Embracing the inadequacies

~ Akash

Life isn’t straightforward, that’s something everyone can agree with. One moment you are cruising through joyous moments, the next you are doing everything you can just to stay afloat. It’s kinda funny and sad at the same time but yeah, that’s life. You never know what to expect.

Ever felt inadequate? That somehow you are a person who’d never be good enough, good enough to deserve the nice stuff life has to offer? Maybe that’s true, maybe you are incomplete, maybe you’ll never have “enough”. But what is enough? Enough money? Enough love? Enough time? But then again who does? Maybe it isn’t supposed to be enough, maybe life is supposed to about enjoying the fleeting moments of joy, enjoying the inadequacies life has to offer in all it’s glory and somehow… being fine with it? Life owes you nothing; it is up to you to determine what the “nice” things life has to offer. You create a mental picture of what “nice” is and crib that you weren’t handed enough.

Maybe it didn’t work out between you and your ex, maybe you didn’t get the course you wanted. It is a reminder that the cards are never dealt fair. It is the whole unfairness of life which makes it worth living. The sense of inadequacy is but a reflection of what life is – a vast stretch of nothingness.

Nope, being nothing is not the same as being dark. Nothing is a canvas, a canvas waiting to be painted upon. Nothing can always be Something but it can never be Everything. You and your ex were just not good for each other, you just weren’t smart enough to get the course you desired, maybe you just weren’t the good guy you thought you were. And that is okay.

Or maybe not.

You could spend your life chasing the things that you were never entitled to, or you could just calm the fuck down and focus on the now, work with what you have, create Something with the Nothing you were handed. It wouldn’t be Everything but it wouldn't be Nothing either.

That’s how you live life, start with a canvas and paint something on it and when it is time, discard it and start over again, and again and again. Yes, it is a daunting task, but it is also rewarding.

The canvas is unlimited but the paint and your time aren’t. They will be inadequate; you’ll feel the inadequacy with every stroke of your brush, now you could give into the fear and mess up your painting or just push through and come with an average piece of art. Yes, average would do, not every portrait has to be a masterpiece.

Sometimes you’ll be forced to discard the canvas even before you are done with it, maybe you let your doubts get to your head, that is okay- discard and start again. Calling it off in the middle is better that ruining it, eh? Some days you don’t feel like touching your brush at all and that is okay too. Just stare at the canvas. The whole blankness of it. A sense of eerie calm. Let that wash over you. Feel it. Start painting again.

Yes, life comes with a lot of setbacks and disappointments, maybe it is a sign to start again. Start again or even salvage the situation. Some of the portraits survive, you frame them and hang them down the hallway of nostalgia, but losing yourself over them? Nah, not worth it.

The next time you feel inadequate, remember it is how you persevered that matters, how you chose to be a ray of sunshine despite your inadequacies, how you always showed up for people and how you never faltered no matter how slippery your path got.

Feeling inadequate is part of life. Being inadequate is okay. If you don’t stop running away from the inadequacies and learn to embrace them instead, you might end up forgetting to paint what could have been a masterpiece.