reflection in may

Originally Published: May 15, 2025

This year has been a little chaotic.

I knew things were too calm at the start of the year, it was pretty unsettling.

I had a weird feeling. It was like the "calm before the storm".

And so it was.

And now that I think about it, that weird feeling was not because I felt a storm in my life brewing. It was because there was no change, my life lacked change. So, unexpectedly, life throws obstacles at me and I throw obstacles at myself. It's not entirely my fault, but it sorta is.

I went exploring. I wanted to go deeper into my faith. I still don't know whether I got lost or I found my way out. I'm still doubting everything, even if it's the fifth month of the year.

Life is odd. Life is cruel. Life is unfair. Yet in the midst of all this chaos, we can still find joy in these times of hardship. It's a silver lining. The irony that keeps us sane.

We can't just subject ourselves to nihilism or materialism, we have to find our purpose.

Not just my own purpose, not because of the pride we have inside, but to discover who we really are. Whether it's discovering your place in society, or what you really mean to those who cherish your existence. Maybe, your purpose is something that no one has every achieved yet.

Sometimes, your purpose becomes your burden, and that's okay.

Life is weird.

When it gives you lemons, you make lemonade.

I learned a lot this year. A lot about who I am and what love really means. Love is friendship, love is kind, love is the embodiment of contentment.

Love is not only romantic. Even if the media portrays it all as romance, it's not the only important type of love.

The love you receive from your friends, the platonic intimacy that thrives and bonds you together.

The love you receive from your parents, the feeling that you know that they will be there for you. Even if it means there will be arguments and conflict. They all serve the greater good.

And out of chaos, peace can settle.

I tend to lose myself a lot.

Not because I'm careless, but because I tend to care about others more than myself.

There's an irony to it. I feel joy in making others smile, in supporting others, yet at the same time I hate myself in many ways. Not in the way that I would die because I disliked myself so much, just not liking myself too much.

I have flaws. You have flaws. We all have flaws.

Sometimes we lose sight of that, and we judge all the time until there's nothing left to judge.

We think that just because we have the will to do whatever we want that it's morally right to judge others for what they're doing. We ignore their personality, their character, and we just judge who they are on the surface. We never know, or feel what they're going through. We just say, we don't think.

The cruelty of the world is not fueled by nature's punishment or natural selection, it's us. We're sentencing ourselves to our medicine. That's why we should strive to be better, every single day, whether through our will or through divine intervention. Whichever you believe in.

If we stand still, and never change, how can we expect the world to change? How can we expect the world to move? How can we expect anything?

We have to keep thinking, and never stop moving.

But just because I said to never stop moving, we should also stop running.

I suffer from this as well.

We run and we run. We chase dreams that we can't achieve. We escape the problems that we suffer through everyday.

Sometimes, it's good to slow down. In a world that never stops, in a world that never feels, it's good to slow down.

To slow down is to appreciate the world, even in its chaotic image.

We take the little moments and frame them on our walls.

We take our mistakes and we use it as a stepping stone to our next goal.

We take everything we've learnt and we stop. We think. We feel.

And it's quiet.

The world stops.

The world stops when we slow down.