Life in Lukewarm Water
‘Fear is the Mindkiller’. A verbose reflection on a life of safety, of comfort and inaction; a life in Lukewarm Water.
This post is a pretty strange, vulnerable reflection that I struggled with writing and publishing. The piece initially took a while to polish, though I reverted some of the edited sentences to their original, rawer conditions. Not incredibly happy with how it turned out in the end, but that’s okay. Just a topic that I truly needed to examine and confront. Hope you can derive some kind of value from this introspection.
Here it is:
Last year, I realised that I’ve been living in a sheltered cocoon for my entire life. I lived under the constant shelter of caution and comfort; both reasonable things, but not things that inspire a story-worthy life.
Up to now, I've essentially done nothing. I have done not one big thing, not one thing that truly makes me proud (even if others are proud of me). I have not experienced anything. I have never given myself fully to any goal, whether internal or external. On the grand scheme of things, nothing in my life so far has been of particular interest. It’s just been a lukewarm bath. Of still water, of safety in the confines of the bathtub. Of a boy sitting still there, not doing anything but not feeling any pain. Why is that?
Fear. Fear of pain, of failure, of not being enough. Fear that if I poured my entire being into chasing a dream, it might still crash and burn. It’s hurtful to learn that even if you tried your hardest, you might still not be good enough. Its just as painful to realise that ‘you could potentially make it if you truly tried’, but you were too scared of failure, so you didn't even try. Whoever is reading this might find this to be a relatable and common thought, whether we’d like to admit it or not. I certainly didn’t acknowledge this for many years, where I would regularly flaunt my ‘uncommitted’ attitude as some form of superiority. Only studying the night before the exam to get decent scores anyways, only ever doing incomplete sketches to avoid ‘wasting hours’ on a finished piece; I presented these things as indicators of ability and intelligence over those who try so hard. How misguided I was.
Fear.
‘Fear is the mind killer’. I am therefore just stuck here, sitting here in this bathtub of lukewarm water. I’ve placed myself in this position of non-risk, of inaction. Instead of climbing the cliff-side and risking the fall, I simply watch from the bottom and make pointless remarks about the struggling climbers. I just stand there. Nothing bad, nothing good. Just existing.
‘Life wants to be. But life doesn't always want to be much.’ I do want to be more, do more - not even for anyone else, just for me. These ‘still waters’ aren’t enough for my aspirations, yet my fear of failure had me sitting here this whole time, holding my knees and a rubber duck. Safety has stranded me.
‘Peace has cost you your strength. Victory has defeated you.’
- Dark Knight Rises (2012)
It’s slightly cringey to quote a superhero movie in the middle of a deep self-confrontation, but this quote really resonated with me. The lukewarm water of constant ‘semi-success’ has kept me from feeling too cold or too hot; it has kept me from leaving the familiarity and sameness of it all. Some people are fine with this stability, and that’s okay. You do you, everyone’s chasing different things. But the things that I want to chase - the things that I truly find worthwhile - require work. They require me to bang my head against it until I break through, they require me to sink hours and hours into it whilst seeing no obvious progress for months. I don’t quite know what this might be just yet, but I know it needs time and grit to climb that cliff-side.
I write this piece with no clear solution in mind, only a direction. To take a step, then the next. That’s all it is. I want to strive for a goal that requires my full effort, for whatever time frame, a goal that I can look back on and say ‘I’m glad I did this’. A feat that dwarfs my previous half-assed attempts and various excuses. I wish the best to myself, and to the reader, in our paths to step out of this lukewarm life.
