dry hot chicken and a diet coke please

who goes to a chinese restaurant and orders a diet coke? me? no. never.

9/24/2024 - stuck on a plane and need something to keep my mind off of the sad music that i can’t stop listening to for some reason on my almost dead headphones that are hanging on by a thread, just like me. maybe it’s like a form of stockholm syndrome type shit.

---

there’s a certain warmth in familiar— the predictable rhythm of our daily routines, the unchanging faces in our friend groups, the same like 25 stickers on my laptop, the chipotle order that will never change, the led lights that claire and i buy every year when we decorate our room, and the $7 coco ube matcha i get from vester every day of the week¹.

“happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time” - so eloquently put by the greatest philosopher of all times, taylor alison swift.

the idea for this post started when i found myself sitting alone in my room sobbing at exactly 2:13am and i remember this time so vividly because i kept glancing at our massive led clock convinced that time could not move any slower. ngl i wasn’t sure why i was crying. maybe it was the weight of everything— the routines that once felt safe now seem so fucking suffocating: wake up. class. lock in. eat. go home. sleep. repeat.

lately i’ve been grappling with a question that tugs at every corner of my prefrontal cortex that also could not be growing any slower: am i confining myself to a bubble of comfort?

---

comfort: noun, physical ease.

wrong. it’s a psychological shelter i’ve built to protect myself from uncertainty. as a society. we seek comfort because it offers a sense of control in a world that often feels unpredictable. because of things like covid-19 hitting all of us during our sophomore year of hs but also because of things like people switching up and stabbing you in the back when you least expect it. it’s the reason i choose the same seat in 26-100 on the rare days i choose to go to 18.03, the reason i look visibily upset studying in sad ass barker with anish, the reason i stick to ordering the same 5 things everywhere, and the reason i yap to the same 3 people that i’ve had pinned on my heavily bullied android forever.

growing up, we were always told to color in the lines and to seek safety in the known. i was always taught to prioritize what is right rather than what feels right. it’s like i’ve scripted my entire life based on a story written by everyone but me, making it so so hard to deviate from the plot in any way even if i really want to. because it just feels so wrong.

but the worst part is that comfort is the enemy of growth and that’s something that i think i’ve processed just recently. it lulls you into this never ending feeling of complacency and you end up being a spectator in your own life. and god my life is SO SAD. its as simple as choosing classes not because they interest you but because they look really good on a resume. seeking the approval of everyone but yourself.

in middle school we did superlatives and the one i got sent me into a spiral for a month because how is a 8th grader supposed to react to being called “the most chaotic.” anyways, i shoved that memory under a rug. but in hindsight, i kinda love that word.

---

chaos: noun, batshit. mentally ill. or as corona would say, psycho.

also wrong. chaos represents the uncharted territories of our lives that we’ve literally just been way too scared to explore- the opportunities, experiences, and challenges that we have yet to pilgrimage to because we’re all just pussies. it’s the unpredictability that comes with trying something new with that little risk of failure intertwined. it’s not a disorder and it’s certainly not a bad thing.

ok and speaking of failure. if you know anything about me, it’s that i’m a d1 hater. when i’m around asher, i am in the nba. i am lebron james. so i have a weird take: i genuinely don’t think people have it out for me. people don’t want you to fail. in fact, they’re usually too consumed by their own shit to scrutinize yours. and the people who actually do pay attention to me are usually rooting for me. so now that i had this epiphany, it actually lifted this massive weight off my shoulders. the fear of failure goes away completely when you realize that people are actually so much more supportive than you think. bc the people in my life that i actually love and care about would never step on me to get their way. so i guess im proud to say that i’ve failed more times than i’ve succeeded.

i’ve come to realize that the line between comfort and chaos² is incredibly thin. yet its where growth truly happens. comfort offers stability but too much of it makes me feel like im watching life in a third-person pov and chaos is unpredictable but that’s what life is. but i’ve had my share of both but to extremes fs.

---

if you know anything else about me you know that i hate my entire life being plastered online. 11 year old anjali was both the most terrifying and terrified person i’ve ever met. she could silence a crowd of 5000 people but also she could be silenced by one person saying something in the wrong tone. i hate to play the victim card but no kid should ever have to feel so trapped in a box. but basically i did it to myself. i put myself in this horrendous box and haven’t even attempted to leave it since.

cause 11 year old anjali told 18 year old anjali to stfu and do school and do what everyone wants me to do so that nothing bad ever happens again and she’s ok and happy forever. 18 year old anjali lost her shit and started a substack.

as a college student standing at the crossroads of adulthood and like actually buying a house and like marrying someone eventually and like owning a couch and having to call someone when the fridge is broken, decisions actually begin to carry a lot more weight. the future no longer feels like this distant concept but instead this impending reality. and deep down i wonder if there’s more to life than just avoiding failure.

so how do i break out of this self-imposed bubble that i created for myself because i am super dumb?

i think it just starts with one single step into the literal unknown. doing shit that i would scream NO at. so i’m gonna start saying yes to random stuff that scares me— like going bouldering with andy so that he stops bothering me, and like maybe trying the harissa honey chicken at cava once, studying on the 2nd floor of hayden, sitting in the front of 7.03 instead of the middle, running back another hackathon with the most lethal combination of people, and getting normal coke instead of diet coke (i hope you gasped). this sounds incredibly stupid but i feel like these tiny acts of bravery do end up accumulating and makes the unfamiliar seem a little more familiar. and i understand that all those examples are SO elementary but everything starts somewhere. maybe i change my entire career path because of the harissa honey chicken, who knows.

i grew up, and honestly we all grew up, conditioned to equate success with perfection and believe that mistakes are marks against our worth. we go to a school that fucking drills that into our brain until we’re sitting on some fuckass floor of stud crashing out (shoutout george cheng). and mit will not take control of my life, and i stand by that, and i’ll die making sure it doesn’t.

so starting today i’m gonna completely redfine my relationship with chaos and look at it as a catalyst for growth. growth mindset type shit.

reflecting on college so far, i’ve loved it but i’ve realized how much i’ve missed out on spontaneous adventures. and not the going out every weekend and shopping for hours type of adventures because believe me i’ve had my fair share of those, but the ones that actually help me build real connections. and the ones that make sure i don’t keep everyone and their moms an arms length away. because im so scared of what they might do or say. and i’m so scared of fucking up but maybe that’s exactly what i need to do. fuck up. heavily.

and honestly this is making me really excited because what talents might i uncover? what new things am i gonna experience? am i gonna be a lot happier? am i gonna be excited to eat lunch? how fucking amazing would it feel to wake up every day excited about the unknown rather than anxious about it?

i’m so done waiting for permission to take risks but i think i’ve finally come to terms with the idea that i don’t need anyone’s approval to live my own life. figuring out exactly what i want to do is rarely smooth, it’s supposed to be a WRECK but that’s what makes the journey so worth it. and im never ever letting this overwhelming feeling of fear dictate my choices again. that’s mean.

this is when it matters you guys this is when we get to break out of everything we’ve known and loved and we get to know and love everything else that’s out there. we don’t live in our childhood homes, we’re about to move out forever, we’re about to create our own experiences, we’re about to own our own couches. this is our life.

guys. the world is so big. your life is so short. and you have so much control of it.

“you can do whatever you want.” - unfortunately not taylor swift, fortunately jane goodall when i told her i was gonna study monkeys³.

yeah i fucking can. and yeah i fucking will. i’m so excited for this year.

1. except for sundays. if you know you know :)

2. “ceilings” by lizzy mcalpine, 1:58 - 2:03

3. just kidding! or am i…