Category: Life

  • Don’t let fear win

    Don’t let fear win

    If you’ve been raised on a diet of fear and compliance, it is inevitable that your choices will reflect your fears, and not your dreams

    Fear destroys hope and replaces it with futility.

    In the face of futility, we resort to compliance, because compliance provides us with familiarity.

    Familiarity tethers us to rituals, traditions, and behaviours that feed the cycle that sustains the power of fear.

    That is, the cycle of compliance at all costs.

    When compliance becomes the objective, blind following becomes the method, and critical thinking is set aside in favour of inclusion.

    The need for inclusion destroys dreams, breaks hearts, and damages souls, leaving in its wake a field of martyrs who surrender their joy in the face of futility, not realising that it is fear that breeds futility, and not overwhelming odds.

    Be courageous, brave soul. Self-imposed martyrdom is not the only path to peace. In fact, it defeats that very goal.

  • Save yourself from regrets

    Save yourself from regrets

    I believe that among the great deathbed regrets will be the realisation that we never truly showed the world who we are.

    It’s the what-ifs and if-onlys that cause more regret and heartache than any bad decision.

    Bad decisions are made with good intentions, yet we always choose to remember the negative outcome, rather than celebrate our innocence and sincerity for trying.

    We do this because we’re more focused on what others think of us, than we are about what we know to be true about ourselves.

    This bias against ourselves is one of the roots with which ingratitude takes hold in our life.

    When that happens, we become martyrs in our own mind, as we focus on everything that didn’t work out, while losing sight of the beauty and blessings that we have.

    Living up to your convictions, despite society, is what will provide you with peace and fulfilment when you need it most.

    That is, in those final moments when you look back at the sum total of your life and wonder if you made the best of it, or did you only focus on the worst of it?

    Redefine what peace means to you. It is always beyond just the absence of disagreement or hostility. Peace lies in being true to yourself, and appreciating the opportunities for growth that such conviction creates in those around you.



  • Saving my insanity

    Saving my insanity

    Sometimes I write to share my insanity, but sometimes I write to save it.

    When everything about the world feels unnatural, sanity offers no relief.

    Besides, like Vonnegut said, “A sane person, when compared to an insane society, will appear insane.”

    I have often considered myself that lone voice of sanity, and in that assumption, I found myself to be insane.

    Fulfilment lies in finding one who will embrace such insanity with me.

    Despite the search being over, the insanity remains unfulfilled.

  • The value of values

    The value of values

    One of the paths to insanity is to try to reason around someone else’s actions or behaviour by assuming that their value system is the same as yours.

    This includes people who come from the same culture, tradition, ethnicity, and even family as you do.

    Our value system may be informed by a common framework or point of reference.

    But, unless everyone complies 100% with that framework, each interpretation or implementation of those values becomes a unique value system, as unique as each individual.

    When we don’t recognise these differences, we insist on compliance rather than understanding in the way each person adopts these values in their lives.

    That’s the root of misunderstanding: The assumption that because we have shared values on some key issues, we have shared values on all issues.

    Thus, relationships and homes are broken because of our expectations of compliance rather than our efforts towards understanding.

  • Yearning for a simple life

    Yearning for a simple life

    Life is simple, but it’s not easy.

    It becomes complicated when we look for the easy way out.

    Doing the right thing is often complicated by our concern for the consequences with those around us.

    The greater our emphasis on those consequences, the more complicated life becomes because we have that much more to consider before we hold true to our convictions.

    Often, it’s the easiest way to lose sight of our convictions, or finding reason to compromise it until it becomes an empty shell of what we once believed to be sacred.

    A simple life, by definition, would lack such complexity.

    But in that lies the demand for courage and clarity of thought.

    The clearer our thinking, the easier it is to muster up our courage.

    Courage is therefore contaminated by an unhealthy fixation on potential outcomes.

    Worse still, by preempting outcomes and changing our convictions to avoid conflict, we deny others the opportunity to grow by protecting them from the truth that we hold within us.

    Thus, life threatens to be complicated, and unfulfilled, because what we express on the outside ceases to resonate on the inside.

    And finally, this opens the door for a bitterness or regret that can no longer be expressed because we surrendered our peace for a painful compromise.

    Hold on to your truth, and allow others the space to deal with the awkwardness of their insecurities as they slowly learn to embrace a new understanding.

  • Only you

    Only you

    “I’ve been incompatible with anyone else since I met you.”

    Sometimes, without warning, someone enters your life and challenges every assumption you ever made about what’s possible.

    What you thought you deserved was limited to what you were capable of achieving up to that point, and maybe just a quiet desire to acquire some peace beyond it.

    Until they see in you what you thought was your own delusions, and you see in them what you thought were only your dreams.

    Once you connect with that truth, nothing can convince you that anything less is what you must settle for.

    Settling becomes a vulgar thought, and fulfilment becomes incomplete without them.

    When that happens, the distance between love and torture grows, and you find yourself stretched between the two, with only shards of sanity to prevent you from being torn apart.

    Those shards will tear at your dreams and taunt your delusions until their embrace is secured.

    Until then, life becomes a dyslexic dance with insanity, and love remains elusive.


  • The delusion of life

    The delusion of life

    A life without introspection is nothing but a delusion.

    Assuming that you know yourself without truly knowing yourself leads to many regrets because of poorly informed decisions.

    Introspection allows us to learn from the lessons of the past by revealing our contribution towards its outcomes.

    Mindfulness allows us to apply those lessons in the present moment.

    Ignoring both leads us towards believing that we’re entitled to being treated well simply because we are well intentioned, while ignoring the impact of our actions on those around us.

    Stop to reflect, so that your reflection may keep you true to the path that you wish your life to take.

  • The nuance of a good life

    The nuance of a good life

    It’s not the blatant acts of disrespect or rejection that hurt us the most, it’s the subtle gestures that leave room for doubt or interpretation that leave deep scars.

    Nuance thrives in those subtle gestures because nuance is what allows us to avoid conflict, or resist commitment. It allows us a graceful exit for just-in-case so that we can claim that we didn’t mean it that way, or that they misunderstood.

    Nuance is the art of saying more than you’re willing to say without actually saying it. Like the subtle brush of your hand against your partner in company when a full-blown embrace or heavy patting may be frowned upon. Or perhaps when you smile a half smile and don’t return the kiss to avoid an argument.

    Nuance allows us to test boundaries, and to test our significance in someone else’s life. We throw subtle hints about what we want, but won’t speak out openly about it because we don’t want to create reason for doubt within ourselves about whether they responded out of obligation, or because they sincerely wanted to make us happy.

    Nuance allows us to see if someone is ready to accept what we want to offer, without actually offering it, so that we protect ourselves from a hurtful rejection.

    There are parts of who we are that we’ve embraced so fiercely that no amount of ridicule will ever shame us about it. But there are parts of ourselves that we hide because we want to only give that one special person the power to handle it. It defines the sanctity of who we are, and solemnises the trust that we wish to place in them.

    It’s a vulnerability that we embrace and cherish because in its handling lies the essence of the bond that we wish to share with that special one.

    It’s the expectation willingly courted that holds the joy of fulfilment if fulfilled, or destroys hope if left hopelessly ignored.

    Once spoken, doubt is subdued and expectation justified.

    The unspoken word has destroyed more hope and created more angst than any revelation of love, or its denial.

    If left unspoken, it remains a torture within, without any claim to relief from the one in whose hands your joy rests, waiting to be roused into being.

    Perhaps it is in our efforts to protect ourselves or others through withholding what we don’t wish to impose on them that we destroy the very joy that we hope they will find without us, or us without them.