By Default

The sounds are so faint. They have started fading in the background ever so quickly yet you cannot hear yourself. It should be easy, you think. This. It should be easy. But things never turn out the way they seemed to be in the beginning.

It gets hard around here.

You feel pressured, stressed and constantly worried about the next screw up, about something going wrong and then you worry about fixing it till you get it done. Once that is out of the way, more things follow. And you find yourself between this and that, hardly ever listening to yourself thinking. 

All you hear is chaos.

Interrupted conversations.

Missed signals. 

Then you worry about all this too. You also worry about worrying. You worry that if you are worried too much it is going to get your spirits down then you worry that being optimistic will only mean getting your hopes crushed with disappointments. And then some more. But when all this clears out, when you are no longer in confusion, things become crystal clear. Things start to take shape, come into focus and align perfectly in front of you.

For how long though?

Mere minutes. It does not stretch for long. Moments of absolute clarity are always fleeting. They just vanish out of sight before you could even let out a sigh. Yet you stand there, confused. Not knowing whether to feel happy or worried. But because that’s what you have been doing for so long..

You become worried again. By default.