As dawn breaks

©Dale Rogerson

As dawn breaks beyond the spire, overwhelming the horizon with a mesmerizing honeycomb illusion, my thoughts wander towards you.

What would I give for you to be here, right next to me.

How many minutes would I spend speaking to your eyes without saying a word.

How many things we would experience together.

How many choices could we have made differently; but what if this was the right time to meet, and never before?

What if there is a reason life made our paths cross now?

As the sun rises, how many silences are filled with our kissing breaths intertwined…

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

Advertisement

Turn back time

What if you could turn back time; what would you do? Would you remedy the wrong choices made? The times when you did (not) go with your intuition? Would you make smarter decisions? Would you think more before leaping? Or would you instead be more daring, more impulsive, taking risks, wherever they may lead?

What would you do if you could turn back the clock? Where would you go and who would you be?

But the real question is, would you want to? Time changes us, it shapes us into who we are, and it informs our future decisions.

At some point or other, we all have found ourselves wishing we could go back and act wiser.

Given that this is impossible, however, perhaps what we should truly ponder is, what do we do now, with all that has happened, with all that we’ve faced, with all that we’ve become?

But above all, we need to situate ourselves with people with whom we lose track of time, not those who make us feel it is a waste of it. Wouldn’t it be better to feel that time has stopped, instead of wishing you could get it back?

Glass elevators

©Liz Young

A glass elevator first caught her attention and her awe when she was just a little girl and the mall was the new addition to the town. Everything seemed so bright and shiny and new then; so technologically advanced, it mesmerised her.

Years later, he caught her attention in a similar glass elevator in another shopping mall somewhere far away.

For weeks it would be their meeting place as both were too timid to actually say something. That’s how we waste time, though.

Long after, his official ‘forever’ proposal came in a much larger glass elevator overlooking the entire city.

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

Happy state of mind

There are some things you just know; it’s that gut feeling that is almost never wrong. Some call it instinct, intuition, fate, destiny; name it as you wish, but that energy you receive from within actually helps direct your decisions, even unconsciously.

He felt it as soon as he shook her hand and she smiled brightly at him, her eyes sparkling like stars in the darkness of the room.

The music around them was loud, but they heard nothing. For that moment, it was just them. That’s how you block out the world. When you reach a true connection with someone.

It’s inexplicable how and why. How we meet these people during the ‘right’ time in our lives; how we never met them before even if we hang in the same circles and with the same people; and why we come across them when we’re ready to truly unite on all levels.

Be it a best friend who becomes your support, your shoulder to cry on, your harshest critic, but above all your family; or be it your soulmate (if there ever is one), the one who completes you, who makes your heart flutter, and who gets you smiling broadly at the single thought of them; people with whom we connect so deeply are invaluable. Because they become the light in our darkest hours, the people who lift us up when we’re crawling, who make us see our worth when we refuse to do so, who help us achieve our targets, who assist us on our path towards becoming the product of our dreams.

We need people like these in our life, however rare they may be. Because, ultimately, they are the ones who make us the better versions of ourselves. And that matters more than anything. For that is when we are at our most productive, most healthy, and most happy state of mind.

The mistakes we make

We all spend certain periods pondering on everything we go through, mainly trying to realise the mistakes we make and what went wrong in dealing with them.

The biggest mistake we make is allowing people to stay in our lives far longer than they deserve.

We put up with behaviours that are toxic.

And we usually are to blame for that because we see it coming; we see them behaving perfectly one day, and then disappearing the next.

We waste time because we want to believe people change.

But the truth is, people only change if they really want to; not because you want them to.

Being nice is one thing; but we need to learn to say ‘no’,

You’ll see it’s liberating.

To set limits. To say ‘enough’ and end things. To move on and change whatever you don’t like.

We live in a society so twisted, that we’re surprised when we meet someone ‘normal’, with whom we can communicate without too much effort, who makes us laugh with witty humour, and, above all, who stays, who shows a consistency in their initial, pleasant and courteous behaviour.

It’s a shame that this is now the case. Because we sort of take all that for granted, or as common sense.

Kindness should be a given. But if you pay attention, you’ll realise that even a smile nowadays is rare. That’s why people who wear it more actually shine brighter.

