your old self must die to make room for the new Self

gems of the week

• are you serious? - a short essay by Visakan Veeraswamy

• rally house

• do hard things - a film by casey neistat

armaan’s thoughts

• i’m a lover boy and a dramatic bitch. funny yeh?

• i didn’t smoke weed this week. first week in a while. i’m happy i didn’t.

• the only path towards freeing yourself from yourself is radical honesty.

1 reflection

honesty.

i wrote this on my notes app the other day.

“armaan, most of the problems i think i’m encountering are solved by simply saying the things that need to be said and being honest towards myself and others.” - from you to you.

i think the reason honesty is so difficult is because it forces us to let go of a fantasy. a dream. a delusion we keep revisiting. an illusion that’s so enticing, so exciting and comforting, that to be without it would be worse than death.

at least for me that’s what it is.

i’m Self-obsessed.

very attuned to the whims and whirs of the gears spinning in my belief system, conscious mind, motivations, etc. after years of journaling, meditating, and one too many mushroom trips, it’s second nature to inquire into the inner workings of my mind.

as a result, i can pinpoint thoughts or ideas which are new and potentially helpful, or harmful. i can spot beliefs that hold me back or motivations that may be less than pure.

it’s very nice to be so attuned to my Self. but at the same time, i get easily wrapped up into it.

very wrapped up. i feel very deeply.

in fact, i’m an emotional addict.

and as a person of addiction, whether it be obsession with work, love for food and drink, a predilection towards sparking up a joint, or most recently, women and the fantasy of a beautiful woman by my side, i often am between euphoria or terror.

one side of the extreme or the other. i’m able to recognize it, but my baseline emotional state fluctuates between these two extremes.

imagine your emotional state exists on a number line between 0(terror) and 100(euphoria).

for 80% of my time as a human, i’m either in the 20-30 or 80-90 range.

not evenly distributed at all. no gaussian, eh?

with that being said, i’ve noticed that when i’m radically honest with myself, truthful about the things i’m feeling when im in that horrible state, those feelings start to subside.

for example, i went on a little dinner on tuesday. it went well, but i’m not so confident this girl likes me as much as i like her. for a day or two this past week, i’ve been rattling my mind about it. you see, i don’t fall often. but when i fall, i don’t just scrape my knee, but i break a bone and bleed out on the side of the street.

ok that’s a bit dramatic and overkill, but you get the point.

so as i’ve been dealing with that sort of relationship-angst, i decided to be honest with myself.

here’s what i said.

“honestly, armaan, the reason i’m so neurotic about this situation is partly because i’m scared of being hurt. i’m scared of opening myself up to someone and being vulnerable, and letting that part of me be thrown to the side. i’m scared of heartbreak. i’m scared of the Truth. i’m scared of the scars another failed fantasy of a relationship may leave.”

i wrote those words.
i read them aloud.
repeated them to myself.
and responded with this.

“armaan, those are the words of someone who is afraid. who is fundamentally afraid. and someone who lives in fear cannot live at all. i’m leaving that person on the page. i don’t want to live in fear my entire life. goodbye.”

and i left.
i got up, read a fantasy book, and went to bed.
that was thursday.

i’m not saying i’m healed.

but those words helped me. those words about the person who wrote the first passage is a child who lives in fear, and the child who lives in fear will never, and i mean NEVER, grow up into someone who lives a good life.

and honesty opened that door.

honesty opened the door for my more mature, stable, wiser 21 year old self(lol that’s funny) to talk to my 12 year old neurotic bitch-ass self. honesty allowed for me to take that conversation, to really open up and say the thing that i’m afraid of.

heartbreak.

and ultimately, through talking about heartbreak, i was able to mend my heart again.that’s not to say it won’t be broken again.
it will be broken over and over and over again.

but everytime you heart falls apart, it learns to stand up straighter a little bit. because it gets up. it always does.

love you.

share this with a friend if you enjoyed it.

just send them this link.

appreciation

shoutout to your inner wisdom.

Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, and more(all @armaan.ajoomal).