Choosing hope

Everyone is talking, posting, sharing their thoughts on the freedom that came with this in one way or another. How we have an opportunity to make new choices and somehow, magically almost, change everything that’s been wrong before.

Just like everyone, I’ve been trying to see the positives and started pondering myself: What if I had job where I could work from home? What if I no longer had to get up at 5.00 every morning and change two buses to get into work ? What if I actually had time and energy to exercise daily and freely whenever I wanted to? What if I no longer felt depleted at the end of each day, loosing the joy of striving for excellence on someone else’s schedule and definition? What if I had more time to invest in things that really matter, at the end of the day? What if…

This got me thinking about choices…

Never having really been a reality addict, conforming solely to what ‘makes sense’, I believed in taking chances, creativity in austerity even, finding joy in the many little things, following my dreams, as they say, only to realise I’ve become the worst version of myself – how could I have changed so much that I no longer seem to recognise my past self from just 6 years ago? Not to say that I am not grateful, because I am, I truly am grateful for everything I’ve learned and for all that these past few years experiences, good and bad, have taught and shaped me. But staying where I am because of fear of the unknown, of the un-rational means giving into it. Somewhere along the way, sadly, I have lost the joy…for reasons I will not consume space on this page with, reasons that made me doubt myself for the very first time ever. I learnt that I never wish to feel that way ever again, so I am ready for the next step, choosing a different path so that I may re-discover my roots and ignite the passion that once driven me in all I did.

So I choose hope.

It is high time to move on, make a choice not based on fear of what I’ll loose if I dare to dream a new path, but one based on hope nonetheless, hope that I can in return give to people around me from a fuller cup. After all, faith in better has been the only constant hope when so many variables surrounded me.

I will no longer continue to bore you with this, dear reader, however I wish to leave you with these words that I have recently been reminded of – maybe you too will consider making and living a different choice:

‘May your choices reflect your hope, not your fears.’    – Nelson Mandela

Of loneliness and light

‘Some of the owner men were kind, because of what they had to do, and some of them were angry because they hated to be cruel, and some of them were cold because they had long ago found out that one could not be an owner unless one were cold.

All of them were caught in something larger than themselves.’ 

The Grapes of Wrath – by John Steinbeck

It feels like I’m standing on top of a hill, where the air is rarified making me breathe  deeper and I need to remember to exhale. The anticipation of what awaits combined with memories of how it used to be risk of being shattered should I dare to look past this hill. Do you feel the same? 

In this time of so much uncertainty where life has proven once again to be unfair and unkind to many, whilst the happy few are ignorant of the bliss that’s offered to them I am reminded of young Tom, coming home and hoping to find his family, only to be confronted with a deserted view: the crumbling house, the silence, the cotton growing wildly in the outhouse and more dark green stems covering the field where once the corn covered the sky. His second chances shattered. Did you ever feel this way?

Whilst this is uncharted territory and the entire world is baffled with varied feelings, I cannot help but wonder, what’s changed since 1939 when people where forcefully taken away from the land they worked on, the land they were born on and they planned to die on? Hard work and becoming one with their crops seems to now translate into hard work and loosing our identities when it’s taken away from us. Nevertheless, I strongly believe that the answer lies in our community – now more than ever before, I’ve come to realise just how quintessential it is to be there for someone, without expecting anything in return, moving away from selfishness and feeling buried away under the pressure of expectations. Does it make you feel this way?

For some of you, it may just be a lonely evening and all you feel inside is the need to reconnect with whoever you once where, but as I am asking myself to reconsider, I am asking you as well – take a deep breath, look past hill and envisage the future you want to build because one thing is for sure, nothing can ever be the same unless we learn to be there for each other to overcome this too. Breathe and hope that tomorrow will be better for all of us, because you are not alone!

I feel a second chance is given to re-write our story – hope you feel the same way too!