Learning anything new is so hard. It is even harder to retain the knowledge. For instance, I can learn languages easily but I forget what I learnt as fast as I pick them up, unless there is constant rehearsal.
I always considered myself very lazy. But with time, I realized that my actual problem is 'quitting'. I have varied interests ranging from religion/mythology to technology. I spend more time worrying about days slipping away than in mastering anything. When I am too overcome with worry, I suffer a sort of break down and wonder when I became such a loser. One wants to be good at so many things but its all so difficult. It requires so much patience, sacrifice and hard work.
For example, I dream about being able to sing like a nightingale, openly and spontaneously - but that cannot happen without hours of croaking my voice out, mastering the subtle nuance of reaching Ga from Ri. Similarly, just when I think I am finally floating well in swimming class, I sink multiple times, inhaling water instead of air and choking myself blue. Just when I feel I have finally nailed the whole baking thing, my orange cake refuses to rise and stays limp/sticky. When most of my class mates are able to enter a yoga posture gracefully, I feel like a rigid stone that refuses to twist or turn. When I reach the last stanza of a poem or a hymn that am learning, I realize I forgot the first. When I fix a messy bug in code, I introduce another. So you get the picture.
I am used to having these cycles of 'despair' and 'zeal'. It starts with being super interested in thing A, sucking at it, moving to the despair phase until some new thing B brings the zeal back. Anyway, this happened very frequently until recently, when I read this beautiful quote about a caterpillar and butterfly.
"No one in the world looked at a caterpillar and imagined it would turn into a beautiful butterfly"
This struck me deeply and has changed me. It is very easy to be the fox in the 'sour grapes' story. That only brings 'pseudo contentment'. True satisfaction lies in trying, in the journey, in the sweat, even in the despair. Today, I might seem clumsy at something and be embarrassed, disappointed and tired. However, with practice and perseverance, I might, one fine day, metamorphosise into a colorful butterfly, flying gracefully in green gardens, bringing joy and happiness to everyone.
Until then, I am just an ugly, prickly caterpillar, silently working on my vibrant colors beneath my shell.
