Category: Love

  • If tomorrow never comes…

    If tomorrow never comes…

    So often I hear people speak of tomorrow not being guaranteed, but still packing away that dinner set for just a special occasion.

    We delay making changes that we know we need to make to improve the quality of our life, or of the lives of those around us, because we think we have time.

    We look at inspirational memes that speak of valuing and appreciating loved ones while they’re here, but avoid reaching out to them, or inviting them into our spaces because we are not ready for it yet.

    Worse than all this, we hold within us the pain of past wounds, refusing to let go, because we convince ourselves that a single moment of hurt is what defines or contaminates every moment with someone thereafter.

    That’s how we deny healing.

    That’s how we defer life.

    That’s how we suffocate our dreams.

    And it’s all because of fearing the possibility of experiencing such pain or rejection, or failure again.

    So we protect ourselves from being vulnerable, while denying ourselves the love of life itself.

    The reality of death only sets in when death stares at us without blinking.

    Until that moment, we convince ourselves that we have time to start that important project tomorrow, or next week, or when we get leave from work, or maybe when we retire.

    Each time assuming that we’re guaranteed to reach those moments when we think things will be just right for us to finally make that change or to take that step.

    When time runs out, it runs out without warning, because it reminded us that we were losing life each time we celebrated another occasion but neglected the moments between those occasions.

    Stop taking your life for granted and begin today what you’ve been putting off for so many yesterdays.

    Tomorrow is not guaranteed.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock

  • Empty promises

    Empty promises

    Some promises are broken before they’re even sealed.

    Some are honoured before they’re even made.

    The promises that are sincere will be blessed in their outcomes, well beyond the obligation that they carry.

    But the promise made out of obligation or compromise will always be burdensome and restrained in its fulfilment.

    Like apologies, promises are often made to avoid an unpleasant moment, rather than to create a beautiful one.

    It is this insincerity more than anything else that destroys what could be a beautifully fulfilling relationship.

    It is in the nuances and innuendos of how we honour the commitments that we make that leaves the most defining impression, and not just the fact that we kept our word.

    No one wants to feel like a burden or an obligation.

    When we lack sincerity in fulfilling our promises, or following through on our apologies, that is exactly what our unspoken words scream at those who cherish us.

    It tells them that they’re not important, only us keeping our word matters to us because we value our image more than we value them.

    Let your unspoken words reflect sincerity and conviction, and not leave room for doubt or ugliness.

    Anything less is a lie.

  • Humanity for sale

    Humanity for sale

    The ones driven by the validation of others turn themselves into victims.

    The ones driven by the belief that no one cares or no one understands, turn themselves into oppressors and abusers.

    But when we’re so focused on our own struggles, we fail to see the struggles that we introduce into the lives of others.

    That’s why we have no shortage of people reminding others to treat everyone with kindness, but rarely treating anyone with kindness if there’s nothing in it for them.

    Even our humanity has become a transaction in this capitalistic world of individual worship.

    We worship our needs before we revere any principles or values that we claim to uphold.

    Hence humanity’s slide into the abyss of loneliness.

    When will we awaken? 😞

  • Looking for love in all the wrong places

    The shame that we carry within us about what we believe is lacking about ourselves, sometimes causes us to reject those who embrace us despite knowing the worst side of us.

    But because we reject that part of who we are, and are not willing to see our humanness attaching shame to it, we try to escape the embrace of the one who accepts it, so that we can avoid facing it or dealing with it.

    That’s how we find ourselves pushing away those close to us, while trying to win favour or earn the affection or validation of someone who doesn’t know that side of us.

    Because when we try to escape who we really are, we find it necessary to also escape anything that reminds us of that version of ourselves that we’ve rejected.

    Growth and healing is not found in rejecting the scars or the wounds of the past.

    Growth is experienced when we dress those wounds with understanding and acceptance, and when we caress those scars with love and affection.

    Looking for acceptance from others while rejecting ourselves, creates a tension within us that makes us defensive the moment they get close to revealing the shame that we still hold within us, about ourselves.

    It is that defensiveness that destroys yet another good relationship, as we hold them accountable for the very same reasons that we once rejected those who made bad decisions in response to the hurt that we caused in their hearts.

    This is how we sabotage the life we’re trying to create, while blaming the world for not accepting us.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock

  • Elusive peace…

    Elusive peace…

    Peace…that elusive mist that needs to enshroud everything.

    Its absence creates the need to change the circumstances of our lives, so that we leave no space for nothing, needing every space to be filled with something.

    Some look to fill those spaces with trinkets and tokens.

    Others look to fill it with purposeful endeavours.

    But central to both, lies the need to benefit someone in our efforts to avoid being no one.

    Without that someone, we remain unfulfilled and incomplete.

    Similar to the nothingness in the absence of peace.

    Because life must be lived, and living must leave a legacy.

    But a legacy ceases to be a legacy if it has no inheritors at the moment of our passing.

    This primal instinct to be something is what drives our efforts towards avoiding being nothing.

