Revival- A second chance
Revival, noun, “an improvement in the condition, strength, or fortunes of someone or something”.
We all have our strengths and weaknesses, things that we’re pride ourselves in, things that we love to do. When someone loves to bake, write, sing or dance, you can see the glow in their face as they’re in their element, in their zone. Our comfort zones, or the things we like to do and take pride in, they are our creations and one of the things that define us.
As an aspiring writer, I feel the necessity to get my own approval for every syllable I write. It’s comforting, this acknowledgement that I’m giving to my words, the responsibility I’m taking for them, the feeling of authority over the choices of words, the lengths of sentences and everything. It’s definitely a power that I love. And it’s not just me, every time the oven makes a sound, and a baker knows it’s done, there’s that gush of energy and enthusiasm in them. The nearly overpowering smell of freshly baked breads or cakes, the air laden with the tanginess and freshness of jam and the merriness of chocolate and vanilla; this is their strength. Our actions in our comfort zone, is our form of self-validation.
Often, unavoidable circumstances push us away from our own comfort spaces. An accident, an injury, personal problems or work stress. We find ourselves suddenly or slowly detaching from our zones, forgetting the feel of a pen in our hand, the tapping of our feet to the beats and the familiar warmth that our comfort zone offers us. We feel abandoned by ourselves in a cold, dark room. Everything seems new and daunting, we feel detached from ourselves. Sometimes, we tend to expand our comfort zone, as we meet more people with similar interests. We tend to get more self-critical about our actions; instead of feeling proud of what we do, we pick on each and every little flaws and try to fix them over and over again. Sometimes, this is caused by external pressure from colleagues and families. This causes us to feel burdened by something that once we loved. It is a feeling that was well-described by Helen Keller in her book, The Story of my life, as I quote,
“Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in, and the great ship, tense and anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and sounding-line, and you waited with beating heart for something to happen? I was like that ship before my education began, only I was without compass or sounding-line, and had no way of knowing how near the harbour was. “Light! give me light!” was the wordless cry of my soul, and the light of love shone on me in that very hour.”
In moments like this, we need to remind ourselves about why we chose to make this particular skill or activity, our comfort zone, something we pride ourselves in. We need to take little steps to slowly warm up to our dear old “friend”. Remember, the zone has been just as detached from us, as we have been from it. We need to take a step back, and with time analyze and work on the things that we feel, needs to be improved.
13-year old Bethany Hamilton lost her left arm to a shark attack. Today, she’s a professional surfer and motivational speaker. Beethoven lost his hearing in his 20s and now he continues to be one of the most aspiring and celebrated composers of all time. Despite having lost her one of her legs due to an infection, Sudha Chandran continued to be a renowned Bharatanatyam dancer with a prosthetic foot.These aren’t just inspirational stories, everyone had their struggles. Everyone had moments when they felt like giving up. Had they given up, they wouldn’t have felt this beguiling sense of achievement and fulfilment, on seeing their dreams and ambitions turn into reality.
When we’re taking our first few steps into revival, we shouldn’t notice our quality of work. Everything we do, a burnt piece of bread, a missed beat, a cracking voice or a simple rant in the form of writing: they’re all the stepstones or progress into our element. We need to be patient with ourselves, and forgive ourselves for every mistake, reminding ourselves that these mistakes will be gone with time. We should know that in our comfort space, we are our own judges, our own mentors and our own artist.