To let go or not

When something ends you are left with what now question. Your life as you knew it changes. Be it from a change in the family environment, change in career or maybe even a change in your country of residence. 

With the new year around the corner, a lot of us are pondering about 2015 and the changes (and continuity) we want it come with.  Also known has the famous new year resolutions, which more then often start and finish in January.

2014 was perhaps the best and most challenging year of my life, then again I say that every time. Perhaps because I feel comforted by the idea that there can be a clear beginning and end. This, however, brings another question into mind: to let go or not?

How do you know which things are worth holding onto and which aren't? How do you know which are the welcomed changes, that bring that greatuncertainty, and those changes which are you running away from yourself?

How do you know what you want? And I don't mean, do you really want that two week all-inclusive holiday, I mean what do you really want. How do you know what really makes you happy and how do you stay faithful to that ideal?

Maybe the only way we can answer this is if we take a step back (or two) and have a fresh opportunity to re-evaluate our life's. A dear friend said to me, "When I die, I don't want my grave to say the girl who lived with a broken heart. I want it to say, the girl who helped change the world". It's this same logic where another great friend of mine asked me, if I was to write an auto-biography would I be happy with the stories it contained?

A new year is a great opportunity to clearly ask yourself what is worth holding onto and letting go: what dreams to peruse and which to let go. Remembering always, that you cannot loose what was never was yours, and that what is yours, will always come back around.

Happy New Year!

The failed chase

We chase happiness. We buy the latest iPhone, follow fashion trends and listen to the UK top 40 hits which are essentially about not existing without your significant other half. Sure, we have moved some-what away from that 1960s stereotype of the perfect housewife/husband... but we are still indoctrinated through media that the essence of life is to grow up, getting married, have two beautiful children and live happily after... and if things don't go this way, then we get a bit lost and confused. Where are we going wrong?!

What if you're the 25 year old who doesn't want to get married and have children? But, since everyone else around you is doing it... you start to question yourself. Or, what if you're the 21 year old who has met the love of your life and don't have the slightest interest in, let's say, travelling the world? How do you differentiate what is your true desire and what society is imposing on you?

Why do we think we have to hate people who have hurt us? That it is embarrassing to tell someone you like them? And even worse... it's humiliating to be different? Why are we so scared to simply exist, to simply be? When we live in a society that is full of ideals of what is right and what is wrong, of how we should or shouldn't feel... how do you find out for yourself what truly makes you happy?

I don't think that the problem in society is peer pressure. I think that most of the time, we are all just a bit lost in trying to figure out who we are, what we want and where we are going. Since we started school, we have had numerous people telling us how things ought to be, that in the process you loose your gut feeling: you can't tell what's right and what's wrong. The result is a series of good and life bad decisions, where we often find ourselves asking: what did I do to deserve this - for both the good and for the bad. We have such an underlying fear of rejection and not being good enough that we protect ourselves with this I don't care attitude, when deep down.. we all care. We all just want to be happy.

The problem is, that while we are chasing happiness... we forget that it is in right in-front of us. That happiness is being at peace with yourself, and that the only true way you will ever be able to bring happiness to anyone else is if you're happy in yourself.. independently of.

The certainty in uncertainty

Life presents itself with several gifts to us. Each day we have a new, unique opportunity to grow and learn. Like with school, often we don't like the classes - it's far more fun to be out in the playground than sitting in the room hearing about history or a maths theory. But, like school, we don't really have an option on the classes we take. Life presents its beautiful gifts to us and we have to learn to face it.

The even more charming and enchanting thing about life is that it gives us multiple chances to learn something. How many times have you found in yourself in  a situation where you had felt the exact same away before? You didn't quite understand why that kept on happening? Well, that's the goodness of life. We are continually blessed with the opportunity to learn and to grow, but more than often we choose to ignore the tell-tell signs. It's far easier to think about the playground outside then to sit through that maths class.

I believe that life is full of cycles, several cycles. With every beginning comes an end, but with every ending comes a new beginning. Sometimes things don't quite shape out the way you had imagined, and life takes you on a different course than the one you had previously anticipated. Here, you can through a bit of a hissy-fit: how dare things not go the way I had planned?! But sometimes its at these very moments that we find the certainty in the uncertainty of life.

And it's at the times that life presents itself as the most unstable that you find the biggest certainty in your life. The reason I loved Brazil so much was because I was so uncertain of everything, that the things I was certain of became so clear. I had to be at my most vulnerable to learn more about myself. So, when life presents us with one of its many gifts (or when you have to sit through another class), we have two options: you can try and run or you can embrace the opportunity that is being unfolded in-front of you. You can give yourself the opportunity to become certain within the uncertainty.