Crossing the River - A Dilemma

A few days ago, I had a dream.

One in which I was not in the usual rollercoaster of books, professors or food. 

This time, unusually, I was on the banks of a river. It was eerily silent & uncannily rippling. When I tried to go closer to peek beyond the bank's edge, I found it difficult to move. My hand was gripping the handles of a very heavy bag & my feet were shackled to it. Surprised, I tried to free myself from the burden, thumping around my legs on the banks, extricating my grip from the bag's handle. Just when I managed to loosen myself, I heard a small crack - the rockmass in front of me was breaking apart. Startled, I remained still - the crack disappeared.

"Oh give me a break!", I sighed in frustration. Having spent the previous weeks breaking my head over case studies, projects and assignments, the least I had wished for was deep sleep, if not a pleasant dream.

I opened that bag with my other hand. It contained a life jacket, a few packets of maggi and a kettle filled halfway with hot water. Not enough, but manageable. The sight of the maggi made my stomach growl and my head split, in pangs of hunger. As I tried to set  the kettle straight to cook something, a huge aura of light, from the other bank of the river, dazzled my face. I squinted ahead and noticed a Form clothed in white, its size much bigger than some of the boulders, standing on the other bank. The shine made my headache worse.

"Hey! Who are you?!",  I asked.

-"You have a headache, don't you?"

"What..? How do you...?"

-"Well, well, an interesting statement to start a conversation"

"You aren't gonna stop shining, are you?"

-"That isn't your concern. You should be worried though, your end of the bank is shrinking"

As though obeying It's words, the edge of my bank began to shrink, moving towards me. I moved around in panic and I noticed the rocks cracking again. I froze, rooted to the spot.

-"Don't you want to cross the river?", the Form asks me.

"Can't you see? No matter what I try, I'm not gonna make it"

-"You haven't tried jumping into the river"

"I DON'T KNOW HOW TO SWIM!"

-"You think I'll let you drown?", the Form smiles.

"I.... I don't know... MAKE THIS STOP!"

The bank was slowly edging towards me, the cracks on the land were deepening and I was in shock. I grabbed the life jacket and tried to wear it singlehandedly, only to find that it had tears. I clung to the bag for dear life and decided to jump, hoping the bag would keep me afloat.

- "That bag will ensure you sink and drown. Let go of it"

I hesitated. I wanted to hold onto the bag. 

-"Trust me, let it go"

The edge was inches away from my feet. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, let go and jumped, leaving the shackles and the bag. The silent river suddenly raged, its waters crashing on the banks, taking away my bag. The land cracked and I braced myself for impact.

I ended up landing on my feet onto a soft bridge. The form was no longer on the other bank.

I woke up.

Photo Credits - Pinterest & Canva

This dream was quite unconventional for me and it was lucid - I was aware of my surroundings and I felt myself jump. Though it held no meaning or parallels to my personal life at that time, I found it philosophically and practically intriguing.

How many of us go through life, arriving at turning points that force us to let go of our comfort zones! And life has a funny way of catching up with you, the more you try to run away from facing it. You can overthink, you can overdo, heck you can even oversleep - but when you come back to that silence in the chaos, you know you have to make a decision.

Even when you know you deserve better, you tend to cling onto what you have, deep down running away from knowing that it is not good enough for you. 

It is quite natural to hold onto old methods of thinking, being or problem solving and even more natural to be resistant to change. However, those who are proactive tend analyze what needs to be changed and transform themselves before life transforms them. Those who are reactive, need life to change their circumstances and leave them with no choice but to make that transformation (in general).

The more rivers you cross, the more experienced you get at crossing, the less resistant you become to change, the more you begin to enjoy transformation. This is one of the reasons why it is better to go out there, grab opportunities as they come, try out new tasks and learn to discern what works for you and what doesn't. Parallelly, you could also talk or read about people who have radically different lives than yours. Observe their experiences, analyse the rivers they have faced, the rocks they have cracked & the bags they've let go of and place yourself in their shoes, to understand their thought processes. 

After all, to quote Ram Dass, We're all just walking each other home.

On that note of change, we have some news.

The blog will be migrating to a new platform (high time too!).

We'll be back in a few months, in a more intuitive format, which is hopefully a lot more easier on the eyes.

See you on the other side soon!

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Maitreyi K