Control + Z

If you float from the Microsoft to the Adobe suite like I do, chances are that you have a folder of keyboard shortcuts filed away in memory, more like resting at your finger tips.

…I had to start life afresh in another country. I didn’t like it because I wasn’t working and the requirements for work were too stringent…

If fantasy is your thing, you may have gone a step further to wishing that life sometimes can be undone and redone with a wave of your hands.

It has been a few weeks into another year, and even though they are reluctant to tie it to new year resolutions, I am sandwiched by friends who are settling into new places, careers, some well thought out -some, life and it’s drastic flavours.

What is common across both grounds remains the ease with which fear and uncertainty could rear a head. It is worse if you are being forced to begin afresh by no making of yours, like my friend who is changing jobs because of the acute workplace toxicity in his current engagement.

But the one I cannot bear, that eats me from the inside out, is the emotion called ‘What if’.

Sometimes, the answer to your prayers are here but they come with this dry mouth and loud thumping. My friend has a new baby, he is over joyed, and yet overwhelmed with worries of how good a father he would make.

I have a very keen interest in people, what makes them tick, the choices they make and why. This is why I have often wondered why fear gets the best of us, why it stands between us and what we should do or who we should be. Or in the times that we are bold and take things head on, where is the strength from?

I spoke to a few people about their Control + z moments, when they were faced with wishing to undo a new life scenario.

Memeh says “I had to start life afresh in another country. I didn’t like it because I wasn’t working and the requirements for work were too stringent. This made me stay indoors more and I couldn’t adapt to the environment entirely. There was nothing beyond looking after husband and child which was really boring. No, I don’t regret it, I understood myself better”

For some of us, we have grown older and wondered if we made the right career choices. A few weeks ago, I and a friend agreed that it was a heavy blow our secondary schools dealt some of us. We were made to believe that the science students were the brainees, followed by the commercial students, with the Art students in tow. This stratification led to some career stagnation sadly for some at some point in their lives, the guidance and counseling did leave much to be desired.

Phaozee would have loved to know more about the degree she studied – “I work as a client service executive in a health maintenance organization, it is outside of what I studied. The laboratory is still my preferred ‘office’ but life happened. I wish I knew that microbiology had no bearings on what I really wanted to do. I would have gone for a degree like medical laboratory science or industrial microbiology. I actually thought microbiology could give me a platform to work as a medical laboratory scientist. Wrong! And sad too.”

Personally, I am looking at roles like Digital marketing executive and laughing at how some new career paths are making jest of a University degree.

Life is fleeting and fear is useless.

Modupe chuckled about midlife crisis -“I don’t know if I’ve experienced it but I have experienced a midlife shut down”.

She began blogging here after suffering and overcoming post natal psychosis when she had her daughter.

What I did find common across board, was resoluteness, the moving on inspite of being able or unable to undo a certain life scenario.

And some of us are waiting in front of our keyboards, knowing it is time to click Control + Z. We know we do not like where we are, and yet we are afraid to undo the scenario.

Life is fleeting and fear is useless.

Here is perhaps, something that works -albeit against me sometimes, I take all my chances. I strongly believe that I can deal with a lot of emotions, including regretting the things I choose.

But the one I cannot bear, that eats me from the inside out, is the emotion called ‘What if’. That feeling that you’ll never know what could have been, the constant reminder of an opportunity that I could have but did not take.

Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves, the regret of the past and the fear of the future…

Which one are you?

Achalugo.

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