depression and what follows.

The above cases are a bit on the extreme side, cases where you are already in or a few steps away from total black-out. What if you are fully aware of your current situation and know for sure that it can be solved through certain steps, what do you do then? Personally I jump to YouTube and type in what I am going through followed by the word “solution”. Seems like a hardware or software problem? indeed it is! The brain needs a reboot and the heart needs some adhesive to connect the broken pieces. I also have a few books on ‘self help’ which I often read and jump to those parts which I believe will make me feel better in the given situation. Additionally one may also simply ‘google’ the situation and many articles like the one you are reading will be available. Reading them will give you much needed mental support and an escape plan from your pit of sadness.

Just to lighten up the mood a little, let us consider a few lines from a song from the band Coldplay named “fix you”. It goes like this...

When you try your best but you don't succeed,
When you get what you want but not what you need,
When you feel so tired but you can't sleep,
Stuck in reverse...

When the tears come streaming down your face,
When you lose something you can't replace,
When you love someone but it goes to waste,
Could it be worse?

Lights will guide you home...
And ignite your bones...
And I will try to fix you <3

If I were to show off one of my theories regarding the ongoing topic, I would say the following: Science says that we as humans generally inherit various traits from our ancestors, traits from our parents being the most dominant. These traits are not limited to just physical appearance (I’m sure you are pretty/handsome!) but also in terms of behaviour, thought process and the way we perceive a given situation. So what do we make of this theory? The best people to seek advice from when faced with difficulties are our parents. They are the people who are closest in line with our thought process and hence can help us out through references of their past experiences and their own behavioural patterns. I know it’s awkward, it’s a challenge; I know it doesn’t sound cool but believe me, it’s surely the best solution and they are more than willing to help and support you. Such confiding moments with their child is what parents long for. So muster up some courage, it is okay to let out some tears and remember!  they love you more than you know!

Let us recall Rahul’s and Rita’s cases again, we have already spoken about the various issues they faced. What I haven’t spoken about and indeed the most important part of their story is that, they came out of their sorry states primarily through self realisation. Major contributors to self realisation are one: reflecting upon one’s undoing from the past and second: realising the fact that “Time heals all wounds”. Heartbreaks are unbearable surely, but the human heart (hypothetically speaking) is surely a part of us that can be healed. Rahul and Rita’s hearts were broken in different shapes and sizes initially, later were healed to an almost perfect state but this time stronger, less fragile and less prone to breakage. Ultimately after all the help and support we get from others, Self realisation is the ultimate saviour,  Hence making it the most powerful force that will keep us from breaking for years to come.

Considering all the above I wouldn’t  advise you to stay away from a relationship, nor would I tell you to stop interacting with people (socialising is an important part of our lives) nor would I ever force all my ways of dealing with difficulties on you. We all need to face them individually and learn our lessons someday, somehow. When it comes to helping others, some people preach about staying away from certain people, because they are simply too weird, but I would say: try to find out why that person behaves the way he does, speak to him, have a small conversation about it. When it comes to seeking help from others, remember that there is always someone out there who can help you, a small conversation like the one I’m having with you, surely will do wonders and will indeed bring a smile on the other’s face. If you don’t find that person, I will surely be your friend, but always remember you have to hop a little, stretch a little and reach out :). 

Advice from an average student

Throughout my ‘student life’, which I am still living currently, I’ve never had  stable academic performance. If you plot my Percentage VS Time(in years) graph, it will appear as good as a randomly drawn zigzag line. But what matters is I’ve survived and surely will continue to.

There are many batch mates, seniors and juniors who have been just awesome in their performance and are quiet consistent too. I’ve tried to be like them, well who wouldn’t want to right? But thinking like that was my undoing. I've come to a realisation that being inspired and motivated by someone is fine, but trying to be them and following what they do isn’t the best way to go about it. There are many people who try to imitate or be someone else, sometimes it’s rewarding in some way or the other, but being your true self, being authentic, being original, that’s what counts! Let me tell you about a standard or rather a basic procedure a student should follow and then ill tell you about how I go about it.(I’m not the perfect student myself,being an engineering student, its all about ‘Jugaads’)

I do not remember from where I got this info, It maybe some article online or some TED talk from where I’ve collected some points and written it down. The topic is “study less, study smart”. It says that typically a student can concentrate fully on something for around 25 minutes. So if you plot a graph of Efficiency VS Time (in minutes), you’ll see a drop in your efficiency to understand the thing you’re reading after around 25 minutes time. So if you continue beyond this 25 minute mark, you would just be reading and not actually following and not understanding it enough to remember the concepts or whatever it is you are reading.

Now, how do you tackle this problem? Seems kind of obvious right? You just stop studying hehe. Well yes, you do stop studying but then it requires you to be back at your study table or study area to continue from where you had stopped previously. It means you need to take a break of around 5-10 minutes to do something fun, get your mind of the studies, but with a promise that you’ll be back to your books or notes soon. The idea is to celebrate and treat yourself for your effective study time and further to refresh your mind for the remaining part of the study. So what we observe in the efficiency VS time graph is a small drop, a 5 minutes break and then continuation of the efficiency graph as before or maybe at a lower level, depending on how much effective fun you have hahaha.

Additionally I’ve written about two more important things, first being the concept of SQ3R. This pneumonic simply means: Survey, Question, Read, Recite and Review. It tells you about how a student needs to approach a study material and should follow that exact order. Second is the importance of proper sleep. We as engineers do a lot of procrastination and end up staying up late nights before exams and then feel sleepy while answering the paper, and surely it’s not the best way to approach an examination. In relation to the above mentioned theory, we are studying effectively for a very less time during late nights. Hence we find ourselves with very less concentration power in the morning for the paper (the fear does help us boost the concentration XD but that’s because we have no other choice but to store as much as we can in the last minutes before the papers).

Now let us consider my approach towards this problem. It includes the SQ3R approach plus something I call “intentional procrastination”. Our engineering studies require us to practice drawing graphs, diagrams, equations, and a lot of solving. From the SQ3R approach I first take the S, where I go through and try to understand what I need to learn, then I go to Q, here I do not ask questions to myself or generate questions expected from the students as per the theory, but I simply refer the past Q papers and write them down at one place with the frequency at which they have been repeated denoted by a star mark. In engineering we have papers in form of modules which further helps in categorising these questions. Then I go through d questions and get a grip of what I am to learn from the already surveyed notes. Then I read it again properly, now with respect to only the questions I’ve written down. Hence now I have a good understanding of the lesson or chapter. Next step is writing stuff, the things I’ve mentioned above. The numerical can be done from the question papers later when you are done with the theory or concepts.

By intentional procrastination it means that I do procrastinate but in a planned manner. We usually have gaps between our semester papers of some 3 to 4 days. So before the whole semester exams season starts, I do the S and Q part of at least 2 modules of each subject. So when those 3 to 4 days gaps come, I’m ready for the remaining part. Hence I manage to complete the portion in time without the need to stay up late nights beyond my capacity.

Well, I’m not the best person to take advice from, nor am I qualified to teach you how to study, i just wanted you to know how I approach exams. The advantages of the above approach are proper sleep, better grip of the topics because of multiple surveys of the chapters and decent marks (above average). The disadvantages are that I start finding subjects interesting and then I realise that the exams are in 2 days and then I’ll never be studying it further, kind of sad, but then I further realise that I have to concentrate and follow the same procedure for the next paper hehe.