I was forced to go camping in the middle of the jungle with spiders and leeches and all sorts of living things that aren't human. I had to, it was for my college credits.
I wasn't actually forced, not really, since they had informed us and prepared us beforehand. But no amount of preparation could've made me ready for those 10 days in the wilderness.
It wasn't actually the wilderness. It was a botanical sanctuary where all sorts of plants grew and all sorts of organisms lived. That doesn't mean it wasn't a jungle. We had to trek up and down hills just to get to our camping spot.
I don't know what our college expected us to learn from this trip but now I know how to start a fire, how to identify different spiders and their webs, and that I have a leech allergy.
It isn't as bad as it…
I just finished the Pak drama Zanjeerien and there are a certain things on my mind that i have not been able to talk to anyone about.
Since here there is the “we listen and we don’t judge” because I have opinions that are in opposition with the general view.
Everyone was upset with the drama’s ending. Everyone saw this final union of the protagonists as something that was unfulfilling. Yes, the drama just brings them together and cuts there. There is no happy post credit scene showing thier happy married life but that I think is the entire point! The union is what drove the drama, I realise that as Asians we are driven to need a confirmation of the happy life we were imagining for them throughout but cinematography, and specifically modern cinematography doesn’t dictate this.
For instance…
I think one of the strangest things about being human is that we exist in completely different ways around different people.
With some, I'm loud and unthinking; with others, calculating and afraid to speak. With some, I uncover hidden parts of myself; with others, I realize how much I hide from myself.
Maybe I am all of these things at once. We are a series of memories, conversations, and people who left something behind in us.
Perhaps when we lose someone, it's not that they took something away, but that they knew a version of us we will never see again.
I had worked hard toward a goal, but the results were not coming. Every time I thought I was getting closer, another problem appeared. Slowly, I startedquestioning whether my efforts were even worth it.One evening, I seriously considered giving up.
I went for a walk because I did not want to sit at home thinking about the same things. On the way, I noticed a small tree growing through a crack in a concrete wall
It was not particularly beautiful or large. In fact, it looked as though it should not have been able to grow there at all.I stopped for a moment and looked at it.
That tiny tree made me think about how growth does not always require perfect conditions. Sometimes, life grows wherever it finds even a small opportunity.
I returned home with a different mindset.I did not suddenly becom…
There should be a word for the feeling of opening your phone for absolutely no reason, staring at the screen for a few seconds, and then putting it down—only to pick it up again thirty seconds later.There should be a word for remembering
something embarrassing from seven years ago while brushing your teeth and suddenly needing to reconsider every decision you’ve ever made.
There should be a word for the strange little happiness of finding money in a pocket you haven’t worn in months.
There should be a word for hearing a song you haven’t listened to in years and, within the first three seconds, becoming exactly the person you were when you first heard it.
There should be a word for looking out of a moving car window and imagining an entire life in every house you pass.
A family you will n…
I don’t really know how to explain my life right now.
From the outside, I probably look like a normal girl who is studying, figuring out her future, and just moving through life. But honestly, I feel like I’m constantly trying to find a way out of a life I never really chose for myself.
There are so many things I’ve done because they were expected from me. I kept thinking, “Maybe I’ll get used to it. Maybe I’ll start liking it. Maybe everyone else is right and I’m just confused.”
But I wasn’t happy.
And the worst part is, I started feeling guilty for even admitting that.
I want to study something I actually care about. I want to work. I want to earn my own money. I want to be independent enough that I don’t have to ask someone every time I want to do something for myself.
I want to go out …
She doesn’t want to run away from her family.
She doesn’t want to stop loving them, stop respecting them, or pretend that their opinions don’t matter. She just wants to experience what it feels like to have a life that is truly hers.
A life where she can choose what she wants to study. Where she can work and earn her own money. Where she can go out with friends without feeling like she has done something wrong. Where she can make decisions, make mistakes, learn from them, and grow without constantly being reminded that she is a girl and therefore has to be more careful.
She understands that her parents worry about her. She knows the world isn’t always safe, and she knows their restrictions often come from fear and love.
But sometimes, protection can become control without anyone realizing …
A few weeks ago, I had a small experience that made me think about how easily we take ordinary things for granted.
It was a normal evening. I was sitting at home, complaining about how tiring my day had been and how many things were not going the way I wanted. I was worried about my future and felt that I was not doing enough with my life.