Impossible limits

There is a magnificent quote that says that “the only place where your dream becomes impossible is in your own thinking” (Robert Schuller). Because we are only truly restrained by the limits we set in our mind. If we go beyond our limits, impossible is nothing but a word.

Life coaches often prompt you to visualise where you want to be and what you want to achieve in order to gain a clear focus of what you’re after. If you concentrate your attention on exactly what you’re seeking, it somewhat becomes easier to clear out the weed – the unwanted stuff blocking your judgement and thought – so as to realise your initial target.

It may be hard, it may require discipline, but nothing is difficult to achieve if you set your mind to it.

The best things come when we’re open to the prospect of them; when we convert our energy and attention into emitting a good vibe; that’s when we attract goodness. Because if we’re willing to try, something good will certainly be gained.

“The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible” – Arthur Clarke

Paddle away

©Krista Strutz

He was searching for the opportunity to stand up on a surfboard and paddle away into the water. It was the new ‘trend’ and he was longing to try it.

A friend told him it was “like walking on water only better”.

And he was right.

Out there, your mind catches up with you.

It was Katharine Hepburn who said that “as one goes through life, one learns that if you don’t paddle your own canoe, you don’t move”. And he felt that, right then.

For if it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you.

And that’s what we need.

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

What if we were really ‘fine’?

We search for advice in self-help books, teachings, seminars, life coaches and gurus. As if a resonating, well-put phrase will magically heal us from all our troubles and problems. We search for a solution without even attempting to look for it within ourselves, because we want someone else to handle this burden for us.

We do the same in our relationships.

We expect too much from others, and blame them for not living up to our expectations.

But we also tire easily as we mature. We’ve been through the same vicious circle too many times to still be so tolerant of it. We decide faster and more critically of what we believe we can live with and give a chance to, and who/what not.

Yet in this insatiable quest for social completeness, we often find that what current relationships are lacking is depth. Actually depth. To be able to look at someone and see whatever it is they are trying to conceal. People are hardly ever what they (initially) seem or what they want to portray. And we may spend a lifetime trying to discover their true character and actually failing to. If a person won’t let you in, won’t let you past the limits they’ve set to the outer world, won’t allow you in-depth access, you’ll never really know who they are. And it’s a shame. Because you will never know how connected you can become to a person otherwise.

It’s not just about having fun and filling in the gaps of your social calendar. Relationships are much more. It’s about dancing till dawn drunk, but also about grabbing a coffee and hydrating the next morning; about chatting incessantly for days, yet sitting quietly enjoying a meal together; it’s about sharing your innermost fears without feeling criticised, and feeling safe that you’ll hear a truth that comes from a good-hearted place and is solely for your own benefit. The right relationships help empower you; they make you stronger, more confident, and happier.

And in the end, that’s what we’re all looking for: a reason to be ‘fine’ and genuinely mean it.

Village air

©Sandra Crook

When he said he wanted to withdraw from the hectic routine his life had become, no one really imagined this is what he meant.

Months after being off-grid and out of range of all communication, his friends finally found him in a rural village driving a truck full of hay.

He had grown a beard that made him look somewhat more scruffy but in a charming way. But he seemed so much more relaxed and genuinely happy.

“I like it here,” he said, and for the first time he wasn’t pretending. It was true. The village air had rejuvenated him.

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

What we seek

There is a saying that if we seek something that same thing is seeking us. But, is this even true?

Because what is it that we’re really looking for?

We ourselves are unsure of what we want, what we’re searching, what we long for. We’ve created a world so complex and uncertain that nothing seems to be enough to make us feel complete. Be it love, happiness, money, career, or just calm, there is no real answer we can give.

The most certain thing is that we find it so easy to whine and nag about anything and everything. Like that childish game of crying it out until what you want is given to you. But the real world does not work that way. And we have a hard time comprehending that.

Perhaps humans don’t have the capacity to manage so much information at one time. Even during multitasking, there is something that lacks in quality. We seem to be running around in multiple directions, often without a concrete or clear purpose, that we end up neither living in the present nor planning for the future.

Our existence only gains purpose if we have a clear sense of what we’re doing now.

But we tend to overlook that.

And that’s where the problem starts.