I wanted to talk to you about “believing” today. I hadn’t quite understood what it meant – ‘Be yourself, Believe in yourself’ wrote my school friend on my slam book in the last year of school. That is my first remembrance of the word “believe” in reference to living. Also that friend lives in the States like most ambitious Indian engineering grads of the early 2000’s – not trying to stereotype, just stating the obvious. If you’re feeling pinched, my brother is in the States too for the same reason. Tat for Tit? Moving on..

What to believe, I used to think? I, believing in myself? But I am just one person. So why are we talking about two people and multiple personalities. Isn’t that borderline bipolar? Should I talk to myself, like really TALK? If yes, who’s listening and who will respond. Am I supposed to enact a scene from the movie Anniyan to work this “believe in yourself” idea? Man, this is all exhausting and probably theatrics of psychics and so called “spiritual gurus” who trick people into “believing” their concept, and it sells, because they are asking you to “believe in YOURSELF”, so there’s basically no competition – ‘You’re just one awesome unique person’. Ha! Genius!

Then a lot of friends, teachers and accomplished persons giving talks on stages started talking about “believing in yourself” and how it changed their lives. Now I had to buy into it because it’s a real topic with a real potential. “Hmm, interesting, may be there’s something there”, I’d tell myself watching videos late at night from Goal cast or inspirational sponsored videos flooding my social feed, while I stealthily scrolled under my soft quilt with a screen brightness that was either blinding me or .. uhm, is going to blind me if I continue doing this. Good work ya’ll on targeted remarketing!

Eventually I bought into the premise that there is something powerful and possibly life-changing about “believing in yourself”. I was curious, I wanted to deconstruct it. I want to understand what buttons to push to activate the “believe in yourself” enzyme inside of me, which was going to make me a superwoman. With that secret sauce I was going to lose the damn weight, be a spectacular wife and an even wonderful daughter/in-law. Also, man-oh-man, am I gonna make a lotta money or what! I wanted the deets, so bad. I was all bright-eyed-and-bush-tailed, and I knew something had to click within me, like the plastic white lid on the tic tac box. Something within me will shift and a fountain of genius will be unleashed and I will be succeeding left right and centre. That was the plan, so I waited, feeding myself positivity, friendship, laughter, working my brain all day, dreaming big, building air castles.

The shift happened. Hallelujah!

I believed I can be whatever I want to be. Everything I say or do is within my power. I am given the choice to be kind or rude, gentle or stringent, compassionate or dismissive. I am given these one second expiry life choices to handle each day for the rest of my days. I had to identify where I was in the graph of being a good person. I identified where I flew high, where I dipped low, where I hit a plateau. I studied my weaknesses. I gave a passing look at my successes. I brought it all under one roof, under God. Or in the playground of my conscience. I “believed in myself” and I help myself every day to “believe in myself” because I am just one awesome unique person and there’s nobody, ever going to be like me. So it made complete sense, and I finally got it and it has been life changing.

If you didn’t have a school friend who told you, “Be yourself, believe in yourself”.

Allow me to be her.