What are we left with in the end?

What are we left with when everything disappears? When we return to empty rooms from which people are missing? In the silence of our minds, what is the first thought that pops up?

How many truly dare to remain alone? To sit with our problems, with all the nasty scripts that our imagination plays in our heads, with our fears and concerns?

How many really have the courage to fight with our own selves and come out victorious? To convince us above all others that we are so much more than what we fear, than the very labels we place on ourselves? Perhaps it is valid that our worst enemy is our own self, and we thus often hardly desire to face them. We prefer to constantly occupy ourselves with something, with seasonal activities, with short-lived relations and activities that distract us even if only for a while.

But love and friendships come and go like the ebb and flow of tides. And we become used to it. To that lack of permanence, the absence of something with which to evolve, to change, to grow; to substantially experience every tiny or huge life moment with.

We end up convincing ourselves that we do not want much. Lest we feel pressured. Lest we become overwhelmed with too much information we cannot process. Lest we connect too deeply. Lest we feel.

We prefer to throw things out and replace them rather than fix them and enhance them.

We say we cannot manage any more. That we tried too much and grew weary. But that is not true. Because we simply want to avoid the inconvenience and challenge of getting out of that zone of complacency and comfort that we’ve created.

We live devoid of emotion and end up hardly living at all. Because we think that this is how we preserve ourselves, our personalities, and our ego.

But this is how we lose anything worth having. Anyone who could lift us up, help us develop as beings, and make us better.

We lose the game before we even play because we’re so afraid of what may happen if we do not win.

We’re too scared of getting attached that we end up alone despising our own loneliness.

If growth hurts, how are we to break our own bondage without exiting our comfort zone? Without loving, giving it all, hurting, breaking, fighting, fixing, and eventually holding on to everything that truly matters? Anything that makes us better. That which absorbs our thoughts in the morning and keeps us awake at night.

You can feel what really matters deep in your soul. It grips you.

That is how you know.

And that is what you are left with in the end.

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Losing yourself

There is an astonishing trend in big cities: most people spend a great part of their waking hours every day moaning and complaining about their lack of funds, the difficulties their facing, and particularly their financial challenges. Yet, once a long weekend or a holiday opportunity appears, everyone rushes to flee as if someone left the gate to the cattle pen open.

It’s almost like a stampede occurs every opportunity for a getaway. It’s inexplicable how all of a sudden financial anguish is no longer a problem at this time, yet, after the holiday, the mundane grim reality of complaining about everything – and nothing changing – will return.

OK, let’s not overexaggerate, then. There are quite a few people who truly cannot afford to run away from daily life regardless of how much they could use it or desire it. But that’s not what we see, or what the media choose to focus on.

Why is it, though, that we so need to flee? Why is it that we just can’t wait to leave our everyday lives behind us and search for something new and different, even if only for a few hours or days, knowing that we will soon return to the ‘same old’?

Perhaps what most influences our longing to escape is if we’re not enjoying that ‘normalcy’ of ours. There is a saying that if you do what you love, you will never have to work a day in your life. Similarly, the goal is to create a life you don’t need to escape from. Because, if you relish what you do every day will be a new adventure.

There comes a time, however, where no matter where you are, you want to leave, to go somewhere else, usually, somewhere you’ve never been before. It is a desire to (re)connect with the vast world we live in, to meet new people, to experience eye-opening encounters; to refresh, rejuvenate, and refocus. To be able to return stronger, relaxed, and with a renewed perspective on life, to be able to generate fresh ideas, and be more creative in whatever you do.

At times we need to get lost to re-find ourselves.

The problem with time

There’s this recurrent saying that we all have the same 24 hours in a given day. If we want to do something we will find the time to do it. If not, it means it’s just not important enough, be it the completion of a task or communication with a person.

There are numerous seminars and charts and all sorts of things to help you organise your time better and manage your responsibilities and chores to fit everything into your schedule. Sure, for some this may be more arduous than for others. But in reality, there is but one simple truth: if you truly want to do something, you will find a way no matter what.

We complain about not having enough time because more often than not we need one (more) thing to simply moan about. It’s human nature. Nothing is ever enough. And we will always want more.

The insufficiency of time, however, does not justify squandering what we have of it. What if instead of lamenting, we exploited every second of the minutes and hours we have at our disposal? What if we joyously spent those moments doing things with a smile on our lovely faces? What if we filled those instances with memories we want to cherish?

Once the clock turns, it won’t turn back. It’s how things go.

But we only realise this when we’ve run out, fulfilling the cliché that you only acknowledge what you’ve had when it’s gone.

We postpone things for later or rest on the thought that we can do something or see someone some other day. At a later moment that may never arrive.

The problem is we think we have time.

Mean Girls

Men don’t understand women in many things, one of them also being how they can be so mean to each other, even among friends. While the former keep things simple and don’t bother about (what to them seem as) trivial stuff, the latter do the exact opposite.

