MY WORLD
During childhood, I had the ability to be simply lost in my own world. It was a world in my mind full of my thoughts, dreams and fantasies. I would be there oblivious to the world around me. ‘My own world’ was the best place to be, without the worries of the world around. People, especially the grown-ups would tell me that it was not good and that I should be more involved in the happenings around me. Eager to ‘fit in’ and be acknowledged as successful, I tried. I pushed myself out of my world and became more involved with things around me. I started having an opinion about everything and I convinced myself that I had to have knowledge about everything. More importantly, I had to show this to the world, and get an acknowledgement.
Then one day after many years as a grown up, I was sitting quietly staring into nothingness. I returned to a familiar place. It was ‘my world’ that I had left years ago in search of approval from the people most of whom did not matter to me anyway. At that moment I felt peaceful and free of all my worries. I realized that it was my biggest treasure that I had given up for a mirage. People would laugh at me for being lost in my world and I felt ashamed as a kid. Now I felt privileged to have my own little world to get lost into. It was my little piece of heaven, my retreat from the daily life. I felt bad for those who do not have this. (I even had a sneaking suspicion that most of those who made fun of my world had it to begin with but had lost it. Now they were jealous of me.)
Now I spend all available time there. I do come to the ‘real world’ because that is where I stay and have to attend to day to day affairs of life. Once that is done, I retreat into my world again. It is bliss.