While I was sitting there, I received a call from an old friend. We talked for a few minutes, and during the conversation, he mentioned that his father had been unwell for some time. He told me how he had started appreciating simple moments with his family because he had realised that things can change unexpectedly.After the call, I sat quietly for a while.I started thinking about my own life. I had a home to return to, people who cared about me, food on…
Every evening, just before sunset, an old man walked through his neighbourhood carrying a small ladder, a screwdriver, and a cloth bag. Nobody had hired him. Nobody paid him regularly. Yet whenever a streetlight stopped working, he quietly arrived and tried to bring the light back. People called him Haran Kaku. He was nearly seventy, lived alone in a tiny room, and earned very little from repairing electrical appliances. His hands were rough from decades of work. Even during winter, his fingers often trembled, but he never complained when someone asked him for help. One evening, a schoolgirl named Mili noticed him repairing a broken streetlight outside her house. She stood nearby, watching his every movement carefully. When the bulb finally came alive, Mili smiled and asked, “Why do you al…
Sometimes I feel that we all have been here for feeling regret. We do all things whether by choice or by force, we regret at the end of the chapter. Life is all about dissatisfaction. When we get the things, we regret for what we didn't get. Why we think of that unattaining thing, and disgrace of what we got. And that feeling gives birth to regret in our mind. Like me, I have a happy family, my children are having better life than I had in my childhood. My in laws having much better time that my own parents are having currently. All these are in other forms of a regret, that why could I have that childhood or why my parents are not living life like my in laws.
Perhaps all this feeling of regret gives the kick of desire to be better in life. This feeling of regret is the essential part of…
“The Great Netflix Crisis: What Am I Even Watching?” 😭🍿
I genuinely believe choosing what to watch is one of the most difficult decisions of modern life.
People talk about choosing a career, choosing a life partner, choosing where to live… but nobody talks about the emotional damage caused by opening Netflix, YouTube, or Instagram and having absolutely no idea what you want to watch.You sit down.You get comfortable.
You grab a snack.You open an app.And suddenly your brain forgets every single piece of entertainment you have ever enjoyed.
You scroll.“Hmm, no.”Scroll.“Already watched that.”Scroll.“Too serious.”
Scroll.“Too boring.”Scroll.“I’ve seen this trailer seventeen times but somehow I still don’t know what the movie is about.”
Twenty minutes later, you are watching a random video titled something like “Top 10 Most Unexpected Things Found In…
It's difficult for me to stay and think with a straight mind.
I am so confused about my feelings...
I can't decide if I should hold on or let go.
Why is love always like this why is it so confusing.
It gives me butterflies all the time!
It is so heart warming and upsetting both.
And I don't really ask for much!
I just want to see him....
Everyday.....
Everywhere.....
Every time.
Is it too much to ask.....
I think not!
To know that he is smiling while I crack jokes.
To know that he knows I admire him but from afar and he likes that respectful distance.
To know that he knows my heart belongs to him and he teases me by pretending not to notice and smiling at my goofiness while facing the other way.
I just want to see that smile,
Everyday.....
Everywhere.....
Every time.....
Is it too much t…
Sometimes I wonder about the versions of my life that never happened.The school I could have gone to.
The friend I might have met if I had sat somewhere else that afternoon.The opportunity I didn’t take because I was too scared.
The city I almost moved to.The person I might have become if one tiny decision had gone differently.
It’s strange because we only get to experience one version of our lives, yet there are thousands of possible versions living quietly in our imagination.
Sometimes I think about them when I’m alone.Not because I regret my life.Just because I’m curious.Would that version of me be happier?
Would she be braver?Would she still have the same laugh?Would she recognize me?Maybe every decision closes a door.But perhaps that’s not something to be afraid of.
Because choosing o…
I think one of my quietest fears is becoming ordinary.Not because I believe ordinary people are insignificant. They aren’t. Some of the kindest,
strongest, most beautiful lives are incredibly ordinary.Maybe I’m just afraid of reaching a point where I stop wondering what else is possible.
Growing up, I thought adulthood would feel like arriving somewhere. Like one day I’d suddenly know who I was, what I wanted, where I was going, and why.
But the older I get, the more I realize that nobody really arrives.We just keep becoming.And sometimes I look around and wonder if I’m doing enough with the life I’ve been given.
Will I travel to the places I’ve dreamed about?Will I create something that exists because I existed?Will I make my younger self proud?
Or will I wake up one morning and realize …
There is something strangely comforting about being unknown.Not invisible. Not lonely. Just… unknown.
Sometimes I think we spend too much of our lives trying to make ourselves understandable to everyone around us. We explain why we reacted a certain way, why we made a particular decision, why we disappeared for a while, why we changed our mind.As if every part of us needs a footnote.But what if it doesn’t?
What if someone misunderstands you and you simply let them?What if someone thinks you’re quiet because you’re arrogant, when really you’re just tired?
