Serendipity

There is a sweet melancholy that usually accompanies us on our way back from wherever we’ve escaped for a few days. Be it a city break, an island getaway, or an adventure abroad, the road back often feels longer, mainly because we can sense reality getting closer and our mundane routines closing up on us. We’re carefree when we’re away, and if we live in a city we don’t wholeheartedly adore, returning to it is somewhat difficult. When we see new places and other cultures, meet new people and have fun all day outside, we come to view our everyday schedules as boring and lacking in excitement. It’s up to us, however, to change that.

Sometimes a happy coincidence occurs, great things just come together for something good to happen. Call it serendipity, or just pure luck, but once in a while, we deserve to find goodness without looking for it.

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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.

Walk with me

©MCD

“Walk with me.”

It sounded ominous, but it wasn’t. It was a pure request, almost like a plead. She loved walking by the sea and in the mountains; it helped clear her mind. And it was a chance to bond with him. He would ramble on about his ongoing projects, his thoughts, aims, and future plans, and she would listen, offer some ideas, and often her perceptions too. It was relaxing because, in those couple of hours of just placing one foot before the other and moving forward, they would simultaneously escape reality and engage in their own one.

But for days now, even this habit was forlorn.

He “didn’t have time for it”, he said. But she knew that was nonsense. We always have time to do what we truly want. It’s not time he didn’t have, it was the desire. And that is what saddened her the most.

We all have our own perspectives on even the simplest of things. Going for a walk, for some, is a way of coming closer together. For others, it is a mere form of exercise.

She would walk regardless of the company, however. She would listen to music or podcasts and allow her mind to wander away in the clean air, among the trees, high up in the sky; to drift away, get lost in a myriad of thoughts, give birth to new ideas, renew optimism, and return stronger and more prepared to face everyday life.

Walking was a remedy for the challenges that perplex us.

Try it: take in some fresh air, breathe deeply, and just…walk.

Say it now

“Take care”, “text me when you get home”, “drive safe”; they’re all expressions we blurt out with a “see you later” without thinking about it much. But they all obtain a very different meaning after something tragic happens, like a train crash; a collision of a public transport vehicle some have taken numerous times and consider it as safe, never doubting that they may never reach their destination. Incidents like this change your entire perspective on life. Nothing can be taken for granted. Not even the time we have.

We postpone so many things, speak badly or abruptly to those we love thinking we’ll do better ‘next time’. We don’t utter the words ‘I love you’, ‘I miss you’, ‘I’m thinking of you’, saving them for another moment. We resist tight hugs and long embraces, quality time just enjoying each other’s company, all because we believe that we’ll ‘hang out’ or see each other later on.

But what if that postponed moment never arrives?

You don’t know when it will be the last time you’re holding that person in your arms, or if you’ll have the chance to express your sentiments to them after this instant. We don’t know, no matter how optimistic we want to be on life, what fate has in store for all of us.

So why wait? Why waste this moment out of stubbornness and egoism that don’t allow us to seize every ounce of life we have? Right now.

Showing you care can take many forms. But it is worth nothing if you keep suppressing your care for ‘a later time’.

More time than life

In a world of rapid developments, how easily do we take things (and people) for granted? We go to bed certain we will wake up the next morning; we postpone our schedules sure that we’ll have time later on; we procrastinate because we are confident we’ll complete our must-do’s some other instant.

But what if there wasn’t time?

There is a Mexican saying: “there is more time than life” (“Hay más tiempo que vida”) usually told to those who are constantly stressed and complain too much about not having time to fulfil specific goals. Loosely translated, it is that cliché we so often hear: “seize the day”.

It’s the prompt to take each moment for what it is, and realise it to the fullest. Do what you can now, experience every emotion to the utmost, because – really – who knows when you’ll get another chance, or what the next minute may bring.

And to be honest, a minute is a long time to waste. (Just try counting it while doing a plank).

It is what it is

©MCD_Budapest

“You know that nothing can kill you more than your own thoughts, right?” He looked at her sharply. Once again she was drowning herself, choking up on makeshift scenarios. He needed to be harsh to snap her out of it.

“We make up disasters in our heads, because we build too much expectation and then become devastated when it’s not fulfilled. Just let things be”.

“My grandma once said: The key to happiness is letting each situation be what it is, instead of what you think it should be”.

“So live the moments; it’s what composes life and it’s what you will remember”.

