"how do you remind yourself every day that things will always work out well for you? how is that you always have good thoughts of moving on with life even when it's hard?"
A friend asked me the above questions.
Subsequently I found myself boarding a train of thoughts that lasted half of yesterday before I was pulled into the buzz of work and meetings and whatnots.
Matter of fact, it is not every day that I think things will work out well. It is not every day that my thoughts are pretty, it is a kaleidoscope of everything, actually. There are the ugly thoughts, the temperamental thoughts, the secret dark thoughts, the self-sabotaging thoughts, the moments when there was no thoughts at all.
A professor shared with me a beautiful line in her class, "we don't look in life, we view."
And I think that is kind of true.
When things get hard, when stuff don't work out, when I faced failures, I am just like any other person. I feel dejected, disappointed, sad, hopeless, (insert another dozens of negative adjectives here), and most of it, I feel, was lost.
Lost.
However, I do not look at lost as if it is an enemy. I view it as a detour, an adventure. And for me, I live for adventure. A chance to do anything and everything and feel everything, and just, let yourself go. It is a chance, a chance to slow down everything, to slow down time, and step back, and just move mindlessly, following the flow of whatever time is supposed to mean in that moment.
And when I'm lost, I found myself on adventure. Alone. Solitarily. Away from my social circle. I will not disappear, but I'll be away with myself, and only myself. I will walk or drive and visit places that I make emotional connection with. The sea, the mountains, the hills, the river, walking in the city, getting lost, and lost in thoughts, and lost. I will do random things, unexpected crazy things, and get myself involved in just anything. Adventures and misadventures.
And I think that is how I cope, how I allow myself to be lost, to break as I need to, to sit still or walk around looking up at the sky, the moon, the stars, the people. To meet strangers, and oh how I love strangers. The small, mundane talks, to talk shits about the world, our job, our philosophy, sharing our story, our mazes and riddles, before we part in our own ways soon after.
And when all of the recalibration are over, I'll be back. I know that I will have to come back. That is a vow. To be back with fresher mind, fresher heart, fresher eyes, fresher spirit, to continue the fight in this damning world. So get lost in this world, get lost all you want, all you need, but remember to come back.
And maybe I will have another blog post for the second part of the question. Till then.