- Kunal L
If you say you want to escape the temptation, then I probably don’t need to tell you all about the negative effects smoking has on your health. What I would do is that every time I see my friends smoke, I would mentally picture them digging deep into their nose with their fingers and then laugh out loud! I would just stop to romanticize smoking as a cool thing. Habit of smoking is as ridiculous as picking your nose and sometimes humor is the best solution to life’s toughest challenges.
I’m 24 and I earn pretty much for myself and I want to move out of my house but I don’t think my parents are going to allow me. How should I approach them?
- Monica Pudasaini [break]
I understand your dilemma. We live in a different time and culture, which is difficult for parents to fully comprehend. Yet, there are two rules of life – we can’t have two opposite things at the same time, and for everything we do, there’s a price we have to pay. We can’t have the freedom to do something that upsets our parents and have their love and acceptance at the same time. If we choose freedom, it comes at the price of our parents being upset. What we can do is decide what’s really more important to us at this time and decide if we can/want to pay that price.
My parents want me to pursue medicine but I’m not sure what I want to study. I’m more of an artistic person and I love music. Please help!
- Wannabe artist
If you don’t know what you want, then there’s no way of knowing what you don’t want. The question is, Do you want to pursue medicine? If yes, then maybe there’s a point where medicine and music and art come together. You might’ve heard about music and art therapy in treating patients with psychological disorders and victims of trauma. I would explore and research options. Google “medicine + music + art”. There are limitless possibilities when you know what you want and don’t want.
I’m 18 and I’m in love with this person in my class. I think he has a girlfriend but he denies. But they are very close and talk to each other all the time. Should I tell him about my feelings?
- First Crush
Hmmmm… It’s complicated. If I were you, I would tell him. I think my feelings are independent of other people’s feelings for me. I wouldn’t expect the person to have the same feelings for me. If he didn’t reciprocate my feelings, I would still respect that. But I would get it off my chest than let it rot inside my heart and make me bitter and obsessive about whether he has a girl friend or not. Love is a beautiful thing…it makes people a better person. If I could give it away without expecting anything in return, I would give it away anyway. The question is: Can you give love without expecting anything in return?
Sometimes I can’t help but feel that family responsibilities are binding me and getting in the way of what I want in life. It sounds selfish, I know. But I can’t let go of my dreams, either. I try to find a middle path but it doesn’t seem to work. What should I do?
- Shristhi Rai
What makes you think being selfish is evil? A water well can only give so much water it has. If it keeps giving away without a system by which it replenishes itself, then the well is going to dry up. Most of the time, we think that by making sacrifices for our families, we make them happy. But what will happen when we’re so unhappy, when we’re so dried up inside that we can’t even “pretend” to be happy? When that happens, we’ll be bitter and we’ll have nothing left to give away. We’ve to love our family enough to realize that sometimes it’s important to be selfish so that we can replenish and sustain our joy – for the sake of ourselves and for the ones we love.
Swastika Shrestha is the founder of Anuvuti – a social enterprise that engages young people in service-learning. She’s been coaching and mentoring young people in different capacities for over a decade.
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