They say happiness doubles when shared. But what about sadness? Does that halve in magnitude? Because we tend to keep our misery bottled up, especially when we consider that everyone has problems of their own, many of which are more serious than ours.

But what if we choose to live those fleeting moments – those phantom pleasures that last only a bit – and we keep them to ourselves and only share them with a few close confidants?

What if when we return to reality, they seem like a dream? What if all we have to account for them are the photos we took but never uploaded anywhere? What if the only documented evidence of our fun was how it made us feel? How long will it last? And how will we make it endure for longer?

Why is it that whenever something good arrives, we have an innate fear that it will overturn, and that something bad will come to upset it all? Why do we allow ourselves to fall into that spiralling circle that messes up our minds? What if we just send out the optimism and positiveness we hope to receive; would that make fortune return to us?

Life is what it is. But that’s not always easy to accept. No matter what anyone tells us to do.

Surreal instances

©Brenda Cox

They are like surreal instances. Like a bicycle clinging onto a wall as if it’s about to ride up against gravity.

Those thoughts of what you could have, would have, should have; they cause too much distress and eat you up from the inside. They tear you apart piece by piece because there is nothing you can do to change the situation or remedy anything. You can’t alter what did not happening. All you can do is look towards living the present as best as possible, and enjoying what is to come as much as you can.

Seize the now.

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

On an unknown path

©MCD_Makri

So what is it that we truly need to have fun? It’s not the location, not the material stuff, not the luxury or comfort, it’s not the resources. Regardless of what you may have in mind – and the fact that some of these do help make life easier – you don’t need a lot to enjoy your days.

All you really need is good humor, good friends and a good mood. (Although a drink or two also helps).

In essence, you realise that we are the ones complicating our lives without reason when you’re suddenly found in a place where there is not much to do and almost nothing to see.

So you acknowledge that very often than not it is the simplicity of things that helps you relax; you communicate faster and effortlessly; you enjoy your (longer) days more; and you certainly feel more satisfied. Because you’re actually enjoying yourself without straining too much for it. And that’s really the point. Isn’t it?

Every so often we need to get lost. To follow a path we don’t know where it leads, because life ought to be an adventure, and we should be willing to discover whatever it may bring. It may pleasantly surprise us.

Those who should don’t and those who needn’t do

August is the holiday month. It’s the time when everything stops working, when cities seem deserted and beaches are packed, when hotel resorts are full, when people plan their trips to exotic places, when the sun is shining brighter and you actually notice it. It’s the time when you can – or rather should – go on holiday. To relax, recharge your batteries, and plan the next season ahead. But what is very often overlooked during this time of year, is that not everyone really goes on holiday. Shocking as it may seem, some people work throughout the summer – and this not only applies to the cafés and beach restaurants you hang out at, or the hotel staff that are there to accommodate your every need. Some people simply need to work. Or may even have to. So it usually ends up that those who don’t really need a holiday are the ones who go on a prolonged vacation, whereas those who should go on a holiday to relax, clear their minds and actually get some rest, don’t.

Those who should don’t and those who needn’t do. That is what it adds up to. Royalty, who practically do nothing all year except run around from gala to event, to charity ball, to special ceremonies, are the ones taking vacations in the Bahamas or Seychelles. Diplomats and civil servants who earn thousands a month fly to exotic places to lie on the beach in the sun all day, experiencing a change from the routine of lying around in the office. Government officials even take private means of transport to other continents and use state funds to holiday, under the pretext of state business or promotion of the state. All the while, the hard-working middle class remain in the office keeping the state machinery running, the business afloat, the company producing, and dreaming of a vacation in another land. With the notice board full of pictures of sandy beaches, exotic islands, waterfalls, snowy mountains and all such places that seem unreachable, people imagine what it would be like to actually be able to go where you only dream to be. Due to a variety of reasons, ranging from no money, no time, no days of leave, people are constrained to the hot, humid city during the summer with only relief being the beach a few kilometres away – if you are lucky, that is.

It’s hard not being able to do what you want. It’s even harder watching everyone else do it. And it’s frustrating not having the time or money to do exactly what you plan, or at least wish to. It always seems that when you have the time to do something you never have the money, and when you in fact have the money, you lack the time. Life is short, as everyone keeps saying, and it is a shame not to live it out to the fullest. To enjoy every moment of it. To be with people you love and make you happy. And most importantly, to be exactly where you want to be. In every sense. Life will only have meaning, when you wake up and reality is actually better than your dreams…