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  • Celebrate your humanness

    Celebrate your humanness

    Tears are not weakness because it takes strength to embrace your humanness.

    The worst brutes lack the courage to be human because appearing unaffected by others is their idea of strength.

    Sadly, such a show of strength seals their hearts to emotion and blinds their eyes to the harshness that they exhale, creating distance between them and those they wish to have closer.

    They convince themselves that their cold exterior is needed to protect themselves from hurt while not realising that they created the self fulfilling prophecy that hurts them.

    When comparing yourself against such emotional detachment, it’s easy to believe that you’re weak for feeling something that leaves them untouched.

    No. The weakness is in them.

    Strength is found in knowing that your humanness doesn’t define your resilience.

    Being human makes makes resilience a beautiful trait.

    Without it, life loses its sweetness, and resilience becomes a cold comfort without fulfilment.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock

  • That empty bench…

    That empty bench…

    The saddest scene for me has always been the abandoned park bench.

    It echoes with profound intensity the pervasive isolation that too many experience, but too few reveal.

    There is a shame that is carried upon the broken wings of abandonment that anchors us in that space between wanting to create beauty in this world, while believing that it will always be unreachable for ourselves.

    So we birth the martyr within, presenting it as the selfless lover without.

    Being sure to distract others with affection, so that no one notices how achingly we stare at those empty benches.

    Those benches that once bore the hopes and dreams of togetherness.

    Those benches that once were claimed as sacred spaces.

    Those benches that remain available to the next loving embrace between its arms, knowing that once the lovers move on, it will remain, rooted to that spot, waiting to be embraced and abandoned, again.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock


  • Own your self-worth

    Own your self-worth

    Before we can allow the world to define us, we have to first give up what we believe to be true about ourselves.

    I’ve seen so many test their significance in the lives of significant others, and when they don’t get the affection or inclusion that they want, they readily assume that it’s because they’re not good enough.

    Why are we so inclined towards questioning our value, instead of seeing the complete human in the other person?

    To see that complete human, we can’t dehumanise them by assuming that they are free of the self-doubt or insecurities that we may be struggling with.

    We all just conceal our faults through different defences.

    One of those defences is to appear aloof or uninterested in response to a show of affection from others because we’re afraid of rejection or disappointment.

    We protect ourselves by only allowing safe options into our personal space.

    Remember: if you appear too confident or composed in front of another, they may see it as a threat to revealing their lack of confidence.

    Think about that the next time you don’t get the warm reception you were hoping for and decide to convince yourself that you weren’t good enough.

    Everyone has their demons that they’re struggling with. Don’t always make it about yourself.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock

  • The silent ones

    The silent ones

    True misery doesn’t love company.

    It decays the soul in silence.

    When someone is complaining, it’s because they still have hope that someone cares enough to listen or respond.

    Or even to empathise.

    When they give up on these three things, they go silent because they have grown to accept that no one else cares, or understands the state that they’re in.

    Too often we see their silence and assume it to be acceptance of their struggles or challenges, meanwhile it often symbolises the slow death of dreams, hopes, and ultimately, a life.

    Silence is the silent killer, more than rage.

    Listen with both ears and your heart.

    Pay attention to the silent ones.

    Your noise of ingratitude may just be drowning out their silence of pain.

    Find the balance between living loud and loving sincerely.

    The one without the other will smother people closest to you.

  • Seize the moment…not the day

    Seize the moment…not the day

    Tomorrow is not just another day.

    Tomorrow is simply today again, only with less time than we had yesterday.

    If you’re not focused on what you need to achieve today, you’ll always be trying to finish what you should’ve done yesterday.

    That’s how procrastination and misplaced optimism wastes away a good life.

    By all means, pace yourself so that you don’t burn out.

    But don’t become complacent in the process.

    Don’t wait for inspiration to strike.

    Inspiration most often hits you in the process of creating something amazing, not in the moments of over thinking what needs to be created.

    Show up.

    Get started.

    Seize the day.

    Tomorrow is never guaranteed.

