What it means to be ‘me’, to Me!

Many years ago, during one passionate argument about how things should be and why I was insisting on it being thus – in my school scenario – had me in tears as others kept putting forward stupid and flimsy reasons for opposing it. I also had a team of teachers who opposed it.

This was my first tryst with a full realization that what for me was passion and important and right and appropriate and honorable and righteous and everything else along with it, was just another day of work for them. It also revealed to me that for situations where I knew I was on a moral high ground, but others would not see my point of view, I would find myself emotionally distraught.

That was in my profession.

It had me deal with young learners and their learnings. My escape from the garbage around me was my classroom wherein the genuineness and candidness of my teaching was feted & celebrated by my learners & their parents. It was also where my fairness in my work gave even the most rebellious and docile student hope and courage. I have survived three decades in this field only because of this.

In my personal life everything which came my way was important for me. Whether it was my son’s birthday party invite, or something I had to do for family or my hampers for friends or my plan for the children of an orphanage or the teachers at my school or the school itself.

Every small thing was important and every thing significant. Details mattered to me. If a red tablecloth went with the décor, I had to put a red. No other color could be used as compromise. If putting together a hamper for friends in between my busy schedule would take time I’d plan months in advance and put things in place. Everything was personalized. No card had a general message. If I needed to do anything for family, or friends, I never felt the need to advertise or keep saying it repeatedly. I thought it had to be done, I just did it. And I never referred to it again to either them or anyone else.

Despite all my understandings being in place, I often found myself at the receiving end of some or the other emotional backlash. A repercussion which was baffling. A reaction difficult to understand. A hostile response always justified by some innuendo. A criticism tiring to decipher.

Soon I found myself caring less for what the world thought. Their reactions started falling on my couldn’t-care-less shoulders, through a calculated indifference. The world of tech helped me find solutions to nonsensical responses and reactions. The ‘delete’ button became my savior. I stopped taking boloney & rubbish from the world around me. When a decent amount of commitment, dedication and reliability did not make people realize my authenticity, I started to press the ‘delete’ button in my relationships and professional life to expunge and cross out negativity and apathy and meaninglessness from the way people dealt with everything which was important for me.

In the process, I bought myself peace of mind and a clean heart. The distancing helped clear thoughts and the fogginess of an emotional involvement disappeared. It helped me to take dispassionate decisions about the way forward. I increasingly found myself going out of the way to help and work and do things for everyone but with no expectations in returns.

It hurt still, but it hurt less when they turned on me!

Now as I sit at my desk, not staring into any twilight zone but at a beautifully sunlit day with the peepal tree swaying in the breeze and a blue-sky playing hide-n-seek with the clouds and happy birds chirping from the fruit tree near my other window, I reminiscence about the way things are, should be ideally and what it has been for me.

Many things and many emotions. An underlying one which does not go away ever is a feeling of being duped by pseudo emotions of care, love, appreciation, cherishing, support, and the whole kitbag that goes with it.

Despite each time playing out similarly, I end up doing it again because I know no other way. I do not take long to understand anyone. People seem to need another lifetime to understand me. I smirk at the thought like I am doing now. Yet somehow I do not care anymore.

And then I smile and tell myself that that was the price of being Me!!