To Defer or Not To Defer

 Reader, I hope you’ll forgive me for the long break. I’ve been experiencing that terrible condition they call writer’s block. Here’s hoping that I’ve made it out safely. 

After much deliberation, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are two kinds of people in this world – the kind who believe in sacrifice, hard work, determination, self improvement etc, basically, the deferment of pleasure – and the kind who do first think later, that is, the Epicurean people. And although I would love to categorize myself as part of the former, I am old (and self aware) enough to realize that I am unfortunately a platinum card holding member of the latter. However, both groups do come with their own sets of boons and banes, some boon-ier and some bane-ier than the rest. Allow me to elaborate. 

You see both kinds of people all around you – I like to think that there are more of my people here than others, but maybe that’s just me seeing what I want to see. You know them, you’ve seen them, maybe you are them; In the former category we have the gym bros, the vegan/health food creators, the self help gurus, the life coaches…the list goes on. And in the opposing team we have the equal and opposite forces of people who make it a philosophy taking life easy. For each gym bro who starts his day at 5 AM, there’s a faux therapist who’ll tell you that it's okay to sleep in, maybe for days on end because it's what you need to heal. For every self help guru there are a hundred TikTok girlies who embrace bed rot culture as a quirky trend (do not even get me started on that!), for every dietician asking you to count calories there are black-gloved chefs who melt cheese all over their food like there's no tomorrow. No tomorrow...this of course is the watchword of the day. You have your #YOLO and your “Live While We’re Young” car bumper stickers to tell you that you need to seize the moment and enjoy life before it's gone. This is not a bad idea per se, in fact I would argue that it’s an excellent philosophy to live by, mainly because it is the one which has led me so far and justified all the bad decisions I made along the way (AND the sole perpetrator behind 1000s of rupees of Swiggy Orders). But what happens when there is a tomorrow and you have to live to face the consequences of your YOLO actions? Then again what if there is indeed no tomorrow? 

You might be wondering where I’m going with this. Excellent question, not sure if I know yet. As Michael Scott said, sometimes I start a sentence and hope I find it along the way.

But don’t leave just yet, I’m sure I’m building up to something here. Where were we? Ah yes, no tomorrow. With the state of the world being as it is, is it even worth my while to cut sugar for two weeks just to see if my skin clears up and my memory improves? What if all this dieting culture and health-freak lifestyle turns out to be in vain one day when the world as we know it does not exist and food as we know it becomes a thing of the past. I don’t wanna have to wake up one day when all we have are pills for sustenance and regret not eating that shawarma when I had the chance! 

It all boils down to one single question in the end: do I indeed cut sugar for two weeks or I choose happiness? (Did I write all this nonsense just because I don't want to skip on my daily post-lunch dessert? Yes, yes I did.)

The very glaringly obvious error in all this – have you spotted it yet, Reader? – is that I haven’t yet factored in a major quotient in the equation. Regret. The word pulls up memories of nights spent tossing and turning wondering why I didn’t do that sooner, why I did this, why I had to eat an entire packet of chips at once because now my stomach hurts and other, similarly deep philosophical musings. Regret, or shall I say an unhealthy, bordering-on-manic fear of regret rules my life. Maybe it's because I have been known to let myself down a lot of the time. See I’m not great at this whole decision making schtick. I blank out and freeze in the face of the smallest decisions – because I’m terrified of regretting not taking the other path. Robert Frost ain’t got nothin’ on me, sistah*. Just today I was at the clothing store for an hour turning two options of skirts over and over in my hands while the extremely patient sales assistant waited (and waited). It took my mum via video call and three other akkas to get me to finally pick a colour and free my helper from me. All so I don’t regret.

Turn the word over in your head ladies and gentlemen. Regret regret regret. I regret. I regret not planning out a clear path for my future in high school. I regret taking a course which did not challenge me (at least initially). I regret wasting time not writing my project on time. All of us at some time would have gone through these very emotions I believe. Remember the night you sat up all night trying to read from three books at once because you didn't bother studying when you had the time? The heart wrenching regret you felt when you saw the syllabus? Remember? Or that time you didn’t go out with your friends on a night out because you were “tired” and now they have all posted long lines of Instagram stories and you aren’t a part of it? Regret.

Regret works in strange ways. You might make the decision (read: impulse) to “prioritize your happiness” now and face the consequences later, go with the flow, see where it takes ya, take it easy. But what happens when you wake up one day, having taken it too easy and realise your life is just…empty. Nothing. A rudderless ship with no direction, no shore in sight. Where do you go now? What do you do? What. Do. You. Do. No seriously, I want to know. Asking for a friend, of course.

Anywayyyy… I guess what I’m asking here is: do you live now, regret later or sacrifice now and reap the rewards later? Any proper adult worth his or her salt would ask, nay, beg you, to choose the latter. Study harder, child, you'll regret it later. Be mindful of your health, they’ll say, you'll regret it later. But what they don't see is that both options are basically two sides of the same coin. Both involve an equal amount of giving up and feeling bad. Your only choice lies in choosing whether that happens now or later, later or now. (Free will thus an illusion, hence proved. More on that later). Sooner or later, it's either x - y = 0 and y - x  =  0 (Math students you are asked to please look away). Inversible and equal. Whichever comes first, the result stays the same. Or does it? Which one’s harder? Seeing your friends go for a movie and hang out while you stay at home burning the midnight oil? Or having money and a career and the satisfaction of knowing you did the right thing at the right time? Having a ton of memories to look back upon when you’re old, or enjoying the benefits of all that hard work in your old age? But what if you die tomorrow and you aren't there to enjoy the benefits, what then? What if you live and fall into debt because you YOLO-ed too close to the sun?? Retirement funds or everlasting loans? Eat an ice cream after lunch everyday or not trudge the halls of the diabetes clinic daily in your forties ( or earlier at this rate).Which one is it? Discipline or fun? Happiness now or happiness later? To defer or not to defer? 

  

Yours in perpetual, never-ending crises, 

Sneha Dominic. 

* A reference to ‘The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost,

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;”