You go home after a tiring day at work. Your body is fine, in fact you can still run a couple of miles but your mental health don’t seem right. The job at first seemed promising, it gives you just enough money to comfortably live another day, month or year but now that comfort itches you. You thought you’d be fine and you thought you’ll be climbing up positions faster but now you’re stuck. During the time that the office printer is printing your weekly report, you take a quick look at the past and ask where it all went wrong. Deep inside you know, it wasn’t one moment but a dark array of things that didn’t fall the way you wanted them to be. Some decisions, some circumstances, some people or some things that wanted you to be on this cross-way, blindfolded hearing the horn of the upcoming train grow louder. You can’t move, your legs aren’t tied but they are numb.

Your footsteps and the sound of jangling keys inform your Family that you’re here. Your partner welcomes you in wide arms, kids running towards you, sticking to you like a glue while your parents looks from distance in pleasure. You always wanted this for them, to be laughing and seeing them happy. You don’t let the whisper of storm inside you reach them, you act all this time to be equally happy and content and while you had a tough time last night going to sleep, you wake up for another day at work. You want to run away, you want to live a life of your choice, all these securities that the world runs after doesn’t attract you but you won’t take a step because you can’t. Because you’re a good guy. You’ve learned not to hurt anybody especially your family. You know how a simple decision of your life can affect so many lives in your family. You are the pillar that’s holding all together and you just cannot go or change things. So you decide to subdue everything and leave it all or rather blame it all on the fate.

Let’s roll back the years and see where you were when you went for this life. At the time of job, you thought that the weekends and some time on the weekdays would be enough to pursue what you always wanted to do. And that seemed a valid option because the financial state of your family wasn’t very pleasing. Then your parents wanted a partner for you. You don’t want it as you’re aware of the thousand responsibilities that come with it. They are adamant, they are worried about what the society is thinking and their years of bubble reputation getting harmed. After a lot of drama you decide to finally bow down, your smile is really big in your wedding photographs and the bride/groom selected by your parents and approved by you seems to be a great person at heart and what’s more, your choices and interests are same as well.

Couple of years down the line, fighting over small issues is okay when the real shitty problem finds your way – your Partner wants a baby and you don’t. Your parents indirectly made their desire for a grandchild, for God knows what reason. There’s drama in your home and after an year you welcome your first child. You love him/her with all your heart but realize how far you’ve come and how your domino life keeps falling. The spare time that you used to have for yourself, for your old friends, for your gym isn’t with you anymore because now you have a life to nurture and it isn’t yours. You wish the best for your child, you want him/her to achieve great success in life and whenever you feel like they are losing their way, you go to them and tell them they are doing wrong. You stand by them all the time, you love them and you’ve done pretty good parenting as well. Even if they get adamant about something that they want to do and you know it’s wrong for them, you stop them and you are ready to accept the bad light for the good future of your child.

Despite of all these, you give your child a shot at the thing he/she want to do. He’s got one chance to prove himself and he must not fail. Yep, he must do something grand to convince you in the very first attempt. And then he fails, with you having the ‘told ya..’ face for him. The child has finally given up to you, he has good values and realizes to follow what your elders are saying because they want only good for you. Now your child is doing what you want him to do. He is happy, you are happy and this vicious cycle that you both are trapped in is also happy.

The above story sums up the life of most of the people around the world, especially in the country called India. I call this trap, the beautiful dead trap. No matter the amount of motivation, inspiration or dedication you have, there’s just no scope for some people to come out of it and over the time just accept their fate. Not blaming parents for this, they are the most wonderful thing, but this culture of forcing things according to self set paradigms. Although it might take generations, but this gotta change.