Life is a journey not a destination

In an interview, renowned architect Renzo Piano said, “when you are born in a city surrounded by water, the only thing you think about is that the water will become a path to take you away, to explore the world”. It is true. As children, we all have that feeling of wanting to discover what more is out there. You feel that your surroundings constrain you and you need to leave, to meet other places. As adults, we try to find the time and money to travel. But what we often forget is that “travel is not a reward for working; it is education for living”.

There is a saying that “we travel not to escape life but for life not to escape us” and it is certainly true that “travel is the only thing you can buy that makes you richer”.

We travel to grow. To allow our mind to grow and expand at all the new things we learn while in a different place. We find out that the world we live in is more vast that we acknowledge and that it is impossible to see it all in a lifetime.

We travel to get away. To discover new places, new people, different customs and other mentalities; but at the same time to (re)discover ourselves. We change places in the hope of finding serenity, calm and understanding when we lack it at home. With the optimism that we will rethink certain aspects and manage to find peace in a surrounding that is different to the one we see every day.  We travel to make ourselves better, in every way.

We travel to reinvent ourselves and ultimately to become richer – particularly, in the mind and soul. It is indeed better to “fill your heart with adventure not things. Have stories to tell not stuff to show.”  Because one thing is for sure, when you return, you are never the same person you left.

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High bars

©Chris Tedesco

She stepped out of the train and slowly walked up to the escalator. For some reason she didn’t really want to rush like she always did. The thoughts had flooded her mind. Scenarios that may never be fulfilled. Wouldn’t it be great, she thought, if he was already there, waiting for her? But that wouldn’t happen. She already dismissed it from her mind. She walked out hurriedly heading towards the traffic lights, crossed the street, lost in her thoughts. And then she heard someone talking to her, a familiar voice that said “Honey, I’m calling you, but you won’t listen”. She turned and there he was, smiling as if nothing had been broken. He was there, waiting for her.

Now she was expecting the door to open and see him walking in. She turned her head every time a sound was heard, her heart beating faster. But it was always some stranger. Then the time came, the bells rang and she had to leave.

He didn’t come. And reality hit her hard.

Because things like that only happen in movies, not in real life.

The problem with setting the bar too high is that the higher up it is, the more it hurts when it falls.

It happens in an instance. Like the tremours of a violent earthquake during a vicious storm devastating everything in its passage.

As with everything in life, we all have expectations of how things will turn out to be. We dream and hope that it will all be realised in that idyllic way we have formulated in our head.

But they don’t always. Hardly ever. Rarely so.

Our expectations become illusions. Unfulfilled dreams of what could have been.

They say things happen for a reason. But you never truly get to find out what the reason is. You are only granted a glimpse of it when it no longer matters.

And your love becomes hate, but deep down it’s actually sorrow of time lost spent not being happy.

You end up disappointed when you realise that people don’t do for you what you do for them. Not everyone has the same heart as yours.

We set the bars high because we want people to prove us wrong, that there can be those who care enough to try harder and persist. We raise our expectations in the hope of finding the people who will intensify their performance to meet them, who will do what best they can to make them a reality.  In the end, you shouldn’t be sorry for having high standards; people who really want to be in your life will rise up to meet them.

“The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but in setting our aim too low and achieving our mark” – Michelangelo Buonarroti

Self-inflicted wounds

They said to find someone who makes you happy. So you do. It takes time and effort and lots of heartbreak, but you do. You find that one and you start giving them all of your attention because they’re what makes you forget everything bad that’s going on in your life. They’re the first person you want to talk to in the morning and the last one before you sleep just so you can start and end your day with a smile. It sounds so great to have that someone. But it all gets so scary when you see how easily they can just leave and take all that happiness away too when they go.

And then you have to search again for that lost serenity first and foremost, before you can feel you can survive again. Because they’re still in your mind. And you still want it to be them that you talk to.

What is more, the pain of it all is hidden in everything around you, in all the things that hold a memory, a smile, a laughter, an image of a time when things were different. And you wonder if you’ll ever have that again. With that person you still feel for.

Love isn’t easy. Neither is life. It all takes effort. A lot of it. And a love that lasts. Truly and forever.

They said it would all be worth it in the end.

“The worst thing about heartbreak is that it’s a self-inflicted wound. After all, wasn’t it I who fell in love with you?” – Jessica Katoff

The meddling witch

She looked grotesque. Dressed in black with straw-like hazel hair. Her hooked nose matched her raspy voice and her jagged teeth. She was a witch in all her honour. Her obsession: to meddle in people’s lives.