What if someone thinks you’ve changed, when you’re simply becoming more honest with yourself? What if someone remembers an older
version of you and refuses to believe that you aren’t that person anymore?Maybe you don’t always have to cor…
I don’t know exactly who I am going to become.And honestly, that used to scare me.I wanted answers.
I wanted to know where I would be five years from now, what I would be doing, who would still be beside me, what kind of person I would become, and whether the things I was struggling with today would eventually make sense.I wanted some kind of guarantee that everything would work out.
But life doesn’t really give guarantees.It gives days.Some beautiful.Some ordinary.Some painfully confusing.
And somehow, we are expected to build a life out of them.Maybe that is what growing up actually is.Not suddenly knowing everything.
Not becoming perfectly disciplined, perfectly confident, perfectly successful or perfectly healed.Maybe growing up is simply learning to say:“I don’t know yet.
But I’ll gro…
One morning, I woke up feeling unusually frustrated. I had been worrying about several things at once—my future, responsibilities, and whether I was making the right decisions in life. Nothing seemed to be going according to the way I had planned.While having breakfast, I noticed my mother quietly doing her usual household work. She had been awake for hours, preparing food and taking care of different things, yet she never complained about how tiring her day going to be.I asked her how she managed to remain so calm despite having so much to do.
She smiled and said, “Every day does not have to be perfect. We just have to do what we can and leave the rest for Tommarow It was a simple answer, but I kept thinking about it.I realised that I had been making my life more difficult by expecting e…
The feeling of being abandon is the worst feeling one ever could feel
This breaks heart and sometimes it breaks a person
When you are attached to someone ,you feel that this is the one but then they abandon you or ghost you
Its not that the feeling of being abandoned which make you feel sad but the disappointment the regret of Choosing that person
Of course it will take some time but eventually will handle and came out of this feeling
What should we do in this situation ?
I think one should focus on themselves , on their personal growth
Meet new people hang out friends
Exercise ,walk ,watch series and erase that person ‘s memory from your mind and phone
I’m doing all this but still feel melancholic why I don’t no maybe I’m disappointed in my self that I give so much hold of my em…
Nobody really warns you about the strange moment when childhood quietly ends. There is no ceremony, no certificate, no dramatic soundtrack. One day, you are worrying about homework, cartoons, birthdays, and asking your parents for pocket money. Then suddenly, you are expected to understand bills, careers, bank accounts, deadlines, family responsibilities, and the mysterious question, “What are you doing with your life?”
For Gen Z middle class kids, adulting feels especially confusing. We grew up hearing that education would create opportunities, hard
work would create stability, and a good career would create a comfortable life. We believed it because our parents believed it. They built their lives around sacrifice. They saved money instead of spending it, chose practical careers over pa…
It was first day of my college. Firstly I was not aware about the college hence,I took a auto ride, that auto rider wasn't aware of the college too and he left me in between and took ₹15 from me. Somehow I managed to reach the college after 1 hours roaming here and there. I attended the lecture and felt very bad about the class , the class wasn't the same i expected before, i started thinking I will not survive for the two consecutive years and while attending third lacture I got to know it's not PG class but instead it was UG's lecture. After hearing these words from one student i took a sigh of relief. Thank God it wasn't my class and i revisted the time table and I became happy. That day instead of going to my PG class i went back to home and next day i attended my class and my batchmat…
Writing and adding texts upon seems so delusional to me that I can't even find vocabulary to define her...
This little thing is so proclaimed to me that it matters to me no matter what I do or whenever I do...
All I want sometimes is her, sometimes I want her to be with me holding my shoulder right next to her face, cuddling, giggling and doing what makes her happy.
I want her to feel secure, comfortable & safe when she's around me, I don't want her to feel the gitty, the silence awkwardness around me, I want her to be loved and to be loving.
I am improving myself, improving myself to be something better, better that she loves even more, even more when it matters.
I have recently realised the obsession we have with land or a solid ground and our ability to stand on it. That is a power bestowed on us by the universe in the way that it functions - basically, the gravitational pull. But we somehow seem to forget it and have begun to believe it as given. Only in times of calamities is when we get this wake up call, of our existential insignificance in this expansive universe. I guess that belief is what regulates our decisions on land - who owns it, who stays where, and who remains entirely excluded from the politics of ownership. And that exclusion not only pervades marginalised or underprivileged communities of people around the world, but also different species of plants, animals, insects, birds, microorganisms, water bodies and the atmosphere.
I know doom scrolling gets a pretty bad reputation, and honestly I get why. We have all had those moments where we open Instagram or YouTube for five minutes and suddenly an hour has disappeared. It can make you ridiculously comfortable with doing nothing , keep your brain constantly entertained, and somehow make the idea of getting up and doing actual work feel exhausting. So yes, there’s definitely a side of scrolling that is just terrible for us.