Let’s face it; it’s a truth: women are mean. To each other more often than not. Even among friends, no woman can hide her jealousy/envy for the success of another, be it work or social life.

And it all starts young. Girls at school are abysmal for lack of another word. The movie Mean Girls was not all fictional; it was based on real life. The worst bullies are females. Women think that if they bring another down, if they degrade, undermine, and make them feel inferior, they will rise up instead. But it doesn’t work that way.

Women are constantly trying to find a flaw in another. They say demeaning things to each other – even as a joke – and when it comes to male friends, they assume the role of the evil mother-in-law with no other woman ever being ‘good enough’ for them. They criticise with the ease they utter words out of fear they will lose their ranking among their clan.

It’s a general trait this, perhaps most evident among female groups: we think that if we impose our deemed superiority over others, we’ll dominate.

We judge because we’re insecure and we’re insecure because we judge.

Read that again. Because it all comes down to that simple fact.

Women have many positives too, don’t get me wrong, belonging to the gender myself, we do have our brilliant sides too. It usually depends what you awaken in one. Some of us are lucky to have found a couple of women we call sisters, who don’t give out all that negativity mentioned above. Perhaps if we were all more grateful for that and took better care of each other, we would instead, rise together. And we would all be much better off for it.

Getting lost

“Have you ever sent someone in the wrong direction?”

I stared at her, troubled, not knowing what to answer. Or rather, how to answer that politely.

Jenna was amazed at how many people would ask me for directions on a single outing. And that’s in a neighbourhood I don’t even know very well. Heck, I don’t even know my own neighbourhood.

“What do you mean?” I responded perplexed.

“I consider it an achievement if someone asks me something and I actually know where it is to tell them!”

I’m the kind of person who gets lost two blocks down their house.

Yes, it happens.

When you have absolutely no sense of orientation whatsoever, getting lost is the easiest, simplest, and the most rational thing that can happen to you.

I was once told to “just continue straight ahead down the road” to the Metro station, and I got lost somehow, having to ask Google, the GPS, and a passer-by for help, in order to reach the desired destination 15 minutes later.

It happens.

And it is absolutely natural.

We’re not all born with a tracking system or a compass inside our heads.

It’s not easy finding your way around.

It’s actually an accomplishment getting somewhere without a GPS, and if you manage to go alone (helpless) a second time around, it is really something to be proud of. Let alone if you take a different route to get there.

So, you can just imagine the confidence booster it is when someone asks you for directions and you genuinely know the correct answer to help them get there.

Of course, you’ll get a few people lost first before you consolidate the route in your head to be able to pass on the knowledge.

But that’s just something that happens too.

The invisible battles

You know that cashier who was rude the other day at the supermarket? The salesperson who seemed uninteresting in helping you? The waiter who evidently ignored you no matter how politely you called numerous times? The person on the bus who took up the whole adjacent seat and did not allow you a space to sit, or the driver who broke out in rage at the morning traffic jam?

They all affect your mood somehow or other.

Because we allow ourselves to be unconsciously burdened by the other’s disposition.

Consider it: If you begin your morning with angered yells, noise from all around, impoliteness, offensive remarks and gestures, and a general irritation that has no apparent cause, won’t you too inadvertently adopt an agitation you cannot explain?

But what about if you started your day with a smile? A sweet good morning message from a loved one, an unexpected caring note, a smile with your take-away coffee, a ‘have a good day’ from the customer you assist, a polite wave from the driver you allow to insert the queue in front of you. Wouldn’t that instantly make you feel better? The satisfaction you receive is immense even from the slightest of things that may seem irrelevant to you.

That morning greeting may have made someone’s day. And it subconsciously also made yours too.

Be polite, always. There is no excuse for rudeness. Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about.

Courtesy costs nothing.

Open road

©Matteo Paganelli

There is a risk with being too comfortable with where you are. You become too complacent and too lazy to budge. Like still water in a swamp, you become stagnant as the world around you evolves.

The problem is, we too often take things for granted. A situation to which we’re accustomed does not necessarily mean that it will forever remain so. Circumstances change, often in the blink of an eye, yet no matter what we tell ourselves, we’re never wholly prepared for any of it.

Confusion is followed by an anguish of how to proceed. We need a plan. That’s what we pressure ourselves to have. But life doesn’t always work in a scheduled manner. Sometimes we just need to take things as they come.

Consider this, however: Without a destination, you’re never late. Because you have nowhere precise to go. You’re always exactly where you’re supposed to be.

Or like the cat in Alice in Wonderland said: If you don’t know where you’re going any road will get you there.

Perhaps we need to see the positive in every situation. A step-back always rattles you to change.

We simply need the courage to move ahead with more experience and determination than before.

