INHIBITIONS: A PUSH OR PULL FORCE TOWARDS FULFILLING LIFE EXPERIENCES?

What comes to our mind when we hear the word inhibitions - a block, a restraint, suppression of a desire, a hesitation? Agreed. An inhibition is something that pulls you back or that keeps you tied up in your current state. A significant characteristic of “inhibitions” that I have been able to identify is that we have inhibitions about things we really really really want to experience. Then what makes us keep ourselves devoid of that experience? Where do these strong forces originate? Can they be overcome by conscious or subconscious effort? 

From what I have observed and learnt in almost three decades of my life - inhibitions can be physical or mental. Physical inhibitions are the visible factors in a person’s life that prevent him or her from moving forward in life such as, lack of resources, a disability or lack of equal opportunity as others, or also the environment in which a person has been brought up in. Mental inhibitions are the invisible factors preventing a person from moving forward such as lack of self-confidence, low motivation, low self-image or general nervousness. These visible and invisible factors might be interrelated and more or less overlapping. For example, a person with a disability might be low on confidence. 

I believe that each inhibition has two effects on a person’s life. The Push Effect and The Pull Effect. The pull effect is when the inhibition in question acts as a hindrance in your path of achieving your ambitions. Whereas, the push effect is when the inhibition pulls you back so much that when released, it actually ends up pushing you farther away. Your success, then, depends on which effect is greater. If the push effect is greater, you may achieve your target. If the pull effect is greater, you might need to make more effort. And, BAM! Here goes my inhibition of including my economics study into my philosophical way of thinking!

Now, imagine a catapult. A catapult is a device which when pulled back, is capable of throwing an object into a distance. You may wonder why I am thinking of a catapult in the middle of this article which has sounded so boring till now. Well, I got distracted and wanted to talk about something that is totally unrelated, I am just a 20 something year old trying to make something of her life! Coming back to the point. No, not inhibitions, the catapult. Imagine you have a hand-held catapult and you aim to throw a stone as far as possible. Now, in my mind, you are the stone, your finger (which is holding back the stone) represents the pull effect, the rubber band represents the push effect. Once you let go off your finger after pulling the band to a certain length, the stone flies away. Just as once you let go off your inhibitions, you find yourself flying towards your goals. The secret lies in making sure that the inhibition actually helps you push harder in life than it pulls you back.

Let me help you relate to this situation with an example from my personal life. In school, English was my weakest subject. Creative Writing was my biggest dread. Penning down a 200 word essay seemed like a heavy task. Honestly, I would rather solve 50 trigonometry questions than write. Low marks, judgements from teachers and never-improving writing style made me doubt if I could ever get better at this. At one point, I gave up even trying. Since college started, my mental health started deteriorating. I was lonely and had no outlet for my emotions. I wanted to cry and shout them out, but that did not seem like the sane choice. I started watching Grey’s Anatomy daily after coming home from college. Meredith Grey, the protagonist, gave philosophical monologues at the beginning and end of each episode. Surprisingly, I could relate at least one event of my day to what she was saying. This awakened me to an idea that words, sentences, little compilation of them could have a strange way of making things relatable and expressible. Consequently, I was inspired to start writing poetry. Short poems, containing the depth of things I felt everyday. Though personal, this was the first step towards breaking my inhibitions regarding writing. In the following years, I developed confidence in my communication skills while on a job. Once done with that, I knew writing is something I should maybe try to pursue. Enter, a content writing internship. Here, I explored a side of me that had been deeply suppressed till now. I was writing content for social media, marketing articles for brands and events, playing around with words forming hilarious puns, and, wait for it...BEING COMPLIMENTED for my writing style! Not just that, despite having no background in this field and just on the basis of talent, I was offered a permanent job with the company. Now, here I am, writing this article. WOOHOOOOOOOOOOOO…...this is how the stone sounds as it flies through the sky!

So, you know, inhibitions have a weird way of making things happen. If I did not have any inhibitions regarding my writing skills, I wouldn’t have pushed myself hard enough to get rid of them and experience the fulfilling joy of writing. Well, that’s just my perspective. Don’t hesitate to explore your own inhibitions, because you never know when you are finally ready to LET. IT. GO.