Life Screws Us All.

I don't know if you know but i am 20 years old. Which means that I've been on this earth for just about plus minus 7 300 days, 175 200 hours. That's a lot, or rather feels like a lot of time spent converting oxygen to carbon-dioxide and learning how to survive on a dying planet ( we might need to discuss saving the environment one of these days, actually). You should know that i have dedicated quite a big chunk of this time to thinking and observing.
I have observed that life is just one big learning process. This is not including the times we had to sit in a classroom and pretend to care about what "x" is or why a proper noun must start with a capital letter. From our first day to our last day we learn things. We learn how to adjust our our eyes to the light outside our mother's womb, how to eat, sit, stand, talk, and walk. We also learn the abstract stuff that makes us decent human beings such as manners, tact, tolerance for other people's lifestyles and choices, sharing, politeness, texting other people's children back, etc etc. These are not things that we are born with but are taught, either by other people or by experience. Either way, we had to learn and more times than most, this learning process is painful.

Now, i don't particularly enjoy mathematics but if learning is painful, and everyone on earth has to learn everything they know, that means everyone goes through pain. All 7 billion something of us! We all know pain from growing and some of us (read: most) know it from traumatic events that we really wish we didn't go through. Point is: every feeling and thinking human being on this planet has had a time when they were "not fine". I use that phrase because traumatized, scared, sad, lonely, anxious, depressed and "too tired to live" are triggering words and the last thing i want to do is trigger my lovely readers. You have all been through so much already and don't need me to remind you of that, do you?

Another thing i have observed is that some(again read: most) of us would rather pretend that life is smoother than the N1 freeway after the rain, all the time. Some of us like to pretend that everything is fine and there is no need to be feeling anything other than happiness. Now i do not have a problem with these people because; a.) how people choose to cope is none of my business.
b.) This would be a very good coping mechanism except for the part where it requires you to not to think too deeply about things. You have to be team #It'sNotThatDeep all the time and i may or may not have already mentioned that i have spent a big chunk of of my plus minus 175 200 hours on earth thinking because to me #ItIsThatDeep. All the time. Maybe this is just the anxiety talking but there is never a reason to forgo introspection. How else do you become a better person?

I got a little lost there, what was i saying? Oh yes! The people who pretend that life is all sunshine and roses. I really hope that i don't sound like i am anti-positivity or despise happiness or something. I love happiness and positivity as much as the next person but i just hate that sometimes we are taught to ignore the things that are killing us just to appear positive. Just a few weeks ago somebody's favourite rapper (read: rich, experienced American artist to whom the majority of young people look for advice on how to succeed ) dropped the following nugget of wisdom on the twitterverse "Nobody cares. Work harder" . Now i won't name and shame, because I'm nice you see, but I'll give you a hint: his name rhymes with C Biddy.

Now i have nothing against Mr Biddy because that might have worked for him but he's wrong. Yes, you must work hard but, you should never be under the impression that nobody cares about what is hurting you, unless you are dating my crush then.....okay I'm just joking. Even if you are the despicable kind of human being who goes around dating other people's crushes you should know that somebody cares about your pain. It may not be me because....you know, but you should not go through life believing that you are insignificant. You are important and you must not be afraid to talk about your pain.

The young and broke inhabitants of planet earth have somehow been taught to think that they have no right to address their issues or complain just because we don't pay rent or whatever but we do( Not pay rent but have a right to address our issues, lol). Most of us are just bottling all our pain and hoping that by the time we die we will have had enough money to afford therapy because it seems as if our grinding years are only for accumulating wealth and not feeling anything other than "romantic feelings" and motivation.

I however, think that we should reach out, to one another to our parents or to those anonymous toll-free helplines (The Youth Advocates Zimbabwe toll-free helpline is 393, btw) because the thing about pain is, it will never fully go away unless you talk about it and reflect on how it affected you. This is how we grow and become the best versions of ourselves.

And so what i was trying to say with this unnecessarily long piece is that nobody should have to pretend to be fine because we've all not been fine or might even still not be fine. You should not feel weak just because you are going through a tough time because no one is exempt from this, not even Mr Diddy( oops i meant to say, Biddy).

In the words of this random guy i once sat next to  on a Greyhound bus to Johannesburg;
"Life is not loyal. It screws us all."

Check on all your friends, talk to all your friends and create an atmosphere in which they feel free to talk to you about the hard stuff that they are going through. Inversely, if you are feeling a little ( or a lot) "not fine", reach out to someone. You are not alone.

You are important. Don't let life convince you otherwise.
Love❤Light💫

D