Apurva Rathod

Sometimes I think that I made a mistake selecting psychology. It is so emotionally taxing. Architecture would have been easier. Engineering would have been easier. Anything not related to human emotions would have been easier. Being mentally healthy is a difficult task. Then I remember why I chose psychology. To make the world a better place. Not for others but for myself. It's a selfish reason. But where does the distinction between for yourself and for others lie? After all, are altruistic activities solely for other people? Does one not do them because it has personal benefits as well? Like relieving empathetic pain? Moreover, pursuing psychology has had an underlying ambition of trying to make things and people go the way that I would like them to, the ideal ways that I think of, for me.  Although there has been this underlying ambition, I am not going to "force" clients to be and behave a certain way; I'll aid them in understanding their self, enlighten them, may...

I am the same as I was. Still wake up later than I intend to. Change of place neither changed me nor did it feel like diving into cold water. I have quickly transitioned into comfort here. I hoped to wake up with the sun but the sun here rises earlier, so that's a challenge. Is it me or is the sun here more ruthless than it was in my earlier place?  Eager to see how I settle into the social networks and classroom dynamics. It's going to be a long eventful two years and I'm hoping I accomplish plenty and not disappoint myself. I hope to stay on top of my assignments; the research and internship parts seem intimidating but I am going to face them as they come. I want those periods to be enjoyable.

A little girl is trying to grasp air with her hands, she can feel it, she can feel tiny particles.  It is frustrating, she can't hold all of them. They feel like very tiny dandelions in hot air.  No... It wasn't air, it was what everything was made of but it felt like air, there were so many particles and they moved in a frenzy. I was groggy. It was a slow heavy summer evening and I was settled deep in my mind, subconsciously irked, trying to grasp these particles. I just couldn't grasp anything!

Moving to a new place. Looking forward to the new place bringing out new sides of me. There, a host of changes is waiting to welcome me and to see changes in me. So I am relying on cognitive appraisals that will make the move easy. Having decided that being in the moment will help me the most, looking back sparingly but not forgetting it all, Ready, set, here I goooo.

Life makes us struggle finding a balance between being spontaneous and being methodic. We develop schedules and habits, we assign days to our outfits, and so on. In some situations, we get caught in these methods and are unable to be spontaneous when we need to be. In some others, being spontaneous keeps away the benefits that come with discipline. When should you be spontaneous? When should you be methodical? How spontaneous? How methodical? They don't have to be mutually exclusive. Method blends into spontaneity. We start out spontaneous and then as we learn we develop methods for everything we do and when we get tired of the methods, we become spontaneous again but the new spontaneity is charged with the methods learned.  A little girl drew on the walls, wavy lines, zigzag lines, imperfect circles. She eventually learned to draw a certain way, to follow certain steps, to shade, to express the image she had in mind, to practice. She did this for a long time and then she let it fl...

The first time I binged a proper webcomic, I felt inferior to the teens having adventures and reaching heights. There were things in it that could only happen in the fictional world and things that most average teens do not do, but that did not stop me from comparing myself with them. Funnily enough, a character who did something like a 10 km run, 100 pushups and 100 squats everyday pushed me to work out a lot as well.  That webcomic made me want to leave the land of stories (another funny thing, 'The Land of Stories' is a bestselling novel series). I wanted to leave the land of stories and stop living vicariously through fictional characters. I became averse to watching movies because I wanted to make something of my life, my self instead of wasting the time of my life watching or reading about characters being amazing. It has been years, I am not a teen now and yet I have not really done anything that would make me proud of myself. I had certain motivations but I changed my p...

My feet no longer grow weary wandering these shiny white floors. A place where you can't tell if it's day or night. Time seems to pass faster here but I have come to expect that by now. My mind is half absent for the place is now so familiar.  So full of people, so many characters. I notice the families, so many new kids, the couples, the groups of friends and think about their thinking and their dynamics. I see the people working, what their stories could be.  A place full of pretty things, dopamine hits. A place which has become routine and a place always ready to satisfy abysmal human wants and needs. Many things resonate with my likes, I look at them approvingly, many don't, and I pass my eyes over them disappointedly. So many choices yet I cannot find that one specific thing that I want. This is where I have been today. The hours pass as I expected them to and I am wearier than I was when I came. What's left? We eat, buy one more thing, a beautiful semi-precious th...

I strutted down the familiar concrete tiles, passing familiar buildings, the expected dogs, always slightly awed at their number, until I reached the building where my Sangeet class takes place. I like dressing up but being kind of a chronic late-riser, I stepped out in the clothes that I wear at home. My wardrobe, a mess, didn't allow me to find the dress I wanted to wear either. Late again, late everytime, although I don't intend to be, and although I have said I won't be so many times.  They have started the riyaaz and I join in, feeling sleepier than usual, but focusing, enjoying the feeling of my throat setting with the surs, and the surs coming a little more automatically, building memory in my vocal chords. I do make mistakes but eventually... it sets. Around an hour later I am sauntering back home, my mind immersed in the song that we are preparing, my heart happy, all the worries out of the window and feeling thankful that music exists.  Arts are my reprieve, often...

Today is 21st and it is already 8:30 pm. I have come outside the house to relax because I was tensed.  The sky is dark and a nice, rich navy blue; it is beautiful. Although the stars visible are few (cannot hope for a splatter of stars in the city), the ones visible shine bright and make me smile.  So...Tissnet is on the 25th. Tiss, one of the top ten colleges in India for psychology. I have aimed high, have had full confidence, still am confident, faltering just a tad, but I gotta get into tiss. There must be thousands of applicants for the exam, a major chunk of them must have applied for clinical psychology, the course that I am applying for. Anyhow, aiming high is what makes life more meaningful and makes you grow after all.  But I digress. The distressing thing is that today's day was not as productive as I had planned it to be. I had planned to give at least two mock tests today but did not even give one; just kept prepping because I just do not want to skip more th...