A Life Lived is Not Necessarily A Life Imagined

I once went to a pundit to read my patra (for those not savvy with the Hindu ritual, its pretty much a reading/ prediction of one's fortune/ future, more or less). He told me that I had an enormous potential to be great and do great things, to have a happy life, because my "life-rays" were plentiful. He, however, (correctly) posited that my current state of being was far less than what it should have been. For some reason I was not having as fantastic a life as I should have been having.

He meditated on this for a while, as I sat there, in his shrine high atop a hill at dusk on that day. I was intrigued and thoroughly creeped out by the whole eerie aura of the moment. After an eternity of ten minutes of deep meditation, he revealed to me the reason for my misfortunes; indeed, it was something I already knew, but for some reason, had just not fully come to terms with.

He said that, in the walk of my life, while staring at the destination, in the distance, I was unable to overcome the obstacles in front of me, simply because, I was not looking at them. I had dreams of what I wanted to achieve, of how I wanted my life to be, which was good; however, my focus was fixated on them, and I hardly gave thought about what I needed to do to achieve them. To return to the traveling analogy, I kept my eyes firmly fixed on the destination, daydreaming about it my life on end, without ever keeping my eyes on the road right in front of me.

I'm not a strong believer in religion personally, but I was awed by the accuracy of his perception. Here's the thing about me; I know I have the potential to be amazing, to do things far greater than I have done thus far, to live a life far better than the one I currently live. I was blessed with a sharp academic mind, good memory, and wonderful creativity. I am quick-witted, down to earth, and have a great sense of humor, and I am great with people. I don't think I am bad looking either, facially that is. I have tremendous leadership ability, and I am innovative, inventive, well spoken, thoughtful, loving, caring, understanding and compassionate.

I am also a real underachiever. My one moment of academic greatness (winning the President's Medal in 2006) was the exception to an otherwise mediocre list of accomplishments, academically, socially and otherwise. I've been overweight since I was a child; this has hindered my natural sporting talent, which I have a lot of. It also really fucked my social life, as not many girls want to date a fatty, and it's all too easy for us endomorphs to bear the brunt of the jokes. Now, even though I know fully well what it takes for me to slim down, I just can't seem to make the first steps, and my physicality is not only hindering my self-confidence, it is hindering my health.

Socially, I'm neither here nor there. Despite being sort of popular and having a plethora of friends, I am still socially awkward and painfully shy. I usually have the best advice to give my friends about girls, but I don't ever seem to seem to know the right thing to say when I myself am in the midst of someone I fancy. To that end, I've never had a girlfriend; I've liked many girls, been in love with one or two, had a few crushes, flings, one-night stands. I've been close to some of the most desirable females one could imagine, physically, intellectually, personality-wise...and yet still, I haven't managed anything close to a meaningful relationship (there's one quasi-exception, but that was doomed to go nowhere anyway, and wasn't all that morally righteous, so I'm not counting it). I HAVE managed to lose many good friends, to have consistently let people down, to have needlessly tarnished my image, reputation and character by stupid actions and lack of actions.

My grades are decent but not special, even though I am capable of maintaining a 4.0 with ease; I have not saved any money, despite having been well taken care of by the Trinidad government, in addition to having several well paying jobs...not only is my bank account dry, but I am even in debt (how I do not know) when I should not be...I haven't done so many of the things I wanted, and had ample opportunity to do...in short, while my life isn't horrible, it's something that it has absolutely no right to be: MEDIOCRE

The reason? Elementary, my dear (*insert substitute for 'WATSON' here*):
I live too much in my head. I dream out exactly how I want things to go, situations, circumstances, outcomes...the perfect life, like a perfect movie, always playing in the cinema of my mind. I think that's why I'm good at writing; I relive my fantasies as I write, and my fingers somehow rap the keys rhythmically to the beat of the song that is blasting in my head. But I groove in my dreams too much, and don't give myself time to make music in real life. Like the pundit said, I don't pay attention to what I need to do to achieve my goals. Thus, I can never have this awesome life, because I don't work towards it. I don't exercise or eat right, don't study enough, don't sit down and budget myself or plan, don't work on my friendships, don't take the time to really get to know girls well enough, and be patient with them, to let them learn to like me...

I'm trying to correct this. I leave myself reminders, motivational messages; I send myself emails and tag myself in videos that remind me of the fact that potential is nothing if not realized; the battle is long and hard, because the life in my dreams is addicting and hard to stay away from. But I'm trying furiously to make my real life just as good, or even better, so I won't miss my fantasies.

So to those of you reading this, who are in, or might find yourselves in, a situation such as as this one, I hope you can learn from my life. One of my friend's personal mottoes is to "Dream out Loud"; remember, a life lived is, in the end, more important than a life imagined; the real trick is to try to make them both indistinguishable from one another........