    The threat of which is the root to losing ourselves to the distraction of everything, when we lose hope of ever being something…to someone…but not just anyone.

    Thus, the test of gratitude enters, as we reject some in our pursuit of others, never knowing for certain the impact we have on the lives that we touch.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock


  • Ingratitude breeds ingratitude

    Ingratitude breeds ingratitude

    When we’re ungrateful for who we are,
    When we deny any good in ourselves that others may see,
    When we ignore our beauty because there may exist some ugly,
    We protect ourselves from attachment to anything wholesome or beautiful in life.

    Our need for such protection is a deeply ingrained fear about never being good enough.

    Not good enough for the standards that we hope to live up to, nor good enough for what we think we need to be to those around us.

    The self loathing ensures that this conversation remains in our heads, and is only expressed as rage or bitterness, or many times, as deliberate ingratitude.

    But ingratitude does more than just take our lives for granted.

    Ingratitude convinces loved ones that they’re not good enough either.

    Ingratitude distorts good intentions into bad motives.

    Ingratitude breeds within others what we loathe about ourselves, while convincing us that it harms no one.

    Ingratitude is the real root of evil.

    It is ingratitude that destroys hope.

    It is ingratitude that destroys love.

    And it is ingratitude that destroys gentleness.

    You cannot give what you don’t have.

    When ingratitude for your self takes hold, the sincerity of any gratitude that you hope to express towards others lacks authenticity and leaves them questioning your sincerity.

    Ingratitude is a vicious cycle that destroys every good that it touches, and breaks every soul that may once have been whole.

    And that’s how peace becomes elusive.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock

  • Destroying the one we love

    Destroying the one we love

    When we look at ourselves with harshness or pity, we find reason to protect ourselves and others from what we see.

    We convince ourselves that we are a burden or a curse to those who deserve better than what we have to offer.

    Or, we convince ourselves that we won’t be able to bear them leaving, so we prevent them from getting close.

    But in so doing, we prevent ourselves from seeing in us what they may love about us.

    That’s when we reject them while believing that we’re only protecting them.

    It’s this self-loathing, or even this need to protect ourselves from being hurt by avoiding attachment that we cause the greatest hurt.

    The most troubled souls that I’ve encountered have been ones who yearned for emotional attachment with significant others that were emotionally inaccessible.

    When we protect others from ourselves, or we protect ourselves from others getting too close, we deny them access to our emotional space that may complete them, and vice versa.

    It is our entrusting to another the fragile parts of our soul that makes us feel human, or appreciated, or significant when they honour that trust in return.

    We only feel like we matter when we are not only loved by those we love, but by being allowed to love them in a way that is uniquely our expression of love for them.

    Anything less feels incomplete at best, and a betrayal at worst. Thus, some of the best intentions have resulted in the deepest cuts.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock

  • Claim your humanness

    Claim your humanness

    My daughter looked quite distressed when she asked me this question over the weekend.

    “What drives people to be so cruel to animals, like skinning them alive, or abusing them for profits?”

    The first thought that came to mind was this. We only lose our humanity when we feel less than human.

    The truth is, we only lose our humanity when we believe that we are defined by what happened to us, rather than what our choices were in response to those trials of life.

    Watching her grappling with the reality of who she is versus how others have treated her and betrayed her trust in her short life is grounding me in ways that I never thought possible.

    I swayed from anger at not knowing how to be there for her, to self-pity for not being a good enough parent, to a quiet albeit sad patience, knowing that all I can do is allow her the space to come to terms with the harshness of life in a way that makes sense to her.

    As her father, I fear that she may outgrow me in the process, which stirs up the self-pity and anger, but just as soon, I regain my composure knowing that by giving in to either, I will only create a self-fulfilling prophecy if I insist on inserting myself into this precarious space in which she finds herself.

    So my test in her test is to be consistent and available while she finds her way through it.

    The struggle of single parenting is grossly underrated.

    And the struggle of a single father raising a daughter even more so underrated.

    Through it all, there was another battle just beneath the surface of the ones that I thought were important. That is, the battle to claim my humanness in the face of exactly the same kinds of betrayals and cruelty that I had faced, which are echoed in the struggles that taunt her.

    And it’s through recognising this deeper battle within that I realised the root of my anger and self-pity. It is the need to have my sincerity and effort accepted by one I hold dear, so that the lessons learnt at the hands of brutes and hypocrites will allow me to give that which I did not receive.

    Also, it is my need to protect her from the demons that have so often derailed my efforts in life. I want to protect her from that which ravaged me when I was her age.

    But I can’t. No one can save us from the journey that we must take to discover the beauty of who we are.

    The only thing we can do is remind them that giving up midway through that journey is never worth it. Because once you emerge from the other side, there is a depth and breadth to your humanness that would otherwise have escaped you, and would have left you empty and wanting in your efforts to connect with the beauty around you.

    The irony being that the depth and breadth that is discovered further isolates you from those who distracted themselves through that journey, rather than embraced the pain and the education that it offered.

    A beautiful patience and a courageous perseverance is needed to hold on to your humanness in an inhumane world.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock