Tag: expectation

  • Gluttonous distractions

    Gluttonous distractions

    The utopian ideal for many is to find a line of work that feeds our passion for life, while also earning us a comfortable lifestyle.

    Inevitably, the comfort of the material rewards for such a pursuit, for those of us fortunate enough to discover our passion, slowly distracts us from that unadulterated passion that once drove us, only to be replaced by the fear of losing the means that sustains our quality of life.

    Similarly, we lose focus on what quality of life really means, and become distracted by convenience of life while assuming that to be the accomplishment worth protecting.

    The soul is soon neglected and the belly becomes the master that drives the decisions that shape our efforts.

    It sometimes takes years, if ever, for us to realise that we lost our way.

    For those that are again fortunate enough to realise this unfortunate shift, gathering the resolve and the courage to redirect our focus to our passion at the risk of downgrading our lifestyle becomes a trial that brutally separates the adults from the meek.

    Too many willingly surrender to the system while claiming impotence in their efforts to avoid acknowledging their weakness for the indulgence of their belly.

    They’re the ones who grow diseased and bitter, each day needing more distractions than before to keep them steady on the path of servitude that they chose.

    Servitude without fulfilment. Thus has this world become tainted with the bitter cowards who would much rather blame the world for their lack of resolve, than accept responsibility for their gluttonous appetite for the trinkets of delusions that parade as success.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock

  • Protect your dream

    Protect your dream

    How often do you hold yourself back while waiting for someone else to believe in you first?

    When venturing into a new domain, or taking that bravely bold step to reinvent yourself, don’t be disheartened when you find that those you thought closest to you do not support you.

    Those closest to us are invested in the version of who they know us to be, and therefore find it difficult to appreciate the vision that we may have for ourselves if that vision is a revolution of who we are, rather than a gentle evolution of who they want us to be.

    Sadly, this is often true for many in our circle of significant others. Be they family or lifelong friends, sometimes our goals are a threat to their low self-esteem.

    If you don’t connect with authenticity and sincerity to the value of what you want to create in your life, you will be easily deterred by the doubts or objections of others.

    You are the only person that will ever create your legacy. Let that legacy be one of courage and conviction in leaving this world in a better state than it was before you arrived.

    Maintaining the status quo may keep the peace with family and friends, but it will leave you with storms of incompleteness in your soul that no one will ever be able to pacify.

    Beloved. Be bold. Be brave. Be purposeful. And never sell yourself short to appease the meek.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock

  • The present moment

    The present moment

    There is one thing more desolate than hopelessness. It’s the absence of expectations.

    Hope only hurts when we still expect things to turn out differently, or still want it to be more.

    When we give up hope, and we surrender our expectations, we’re left with nothing but the present moment.

    The past fades as a hallucination often does.

    The future ceases to exist.

    And all we have is a choice to do something with the moment we’re in.

    But what is there to do with it if hope and expectations have both left?

    With no bitterness to create anger, and no love to create hope, what value does the present moment hold?

    I believe that it is in such moments that we face the brutality or the beauty of our true nature.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock

  • Know your place

    Know your place

    What if it wasn’t about the struggles, but about what we lost sight of that created those struggles?

    What if 2020 was needed to tamper our arrogance, or to test our gratitude?

    To remind us of the mortality of our dreams, and the reality of our shortcomings?

    To give us reason to pause and observe, rather than race on with assumptions?

    To remind us of our place in this world, as we persisted in acquiring that which we did not earn?

    2020 was a year of brutal truths and harsh realities.

    Of love and loss, and joy and grief. Like every other year of our lives.

    Only, in 2020, we were significantly constrained in our ability to distract ourselves from these grounding realities.

    2021 will be no different because the change in year doesn’t change our reality.

    Our reality only changes when we change our perspectives.

    If nothing else, let the gift of 2020 be a healthier perspective about life, and about your self.

    Oh, and remember to breathe…

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock

  • Farewell, it wasn’t fun

    Farewell, it wasn’t fun

    Goodbye to a year that has defined new depths of beauty and pain, and left its mark somewhere adrift between the two, leaving an ambivalence of hope and hopelessness, where once there was certainty.

    Nothing changes after midnight tonight. But the token of 2021 may give some hope, while the rest brace themselves for a continuation of the struggles of a year that most would want to forget, but everyone will always remember.

    Including the heartless who believe that being right about the pandemic is more important than being compassionate about the suffering that it continues to cause.

    We have a long way to climb to get ourselves out of this cess pool of humanity that we find ourselves in.

  • Trading your future for your past

    Trading your future for your past

    How much of life is wasted trying to reconcile the bad experiences of the past?

    For every moment that we spend dwelling on an injustice or oppression against us in the past, we impose an injustice and oppression on ourselves and others in the present moment.

    The present moment is what takes care of the future. That’s why we have much hopelessness and little inspiration to create a beautiful life for ourselves.

    When beauty appears, we are more inclined to reminisce about how it was lost or destroyed in the past, so we focus on protecting ourselves from such pain in the future, by discarding the beauty of the present moment.

    When the present moment is lost to the bad experiences of the past, we effectively trade our future for the pain of the past.

    That’s how life slips by while we watch from the sidelines waiting for justice.

    Waiting for fairness.

    Waiting to be appreciated.

    Waiting to be seen.

    Waiting for happiness.

    Waiting…stop waiting beloved. The same way you were able to create beauty amidst the horror, you are capable of creating beauty from the ashes of the life you once invested in.

    You were the source of that beauty, not them.

    Breathe, beloved. Breathe…exhale the toxins of who they were, and inhale the hope of the beauty that you are still capable of creating.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock

  • Contortions of reality

    Contortions of reality

    It is my belief in the good that is possible that has been the cause of my greatest regrets when I realised that I was alone in seeing the world that way.

    It’s that same belief that has driven me towards offering myself into spaces for which I was inadequate, or social circles for which I was lacking.

    My inability to recognise the signs of insincerity because I was convinced that it was simply fear, has resulted in some of the greatest lessons I’ve learnt about my place in this world.

    It’s the same belief in the wonderment of life that has shredded the romantic fool in me when the reality beyond my perception revealed the truth of my misplaced fascination.

    There are days when life feels more enchanting than a fable of love that has endured generations of cynicism. And then there are days when it feels like nothing more than a fib.

    My inclination towards flowery language has heaped much ridicule on me through the years, given the uneducated fool that I am. But when you struggle to articulate your experience of this contorted life, knowingly persisting in doing that which earns ridicule after being celebrated, you take an inevitable step towards finally seeing this world for what it is.

    Assuming that such clarity of vision is even possible is further testament to the naivety that always gets the better of my reason, and overwhelms my heart with possibility, even when staring impossibility in the face.

    It’s a recipe for much heartache and even more pain. But the sliver of hope that holds the promise of the remote probability that I may just be right about my perception of what is possible leaves me incapable of living any other way.

    Such is the nature of the fool in me. The one who loves deeply, expects little, and fails a lot. But it was my naivety towards such failure that has been the most incredible teacher of my life.

  • The broken cup

    The broken cup

    Too often, our focus is on how empty is our own cup.

    Sometimes it takes a while before we realise that we’re not taking care of ourselves as we lose ourselves in our concern for others.

    So we begin to focus on filling our cup so that the emotional fatigue can finally be overcome.

    Sadly, we don’t stop to consider if we’re capable of filling our cup because we don’t realise that it may be broken.

    Wounds from the past leave cracks and breaks in spaces that we hope others will mend, not realising that only we hold the key towards mending those cracks.

    Sometimes, we don’t realise that someone we love may have a broken cup, and we exhaust ourselves in trying to fill their cup, believing ourselves to be inadequate in our efforts to make them feel loved enough to want to love us in return.

    That’s why it’s important to heal before you try to find a home for your heart.

    And equally important is the realisation that sometimes it’s not your inadequacy that makes it difficult for them to love you back, but rather their belief in not being worthy of your love that prevents them from embracing you.

    Breathe, beloved…slow, rhythmic, deep breaths that fill those spaces left by the calloused hands that handled the most fragile parts of you.

    Breathe. Be whole. And then return to love.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock