What Is The Most Intimidating Thing About Life?

During one of our customary discussions, my friend happened to ask me, ‘What intimidates you the most about life?’

I gave her a cursory look over the dollop of ice cream on a cone that I had been licking greedily (I was hungry and it was hot and humid outside. As a Bangalorean I’m a witness and an unfortunate victim of the ever soaring temperatures here). Anyway, let me give you a brief introduction of my friend. She is beautiful in every aspect. A perfect woman. Looking at her hurt my eyes, as it is difficult to look at something that is devoid of flaws.

She was not eating her ice cream, it was melting away in the cup. As I searched for flaws and compared myself, a girl next door and an average minded nincompoop to the beautiful strong woman sitting opposite to me, I thought deeply about what she had just asked me. At that exact moment a glob of the white ice cream I had been licking, decided to make its clumsy descent on to my wrist. Thank you ice cream for proving what a klutz I am. :/

I immediately cleaned up the mess with a tissue and gobbled a huge chunk of the cream.

Good, now you better stay inside the cone until I’m done with you, I threatened the cone and felt pretty powerful J

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Diverting my friend’s attention from my clumsy actions, I finally replied, ‘Good question. Now let me think’. I needed time to think. Such questions cannot be immediately answered. They need to be contemplated upon.

So here’s me contemplating:

 LIFE!

Phew! That’s a long time.

When I think about all the years ahead of me, first thing it does is fill me with dread. I tried some soul searching in the limited time I had, to figure out exactly why my mind conjures up dread rather than anticipation for the future.

What was it that I was afraid of?

Was it the fear of failure- could be

Fear of boredom- maybe.

Fear of being alone- sorta.

Fear of losing someone- mostly yes.

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But the fear that manages to outdo the others is the fear of maintaining relationships*.

Not sure how many face this issue, but it scares the living daylights off me when I think about how I need to be pretentiously nice, tone myself down and lie just so that I can live happily and in harmony with the society. But happily? Really…? Every time I pretend to like someone’s dress, does it make me happy?

Whatever the definition of happiness is, I doubt it’s having to pretend all your life. I realized pretenses are not uncommon in a family as well… Everyone pretends every time, everywhere. It’s the deepest level of hypocrisy and it’s ingrained into us. But I’m just not sure if I have the energy or the will to do it all my life. It scares me. Oh boy! It does.

So that’s my deepest fear about life- The lifelong pretensions and fake smiles it takes to keep things going the way they are. It’s work. It’s harder than the work we do to earn money. Especially for the ones like me, who are innately frank and less social. Worst combination ever!

So I can either be the most wonderful or the most hateful person, depending on my mood.

Thinking about this I rise from the cane chair I had been sitting on and leave, dumping the half ice cream into the dustbin.

So that’s about me… What is it that scares YOU the most about life?

*Note: By relationships I don’t mean just the love interests.