    Procrastination doesn’t only steal time, it also steals your dreams.

    Embracing your passion in the absence of validation can be quite a powerful source of self-doubt.

    Believe in yourself, otherwise how can you expect others to believe in what you’re creating?

  • Self-imposed prisons of our mind

    Self-imposed prisons of our mind

    We imprison ourselves each time we restrain our natural expression because we’re afraid that it won’t be appreciated, or celebrated.

    Our need for approval or validation soon becomes our greatest crutch in life, until eventually it becomes our prison.

    We decorate its walls with images and scraps that honour the past, sometimes recalling moments of joy, but often also anchoring us in moments of pain.

    We hold those mementoes up as trophies and garlands that need to be revered by others before we’re willing to set them back down, believing that unless someone else knows our pain, we cannot let it go.

    Our need to be comforted about the aches and losses of the past is not because we need to be comforted, but because we need to feel as if someone cares for us…for what we’re hurting about.

    It’s not always the hurt that’s important. Often, knowing that someone cares that we’re hurting, and that they care enough to want us to stop hurting, is what shackles us to our past, because letting it go also means that we have no way to test if we’re significant to those around us.

    The prisons that protect us from experiencing a beautiful life are often just a single moment away.

    Sadly, we most often wait for someone else to create that moment of release for us before we’re willing to love ourselves enough to create it for ourselves.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock

  • Waiting to live…

    Waiting to live…

    When we are raised in an environment focused on discipline before purpose, or compliance before understanding, we develop the belief that fitting in is more important than who we are.

    This same mindset leads us to be bullish in our efforts to uphold the status quo because of the inclusion that it offers, while violently rejecting any opinions that challenge our cultural heritage or traditions.

    The need to belong, to be validated by that social structure smothers any passion to contribute towards improving anything, because we’re led to believe that our traditions have already perfected everything.

    Thus, the unique expression of the individual is snuffed out, only to be replaced by a militancy of spirit that is celebrated as devout submission.

    Critical thinking is abandoned in favour of academic prowess, and without realising it, indoctrination is readily believed to be higher education.

    All this leads to the subservient mindset that needs permission before choosing consciously, or seeks permission before thinking independently.

    That’s how cycles of abuse are maintained, and the unique contribution of the individual is seen as an offence against the collective.

    Everyone must know their place to uphold a power structure that reveres the powerful, while enslaving the minds of the masses.

    And that is how the masses, the average soul, grows to believe that unless they have permission to break the bleak and toxic cycles of their lives, they have no choice but to comply quietly for the greater good of society.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock

  • Live, and let die…

    Live, and let die…

    Sometimes, our setbacks in life can feel as if our world is coming to an end.

    In many ways, it does spell the end of a lifetime for us because we reach points where everything that we know to be true comes under question.

    Major life events like health issues that compromise our quality of life, divorce, death, or even losing a job all carry with it an impact that could easily derail all our hopes and dreams for the future.

    Choosing to hold on to the hurt, or the pain, or the sense of loss from such experiences doesn’t change the reality that it brought with it.

    Instead, holding on denies us the opportunity to grow from such experiences, and to continue to build that life that we set out to achieve.

    But what is there to learn from bad experiences?

    More than the lessons that it taught us about the shortcomings in decisions that we may have made, it is only in the presence of pain that the depth of joy can be appreciated.

    It is only through loss that we learn to appreciate what can be lost when we have it.

    When we experience loss or tragedy, or even disappointment and betrayal at the hands of others where we have no control over the outcomes despite our best efforts, we must recognise that it is a moment of grounding that will reshape what we take from life from that moment forward.

    If we’re not aware of the good that we can take, we will remain invested in the bitterness of the experience as we convince ourselves that remembering is the only way to protect ourselves from feeling such pain ever again.

    No. Remembering beyond the lesson learnt doesn’t protect us from such pain in future, it simply holds on to the pain of the past and denies us a future without it.

    Embrace the good, learn from the bad, and appreciate the present.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock