I wrote a story

Today I am going to get admitted to this well known coaching centre...I will be living in a nearby PG for the next two years, as I have decided to have a brand new phone 🎉 😁, and I will be preparing for of NEET... through both offline and online means, I am very excited, I got 89% in 10th, so father says I can do it, my mom is also hoping a lot from me, everyone is happy, I will certainly do this.

nearly two years later...

It is midnight, I am lying on my bed, it is not really a bed it is just a thin mattress made of cheap sponge like thing. It feels like I am sleeping on a rock, the mattress is hardened, I have been sleeping and laying, night and day, here for the last two years now. I have my phone on my hand, just a few minutes ago I went to the bathroom after watching adult content for around four hours. Yet I am still scrolling through reels. I feel like a boulder is sitting on my chest and its size is increasing as I scroll more, but I still can't stop.

Few years later...

Phone ringing...

Picked up.

1: Helo, Vijay...ye tu he na..

2: Kon bol raha he

1: Abe me subham bol raha hu, meri awaz bhul gaya
kya

2: hann (trembling voice) bol Bhai, me Vijay hi hunn

1: tera NEET ho gaya na, aur kon se medical college me he, salaa, doston ko bhul hi gaya he, aur tera number bhi naihi lag raha..

(Silence)

1: helo..heloo... network problem he kya..

(Phone cut)

Subham was one of my close friends, we used to share everything with each other... He is the one person who truly understood me, more than anyone, But after all the things that happened with me, more accurately, the things that I did to myself...I am here.

I am not struggling in life, I am doing a job, earning enough to live a decent life. My mom dad also speak like they forgot everything, after I shut myself in my room from a day. I joke and smile with my family.

But...I am empty inside...the Vijay, that I knew, that Subham knew, is dead long ago. I sometimes let my tears drop while showering, while having a forced smile on my face that feel much difficult it pull by my cheek muscles than lifting 100 kgs of weight..no one knows that you are crying when you do it in the shower.

Those days feel like a void in my life, I can't remember what I did in those years, as engaging with passive pleasure, like mindless content consumption, doesn't leave any memories, it just leaves emptyness that we later fill with regret and self-hatred.

I first, blamed my phone and the intentionally created addictive algorithms for what happened to me, and I was not partially wrong...but what happened to me, was done mostly by me. I learnt it the hard way that fighting impulses with willpower is a losing game, what I needed was a schedule, a routine or a place, that keeps me entirely away from it. You don't win by fighting impulses, you win by avoiding them in the first place. You can practically only get rid of addictive habbits, by making sure that you can't engage even when you want to.

I disappointed my parents and the people that hoped for me, but if I have done the most injustice to anyone, it is to myself. I can never forgive myself for it, for the emptiness I feel inside me, will remain my whole life.