Month: August 2019

That’s my final conclusion and it scares me because I FOMO quite a bit.

For those of you who don’t know, FOMO = fear of missing out.

For me I FOMO a lot because I (like many people perhaps) feel like I’m always at work. I’m not, but it feels like it. Additionally I work evenings, I work weekends, I go on 7-8 day stretches… I’m not complaining, truthfully – I’ve long accepted that it’s just the nature of my job. Anyway, when I finally get home so exhausted I can barely keep my eyes open – all I want to do is force myself to stay awake so I can watch some tv, or spend time with Sagar, or do some activity that makes me feel like I do exist outside of work.

I’m guessing many of you do too… compromise sleep in order to keep participating in hobbies, life, or simply to finish binging that new Netflix show!

Unfortunately, we all know that lack of sleep is directly related to an increase in cardiovascular (heart) disease.

And in this day and age – age is just a number. How many people in their 30s do I see having strokes and heart attacks. How many in their 20s? You don’t want to know the answer to that.

To tie it all together essentially what I’m trying to say is that we all compromise sleep, and a stressless life trading them in to participate in an activity that requires one to be awake, and to avoid FOMO. And that can have detrimental effects.

Maybe it’s time to find a better balance … and heck…. just get more sleep!

Tv can wait can’t it? 😉

I’ve been ok… for maybe 2 years now more or less. Everything is good, life is good, job is good, love life is good, hobbies are doing well…

And yet suddenly a wave of anxiety hits me out of the blue. For I guess no reason. I often write to help reduce the anxiety so perhaps that’s why I’m writing now…

As I sit here with my body numb, shallow breaths, racing mind, and an overall sense of being misplaced… I sit and wonder why is it that I feel this when when everything is good?

I think I can narrow it down to my biggest insecurity – feeling alone. Am I alone? Of course not, I have family and friends and a wonderful to be… but yet at moments when the uninvited anxiety hits I can’t help but feel utterly lost and alone.

Perhaps this stems from the fact that I really go out of my way for people, and so I have some unrealistic expectation that I must mean something for them too.

Have you ever had that moment when you give someone your hand, and they repay you by stepping on your back?

Can’t say that it’s necessarily what is happening to me right now… but it’s definitely been the definition of my life.

And somehow I find myself at the bottom of every priority list. Each and every single one… like you’d think there would be at least one person on this planet who could prioritize me but no. Do I feel this way because of my previous trauma? Or are my feelings justified? That’s when the insecurity hits, that’s when the anxiety follows.

Does anyone else suffer from this random insecurity driven anxiety that shows up at your doorstep uninvited? That sudden feeling like you don’t matter enough to anyone?

Why do these feelings come up, especially when everything is fine? Why are they so overwhelming? No matter how strong of a person I think I am I can’t help but drown and suffocate within these waves….

How does one stop it??

It’s incredible how much real adult life is like high school. People are vicious. Worse, Sugarcoated “Mean Girls”. People still find a way to be extremely exclusive and cliquey.

Throw in a pinch of selfishness and real life is worse than high school. If you weren’t there from the start, good luck trying to find a niche for yourself.

Anyway, no matter. It doesn’t matter who wants to be inclusive and who wants to be exclusive. If a person is a leader or truly talented, there’s no need to fall into a cycle of dependency.

People want to leave you out? Fine – if you can’t join them, beat them I say.

Capability will pave the path to success. 😎

Being a woman, it hurts my gender self respect to write this post… but it’s been a long time coming because I’ve seen the same situation occur repeatedly. I’m going to write about the following image:

Because it’s so true.

So what do these pencils have to do with wives?? I’ll preface by saying I’m not talking about working women, or women who have chosen to not have a job because they have to stay at home and watch their children. I’m also not talking about the women who have a disability or some issue that prevents them from having a job or the women who can’t work given their visa / legal status. Finally, I’m not even talking about the woman who chooses to stays at home for no reason but can at least be a loving supportive spouse to her spouse.

I’m talking about the rich daddy’s girls who have never had to raise a finger in their life. These same daddy’s girls then get married and think that equality must apply everywhere in a marriage except when it applies to them. They fight tooth and nail over this hypocritical “equality”. I’m calling out the women who don’t have the desire to get a job despite being perfectly capable of getting one. The ones who refuse to contribute anything to the household (if not monetary, then at least a loving, nurturing home?!). The ones that embellish themselves with all the latest bling and demand newest / latest technology – all provided by the husband… and when the husband has had enough – then off they go running to daddy. I mean how shameful that “daddy” paid for an expensive education only to have these girls still be a (frankly) financial burden for their parents between the ages of (and yes I’ve literally seen it) 26-33. I mean these ladies LITERALLY sit at home and do nothing – a majority of them childless…. so really I genuinely wonder what they’re doing with their time!

I’m especially calling out the “wives” who leech off of their husbands (for free) and then when things don’t work out, leave their husbands – but continue to demand money (alimony) because marriage is nothing more than a business to them. As if they have a right to their husband’s hard earned money after the marriage has been terminated, and they’ve been nothing more than a burden during the course of the marriage.

I call it Marriage Prostitution.

Especially in India where the law often supports the woman, any lawyer will tell you that marriage and subsequent divorces are the #1 way for women to make free money… literally ruining it for the women who are ACTUALLY struggling or in trouble. Trivializing the struggle of women who have actually suffered domestic violence or an abusive married life.

These are the same ladies who do petty things claiming to do it in the name of “self-respect”. I have one question for them – where is your self respect now? When you are so incapable of earning a single penny that you have to live off of your ex-husband’s money?

It is so easy to look cool when you have done nothing. You can walk around wearing all the bling you want… but you’ll never be able to wear respect.

(Oh, and because it’s a common trend – Shame on these ladies mothers for being horrible role models and influences.)

I am all about feminism and women’s rights, equality and empowerment. But I also feel that to better society you have to call out what’s wrong. Because regardless of my immense support of my gender, what’s wrong is wrong. And I see it.

My Worth

I won’t negotiate my worth with you!

You didn’t birth me, or give me a second life.
You’re not my mother, and I’m not your wife!
You’re not my doctor, lawyer, or teacher.
I don’t even follow you, you’re not my preacher!

You didn’t pick me up when I fell hard,
You didn’t wipe the tears that caught me off guard
You didn’t even hold my hand whenever I was down
Every time I tried to speak, you made me feel like a clown!

So why would I negotiate my worth with you?
Why would I give you so much importance, out of the blue??
This life has given me successes and let me be loved and free
So why would I throw away everything this life has given to me??

It would be foolish to let you take all of that away
I’d rather focus on loving myself every single day

Why would I let you control me and what I would do…

No I WON’T negotiate my worth with you.

———

Sayli Natu, 8/16/2019

*Skip to the second half to get straight to the point.*

I used to be very mediocre.

I guess I can say I still am… not trying to sound like some sort of huge achiever… but I want to tell a story of how I lived the life of a normal kid.

Today I look around me at the younger generations and I see kids driven into the ground. Everyone’s parents forcing them to have 4.5 GPAs, a bazillion extra curricular activities, perfect SAT scores and most of those kids look stressed out beyond their years. No longer does a kid do an activity because they enjoy it, but more so because “it will look good on college applications”. So you have hoards of kids learning dance, singing songs, playing soccer – all because they should have something to put on their application.

They’re already going to grow up and have to go to work every single day and be stressed out, why are we starting that experience from such a young age??

Now in no way am I promoting being an underachiever. I do understand that the basic concept of doing things is important – but damn parents, stop driving your kids into the ground! Give them time to do a few less things and more time to be a kid! How competitive it’s gotten is so toxic and ridiculous!

———-

Dear Parents,

I’m a Stanford Inpatient Clinical pharmacist today. Stanford – you know that college everyone would love their kids to go to? Yeah that one. And I’m damn good at what I do. I was also a mostly A but also sometimes a B and once in a blue moon C student. I didn’t have a 4.5 gpa or a perfect SAT score. But I had competitive enough grades and a competitive enough score. I played soccer because I LOVED the sport, and I loved it so much I worked hard and was MVP sophomore year despite fracturing my ankle in different places multiple times throughout the years. I wasn’t forced to play against my will, only to buff up my applications. I learned to sing to fulfill my fathers dream and make him proud. Not to buff up my applications. And I limited my activities to that.