Just when everything seemed right, she would swoop in and cause havoc. As though shaking a perfectly straight thread and causing it to tremble. It was those tremors that caused the fights, the disagreements, and the break-ups that ensued.

You never saw her coming. Because she always chose the moments of uttermost bliss. When people believed they were finally calm and happy. When things seemed to take on the right path. That is when the witch intruded. To spoil it all.

They called her Discord.

The load we carry

“Try to relax”. The voice was hoarse yet soothing. It had the tone of wisdom possessed by a mature person struck by many misfortunes in life. It was only fitting the Dr Hasbland would become a psychiatrist. He had been through so much – loss of loved persons, divorces, legal battles, evictions, foul play. He had seen a lot and experienced so much more than what his patients recounted.

Sergio was a special case. He went through extreme mood swings. The type where he could burst into anger and be tempted to light everything up in flames so as to cause as much destruction as possible, or where he would sit silently hidden from the world, pondering the vanity of it all as he could not contain the tears running from his eyes. It was a type of bipolar disorder, but only so much worse. Dr Hasbland had witnessed it first-hand in his office.

“Focus on one spot. Do you see the whirlwind? Look into that and try to free your mind. Forget everything that is bothering you and try not to think about anything for now. Relax”.

They had tried a lot of counselling and recommendations, but none of it seemed to work. It would only minimise the frequency of the mood swings, not their essence.

Hypnosis was the last resort. Dr Hasbland was certain this bipolar-ism was a consequence of a childhood trauma.

And he was right.

Because in the hypnosis, Sergio awakened a beast. One that remembered how he was mistreated as a child but blackmailed into not saying anything ever, and how that ordeal stayed with him, scarring his very psyche and causing him to become so extremely paranoid at times. He had to say it out loud, all that he had been through, so he could release his soul of the burden he was carrying for so long.

When he awoke, Sergio remembered nothing. But he felt lighter. In some way relieved. The mood swings soon disappeared and he managed to take on a different approach to life. One more positive, where he would see the brightness of things and not the bad that could come from them. It is the things we carry with us that cause the most damage in the end.

Roots and wings

There is a saying, “if you don’t like where you are, move; you are not a tree”. People were meant to move around, to explore, to evolve. Instead, with the passing of time, we have become so afraid of change that we fear the slightest disturbance of our known environment. We become rooted in one place, often because we don’t have the courage to risk and see what more is out there.

And as such, we close our minds to everything around us. We refuse to accept anything different to our own perceptions, or consider something further from our beliefs.

We become so accustomed to routine, that any turbulence to it is considered lethal; when in fact, it is the other way around.

We encage ourselves in a life that shrinks us and diminishes us instead of helping us grow and develop. We aren’t making ourselves better, rather, we persevere in a mediocrity and preserve a life unchanged, with the same mentality and the same lens on life.

But what we fail to see, is that as we grow, our surroundings change, our needs become different, and so do our characters. We have a different perspective on life when we are young, springing into the world, compared to when we are mature, looking back at it.

After all, we are supposed to receive and pass on two gifts: roots to remind you where you are from, and wings to show what you can become. It is only when you use the latter that you discover where you can go.

Five Whispers

Five is a milestone. Especially when it comes to time, and most specifically years. Five years of writing on this blog, I have come to realise that the more you manage to express, the free-er you eventually feel, and the more you want to write.

But, there is more.

You realise how quickly time passes and how much your life can change in the span of (just) a year. How many things can happen in 12 months that have the power to change your life, your mood, your perspective.

You come to understand that knowledge is truly power, no matter where it comes from. And you witness for yourself that the more you expand your reading, the more it embellishes your writing. A creative mind has no rest; it needs its outlets of expression.

When you start considering the passing of time, however, you conclude this very fact: “Life is about making an impact, not making an income” (Kevin Kruse).

Life will never be perfect. But we can choose to make it work.

And in the end we only need a few things to survive. But most importantly, when you love what you have, you have everything you need.

Flowery secrets

©Dale Rogerson

“So what did he do?”

“Huh?”

“The flowers. He must have done something in need of a cover-up”.

“No. Not Matthew”. Erika’s smile seemed to radiate from inside of her. She gleamed as she reminisced of last night and blushed as she realised everyone was staring at her.

“So you mean to say he brought you two flower arrangements for no reason?”

“Yes, that’s what love is”. She sighed as she sneaked a peak of the newly-acquired ring that shone on her left hand. It had happened suddenly.

His card this morning read “thank you for lighting up my life”.

 

Also part of Friday Fictioneers