Don’t be afraid to start over; you might like your new story.

Offline

There is a reason why many meditation and life-seizing coaches recommend you go offline for as much as you possibly can.

Scrolling on a screen all day steals your energy and mental clarity.

But most of all, it takes you away from life itself.

Because be it as it may, life is what is that blur that is happening around your screen. Just lift your head up long enough to devour it.

We go outdoors to breathe in fresh air; to socialise with real people; to view greener fields, bluer waters, and clearer skies; to marvel at the beauty of the world we live in.

Yet we do nothing of that.

Because even out there, we’re stuck on a screen. We’re so invested in what everyone else is doing and showing off online that we hardly exploit our ‘free’ time. As if a photo for a social post is enough to have said that we’ve done something different. Sure, photos are the concrete remnants of our memories. But there’s so much more to that. It’s all the moments we spend talking, laughing, doing things, hugging, and simply being around our loved ones that make the difference. It’s the feelings we create in those moments that cannot be captured or properly portrayed in a photograph.

So next time you’re out and about, around your favourite people (or not), put down your phone and observe the world around you.

You might just be amazed by it.

Shine a light inside

There are two types of people in the morning: the chirpy one, who chatters, sings, and is hyperactive from the moment they get out of bed; and the one who doesn’t want a single noise to interfere in the still sleeping zen phase they are painfully trying to get out of.

Miranda was the second type.

Alan was the first.

You can see the problem.

The worst was when the only chance they had to discuss about something was before going to work in the morning because often their shifts did not coincide and they could spend entire days without seeing each other. Despite living in the same house, they didn’t always have the energy after work to talk about anything.

This made it all the more complex.

Because she was also the type to keep everything inside. She restrained herself from expressing what bothered her, be it from the slightest of things – from their online presence, to his behaviour towards others, to her problems at work, or financial difficulties.

The body had a mind of its own, though, and it began to demonstrate its anguish and exhaustion in various forms. The signs were ignored and neglect led to stronger pain in every form.

He saw what she refused to.

How she faded her own light and began to personify that “what doesn’t transmit light creates its own darkness” (Marcus Aurelius).

So he surprised her with a week away.

To a place she only dreamed of; where mice and ducks were favourite cartoon characters; where laughter was the only sound you could hear; where to feel the innocence and carefreeness of a child was mandatory.

A decade of Whispers

Every big thing starts with a simple moment of folly in which, upon taking that leap, you ask “why not” and “what if”. Because yes, in jumping, you may fall; but what if you fly?

We have a tendency in this modern fast-paced world of ours to consider the downside more than what we have to gain. But we sometimes fail to see that if we don’t dare to try, we won’t move to grow. Change won’t happen if we don’t go after it.

In the past years of pandemic lockdowns, political developments, climate change (floods, heatwaves, fires), and so much more that has made us question the very essence of our existence, it is perhaps our mental health and psychological state of being that has been affected the most.

We find that we are often competing with our own self simply to remain sane. We’re battling the voices in our hear that we wish were not ours. We whisper that we’re fine, when inside we’re bellowing that we’re not. And we realise that we need days off everything; hours to do absolutely nothing – to lie in bed staring at the ceiling,binge-watch series or movies, to walk silently along the beach, to read after going offline. We ought to give ourselves those instances to regroup, to recharge, and to relax above all. It’s an opportunity to reconsider everything we do – from the support circle around us, the social acquaintances, our relations with the ‘outside’ world, to our employment prospects, our professional ambitions, but also our personal dreams which we so often push aside.

I began writing this blog a decade ago – can you believe it’s been 10 years already? It was my way of expressing everything I cannot (or wish not) say aloud. It’s not easy for everyone to speak out and converse so easily with people. Some of us are lost in the chaos of our minds. We’ll speak to those who win our trust, who we feel comfortable and secure with; to those, we will blabber away for hours, so consider yourself lucky, for you are among the selected few. But don’t think we don’t have things to say. The pen, it is said, is often mightier than the sword. And if we can’t speak, we’ll write it.

That said, consider this in the rapid passing of time: We come into each other’s lives in a mere fragment of it. We meet each other without knowing what led the other to this moment, and (on each occasion) we are trying to catch up on the time we ‘lost’ when we did not know of each other’s existence. In an effort to replenish that time, we want to draw in as much information as possible about the other, often being subject to jealousy of the people who have managed to spend a greater period with this new person.

We have but a glimpse of our lives to set our mark on another person and ensure our role and part in their lives is maintained. In the dozens (or more) of people we meet throughout our passage, only a handful will stay long enough to see us grow, change, laugh and cry, evolve. But those are the people who matter. And it goes both ways.

So, the message I’ll close off with in this 10-year anniversary post is this: sometimes it’s good not to know where you’re going and where something you start off in a leap of faith will lead. Because you never know how wonderful or life-changing it may be.