I didn’t even apply to Berkeley (the most competitive UC at that time) because I knew there was no point. Instead I considered my options.

I focused when it mattered and excelled… and before I knew it I was 23 and graduated with a doctorate. Me, the average joe (or Jane) kid with a couple C’s and two extra curricular had graduated with a doctorate at an age when most of her peers were just finishing up undergrad and trying to figure out what to do next.

Now I don’t want to put anyone else’s course down, because yes if your kid goes to an IVY league or Berkeley – that’s truly fantastic. On the flip side that’s ok too because everyone gets to their end point when they’re supposed to – life is not a race.

I just want to really emphasize though that I got a chance to be a normal kid, doing the things I love, not aging a million years under the stress of being an overachiever. And despite that I was able to still be successful today.

Parents, yes encourage your kids to try their hardest and work hard and accomplish as much as they can, but don’t drive them into the ground. There’s nothing wrong with going to a community college first or a state or even a UC (which I was shocked to hear “isn’t good enough for some”).

Remember to allow your kids to be kids. They don’t constantly have to be on the go.

Sincerely,

A frankly very successful inpatient clinical pharmacist who started off as a mediocre child.

P.S this is not referring to lazy kids – if your kid is lazy push them to get up and do something.

P.P.S Not everyone has to be a doctor or an engineer. Let you kid explore themselves. Please.

Recently my fiancé auditioned for a role using a piece written by me. Needless to say I was really touched by this and really excited that someone was using something I wrote. So I decided to do some monologue pieces. I mean, Why not? We never know when they’ll come in handy!

That being said I want to really stress that if I write a monologue it’s for artistic purposes. It’s not necessary that it portrays my views – unlike my blog posts which are all 100% my opinions, or my poetry which are all 100% my emotions.

So follows my first monologue : does not express my true views. But a fun piece none the less written by me

————–

©Isabel Castaño. http://www.isabelcastano.com (image credit)

Monologue Series – #1: The Devil and Me

“Do you worship the devil?” She asked me one day

“No” I laughed, “the devil worships me”

She looked at me with a heart full of repulsion, so I asked her to let me explain.

There was a time I followed God. A time before so called blasphemy infiltrated my mind. People say faith keeps them going, I say faith tied me down. It suffocated me. I didn’t breathe till the moment I finally broke free. Every time I did something that didn’t follow my faith, I felt guilty, and that guilt tore me apart. I didn’t like feeling that way every single time I just wanted to pursue my own happiness.

Religion told me I had to marry someone who followed my same faith. And if they didn’t, they had to convert. It just didn’t feel right to make someone pretend to follow my beliefs just so I could be with them. How could I say I loved him if I wanted to change him?? So I left him. I left our love behind… and that’s when I understood heartbreak.

In my school days I remember people of my faith ridiculing others, and their gods, and I thought to myself – as long as everyone is a good human, why does god care so much about what his name is.

As time went on I realized the biggest truth of my life. God is a god damn narcissist… And a hypocrite. I mean here’s a man who preaches love and yet causes wars in his name by telling everyone a different thing, creating confusion. He tells Christians about his friend Jesus but he tells Muslims about his friend Mohammad.

I just couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t blindly put my trust in someone who made me feel so guilty and so confused…

So I decided to pursue my happiness. I decided to be myself. I figured as long as I was a good person it wouldn’t matter. I freed myself of all those chains that kept me tied down for so long.

And that’s when the devil came for me. Trying to sway me to his side. (Laughs)

But then… he actually met me.

“You see,” I told her, “in the moment he met me, the devil was in awe of me. I had managed to break away. To breathe. All he was able to do was oppose god, and in doing so he lost himself. Ironically, in a sense, he became god’s mirror image. Still tied to him. Still obsessed with him. Opposite, but still the same none the less.”

I was different from the both of them. Not consumed by myself, and living my life on my own terms. I am everything the devil wanted to be. I’m everything the devil wishes he could be.

“So no I don’t worship the devil…..

…….But now the devil worships me.”

Sayli Natu, 8/14/19