The Peanut Allergy Conundrum

By Amrita Manekar

Ever wonder why similar kinds of things keep happening to us? Why do we keep making the same mistakes? Well, I did. And out of all such musings came this realisation that we just don't know when we are doing those repetitive things. It's like having a peanut allergy you have no idea of having. Imagine you are this peanut loving freak who can't say no to peanuts; but the irony is that every time you eat them weird things happen to your body. But what the hell, you love peanuts and by God, you will eat them. As time passes, this pattern keeps repeating, when you have no choice but to pay attention to this conundrum; is something wrong with the peanut or is something wrong with me. Coz face it, peanuts can be evil 99% of the times, but you need to accept the remaining 1% too; which is the fact that the fault may lie with you. That your body is not built to embrace peanuts; that it is rejecting them through no fault of its own. Now we arrive at the root of the problem, it's neither the peanut's fault and nor yours; you guys are just not meant to be. But hey, you love peanuts, how can you say no to them? Well, you got to, have regular anti-allergy shots, think how happy your body is without eating them. Only then can you get over this fascination with peanuts.

All of us have our own personal peanuts in life; they can be people, they can be habits, they can be cravings, some of which can be damaging to our body or peace of mind or sometimes even our very existence. Recognising this is the hardest part, harder than parting with such things. Because unless we are on the path of self-destruction, we would not choose something that's inherently damaging to us. But how to realise that our life is one big loop? There is only one way to do this, talking to ourselves, which isn't as crazy as it sounds. Introspection is our best friend when it comes to all things concerning us; which also reduces our dependence on epiphanies that are always a bit behind the actual events. The point is, the power to be the best version of ourselves lies with us. Peanuts try to take that power from us, try to cripple us into believing that such a power never even existed, but we have the resources to render them incapable too. Going over things from the past, looking at them through objective eyes, accepting that those are really in the past, help breaking the loop or rather making a dent in it. The real breaking occurs when we make a conscious effort to stop clinging to the peanuts, when we leave the peanuts out of our grocery list, when we learn recipes which do not involve the use of peanuts; but most of all it happens when we accept the existence of peanuts, recognise their unsuitability, and get on with our lives without them. Because let's face it, we can't banish those suckers from the world, but banning them from our life is something within our hands.

By Amrita Manekar