Drenched

As the rain pour down the streets, your comfortable dry attire gets wet and soaked after a few seconds. That's the unpleasant feeling of being drenched, literally. Again, in this unique entry of mine, i like to explore other meanings of this word.

Drenched can imply being in a battered state, an emotional state where you feel despondent or highly negative. (well this is adapted from those dramas where you see the male or female plunges into despair in the pouring rain, unsheltered)

Well sometimes getting drenched can be devastating, especially when the outcome drastically deviates from one's expectations. It ushers in the shattering reality, which quickly and mercilessly sucks out the euphoria and/or nonchalance in one, allowing an emotional free fall. Different people experienced drenched states in different proportions, some more frequent than the others. It all depends on one's expectations as well as the coping ability of one's psyche.

Drenched, in my definition, has to encompass an event or circumstance which leads to the feeling of being overwhelmed. It is different from being overwhelmed by a heavy workload or schedule per se. Neither can it be gradual. It is necessarily swift and all-consuming. For e.g. the moment u saw an F grade for a module.

What leads me to ponder further is the prevention of such drenched states. Mental preparation certainly help to cushion the impact of drenching. But its effects are short term. Once reality sets in permanently, the more dreadful phenomenon plagues us - depression. We are left reeling in the after shock, to savour the bitterness of what is truly tormenting us. Maybe the more crucial question is then to ask how to deal with such states. When you plunge into a miserable abyss, how do you pull yourself out again?

There are invariably 2 ways. One which depends on an external factor, and the other an internal one - our own thoughts. Without dwelling much into the details of what exactly is external or internal, lets take an overview of the 2 ways. It leaves little dispute that an internally motivated recovery would see sustainable results as compared to an external remedy. Internal recovery usually takes a longer time than external ones, and therefore, depending on the exigencies of the situation, different resolutions are often seen employed. The passage of time allows for greater damage to be dealt, while certainly also introduces the risk of little or no recovery. The ability of one to self heal, though from a nature perspective is true, cannot be totally applied when human states are concerned. Hence the alternative of external help does help to catalyse the recuperative process.

I fancy the idea of internal healing, something which advocates an independent approach. Everything in this world obeys the law of conservation and equilibrium. Healing is a reversion to equilibrium. Internal healing is therefore a self-sufficient effort in returning back to the steady state. Just my personal bias, but definitely i do agree with having an external aid as long as the rewards of internal recovery are not undermined. I believe that the idea of a self effort is a process of growth. We learn when we climb back up on our own. We acknowledge our mistakes and make significant gains in the recovery process. Accelerating this process might hamper this educational experience. To trade off our time for this education might afterall be worthwhile as long as we adopt the right attitude.

Now,after saying so much, getting drenched just equals to an opportunity to learn from yourself directly. We are our own teachers. In fact, the best guiding mentors are always in us, except that we have often disregarded it.

As they always say, look within.