Lower your guard

This is the story of that little boy,
The little boy who set out to be special,
Who looked up to superhero stories,
Who wanted to be a hero, who kept growing,

He was body-shamed, 
He was discriminated against,
He was name-called,
He just forgave them all

He made servant leadership his calling,
When it got heavy, he looked up to the song,
"Teeja tera rang tha main toh, maula lele meri jaan"
I lived my life for you; you can take it if you wish

He focused on taking brickbats with a smile,
He focused on transcendence, to not worry about self,
but empathise and operate with compassion,
that the one who hurts is hurting out of their own pain,

He strengthened himself over time,
He taught himself a lot of subjects over time,
He developed new capabilities over time,
He let his emotions out through art

He was a normal boy,
a dark-skinned, thin boy,
just another kid, a nobody,
He developed himself

Today he stands as a servant leader,
Today he stands as a role model,
Today he is invited to inspire the youth.
Today he is leading a movement

He is strong; he can delay his vulnerability,
He has peaks of endurance; he is perseverant,
He is his army; he can take on the world for his people
But how has he developed himself? But does he even cry?

He sees John Abraham in Parmanu,
John is strong throughout the mission,
But John bursts out crying on his chair,
After the nuclear bomb is blasted, India is a nuclear power!

He sees the protagonist in Zero Dark Thirty,
She is strong, she is smart, she is resilient,
But once Bin Laden is caught, 
She bursts out crying, the floodgates open

He sees himself in these heroes,
That self-sacrifice is what he wants to do,
That he belongs to these great people,
He wants to be them, and that's his purpose

He wants to be useful, he wants to help,
He is exhausted, he doesn't know,
He is happy being useful, seeing a smile
But when is living for himself?

He says their life is my life, with a smile,
But he doesn't want the others to get exhausted,
Isn't this hypocrisy? Why doesn't he practise
what he preaches? Why this double talk?

Well, he got wiser with time, and he had realized
He wants to be a long runner, not a short sprinter,
He realized the meaning of these words (his own words for a decade now)
He realized that he needs to live for himself

But he sees other young people getting exhausted,
He sees other young people suppressing their feelings,
To stay strong, they feel that they can manage their feelings,
But they are only piling up a debt, which piles up exponentially

He wants them to lower their guard,
To see the suppression, to see the exhaustion.
He fears that they may see their blind spots,
only after they collapse, and that would be too late!

He doesn't want them to collapse,
He chooses to be weak for a moment,
and wrote his feelings, his own vulnerabilities,
as a poem, so you can "lower your guard"

So you can acknowledge your feelings,
So you can truly embrace your feelings,
So you can grow as a hero,
not with self-sacrifice, but with self-love

So lower your guard,
Let your nervous system calm down,
There is no threat right now,
Lower your guard, live your life to the fullest!