But today, I don’t want to talk about that side. Because sometimes scrolling is actually fun, like genuinely stupidly fun.
There is something about opening Instagram with absolutely no expectations and suddenly finding the most creative meme someone has made out of the most random situation. People are going through their own lives, dealing wit…
What is one thing future-you will be glad you started today? Name the first small step.
For me it will be writing sample content papers for my future job role as a content writer . It would be very beneficial for me if I even start writing 3 papers a week to keep on improving myself again and again back and fourth . It’s something I also enjoy doing because there are multiple things and topics to speak about wether it be sports or Bollywood , current affairs etc . It’s something I high - key enjoy . I remember in 4 th grade I use to write about various short form stories and specially horror stories whenever I used to be bored . Those stories used to be read by my classmates who also liked my stories and they used to say that ‘ ‘ you write such amazing stories . It’s good 👍 . So I formed …
There are days when I find myself asking, where did my life start going so wrong? I’m studying, working, preparing for the future, and for some reason, I feel as if I’m at a stagnant point. I look at those around me and wonder why they know what they want, while I struggle to find what I desire.
I have my good days and bad days. Some days, I feel as if I’ve accomplished something. Some days, I feel exhausted from the simplest of tasks.
But perhaps that’s what growing up is: accepting that you will continue to move forward in life regardless of doubts and fears, to fight on for your own sake even if you don’t know what you’re fighting for, and to acknowledge that your path in life is different from those around you.
Perhaps I’m not falling behind.
Perhaps
I’m just growing up.
Some days start so normally that you have absolutely no idea they’re going to become a memory you’ll remember for years. I had one of those days recently. I woke up late, which already put me in a terrible mood, and the whole morning felt rushed. I couldn’t find my keys, my phone was almost dead, and I was annoyed at basically everything. I had plans for the day, but honestly I wasn’t even excited about them anymore. I just wanted to get through everything and come back home. Then, completely randomly, my plans changed. Someone called and asked if I wanted to go out for a while, and after thinking about it for a few minutes, I said yes. I didn’t even know where we were going. We ended up driving around for almost an hour, listening to old songs and talking about completely random things. A…
For a long time, I believed that I needed the right circumstances to start something meaningful.
I kept telling myself that I would begin when I had more confidence, more money, more time, or when everything around me felt settled.
Somehow, there was always a reason to wait.
One morning, I sat near my window and watched people leave for work.Some looked tired, some rushed, and some just tried to get through an ordinary day.I realized that everyone dealt with unseen struggles, yet they still moved forward.
I decided to start with something very small.Instead of overthinking my life, I made a simple list of things I could control.I chose one task and finished it. The next day, I did another.Nothing dramatic happened, but slowly, I felt different.
What Progress Really Looks Like Progress does…
Working is the key to independence. And NOTHING is more important than being independent.
This is the principle my family raised me on. A very valid one, for sure. It reminds me regularly to never take anything for granted, to stand on my own two feet, to try to do things of merit and value. Most importantly, it has allowed me to live largely on my own terms. While I fully believe that independence comes from knowing what you want and how to make decisions, financial independence gives you the actual means to do that. And nothing can replace the confidence that the experience of working provides, from the people you meet to all the various things you can learn.
As a result of this strong belief within my family, I have kept myself occupied with work since I was 14. I started with volunte…
What is something you got wrong recently — and what did it quietly teach you?
You know what I am someone who laughs a lot. Few years back one of my friends asked "look only two kinds of people laugh too much, first, those who are made and second, those who is really sad from inside so what is your category". That day she made me to introspect because I was well aware that yes things are not going smooth for me since the day I was born . Being a second girl child my birth never been the day of joy. Since my birth I have been facing trouble people used to make fun of me when I was just a teenager just because I do not fit in their beauty standard. Moreover, I used to feel bad at that time. But I always had expectations with the god that he will definitely make me the greatest personality amo…
A few years ago, I learned an important lesson from a very ordinary situation.
One evening, I was returning home after a long and tiring day. On the way, I noticed an elderly man sitting alone on a bench outside a small shop. He looked worried and kept checking his phone. I was already late, so I initially walked past him.
After a few steps, something made me stop.
I went back and asked if everything was alright. He told me that he was waiting for his son, who was supposed to pick him up, but his phone had stopped working.
I helped him make a call from my phone. His son answered and said he would arrive shortly. I could have simply made the call and left, but I decided to wait with him.During those fifteen minutes, we started talking. He told me about his younger days, his family, and how …
