Don't Let INSECURITY Destroy YOU!!

This post is not about Maldives, it's about my feelings and what I've experienced during my early career years. Recently I’ve watched a documentary about one of the most famous pop idol group. The title is “They are also just Humans”. It shows what kind of hardships they are going through individually and as a group. The smiley faces which they show towards their fans are always covered with their painful tears, blood and sweat. At one point a member in the group mentioned during his interview that he used to be a carefree person when he was just a trainee, but soon after his debut he has felt that he is insecure and that feeling is consuming him slowly.

When I watched that part, I also thought about myself. I’m not a celebrity, but that statement which he has made “the feeling of insecurity”, I think I also went through the same when I was in my twenties to early thirties. The singer which I have mentioned is only 22 years old and he is mentally suffering, even though he has all the riches, love and fame in the world. During my school days I used to be a carefree soul. Even how bad my grades are, I was never jealous about my friends’ nor classmates’ grades. I just wanted to pass my high school peacefully and I was not even planning to enter a government university. But soon after I've graduated the high school, I’ve started my higher studies and started to work as a journalist. As a journalist I’ve worked for 4 years. Soon after I’ve started my career I have experienced so called “insecurity”. This insecurity all revolved around my career and it affected my personal life in a very bad way. I have struggled to always keep up my performance in order to secure my job. Since I’ve used to be a business journalist who have done feature stories, I always needed to find various stories from the aspect of country's economy to fill the daily news bulletin; every day I was struggling to keep up with the other colleagues who were way senior than me. Because of that I've missed important family functions, I've lost contacts with my school friends, basically I was left alone. I never had a close colleague at my work place. And I lost my best friend whom I've met during my college years. Every evening when my boyfriend (now husband) comes to pick me up from work, I've used to always complain about my work, cried because I couldn’t find any guest for my weekend show and fought with him saying he is not supporting me. At one point he reached his limit and told me that “this relationship is not working if you are behaving like this”. I almost lost him. After 04 years, the news department got a new manager and he took away my weekend program and he didn’t let me do my own feature stories any more. Like a trainee reporter he sent me to press-conferences from morning till after 5pm and do a two-line story about the event and telecast it. These acts caused me to go through mental breakdown later which led me to forward my resignation.

That’s the worst insecurity I have faced in my life. After having a career life for over 12 years, now I have realised work is not your life, that’s not the way you should live your life. I do know this fact from the very beginning of my career, but I was not willing to accept it. I just wanted to be successful, need to perform more, need to achieve more. But being in my mid-thirties, now I’ve finally realised what I’ve missed. Now I never miss my family events. I will always spare my time to talk to my parents. When I visit Sri Lanka, I do visit all my relations whom I love the most. And slowly I’m getting back with my school friends and talking with my best friend from the college. The feeling of insecurity is no longer part of my career anymore. I really don’t mind whether the company terminates me. I do my job properly, I do whatever I can to the company but I do not expect anything back. I know that my husband and my parents are the only people who truly care about my well-being, not the company that I work for. The company which you are working for will raise you up till you work like a slave for them. But ultimately when the time comes, they will get rid of you, they will not care for you. Life is short live it to the fullest.. Enjoy!!

Now my only insecurity is losing my love ones. I’m so afraid when the years and months are passing so quickly. Other than that I no longer have any insecure feelings.  I hope people in their twenties will realise this. Because I saw few articles due to high pressure in their working industry few people have committed suicide. Due to career insecurity, high pressure to cope up with the competitive world cost them their own lives. But when you are so young, you are unable to see this truth, you cannot understand whether your personal life or career is important. Do not get depressed, do not lose your life for something not even worth. The glory you see is a temporary illusion, the real glory and happiness is with your family, your close friends. That’s the only wealth you will earn in your whole life.