Tricklets

Everyone contributes from goodness, but not all goodness measures up.

We have all interacted with that feeling, doing all the best you know how to and still falling short. Trying all the hacks, making all the right efforts, growing, expanding, being positive, seeking help, accepting help, trying and trying again, yet nothing shifts. All you have for reward is silence, stillness, and stalemate. If you can relate with this feeling, this post is for you.

What’s ironic is that the worst event of your life could happen and end up being exactly what you needed to get to the best thing, and sometimes, worst is just worst, no big lessons or positive takeaway, just a 360 turn to how your plans were unfolding and the supposed metric of the existence you were curating.

Life expects hard things of us, and we all, at some point, will do hard things. For some, it will be honouring the wishes of a loved one they are not ready to let go of but just have to, burying a child after watching that child become, burying a child when they didn’t even get the chance to become, losing a parent before you had the chance to show a modicum of appreciation for the sacrifices they have made. For some, it will be losing a body part, an ability for independence and sustenance, or finding a way to live again on the other side of life when you have become incapacitated.

Some of us are just one news away from a turning point. A tragedy, a miracle, a storm or bliss. It doesn’t matter; it is a merry-go-round, and we’d all get our chance with ups and downs. Sometimes, it is not even our misfortune that incapacitates us; it is also having to participate in the misfortunes of others in a way that alters us.

The constant reliving of highs and lows can be draining because it always makes you question when you are happy, when the next crying session will start and vice versa. Sorrow indeed helps one appreciate joy differently, but sometimes, it is even better to just experience the blissful ignorance of joy without the pain that missing out could teach.

To quote Andrea Gibson, ‘joy is a muscle you build by dancing when you are inclined to stay in bed‘. I think the point is the need for the aggressive pursuit of joy through practice as opposed to happenstance. What makes life beautiful, however, is acceptance more than the effect of the experience.

I remember a time when I just wanted my life to skip to the good parts. The part where all my dreams had come true: I have a stable and flourishing career, a loving family, a good financial standing, a passion that pays and flourishes, more trips and relaxation, all-around goodness, but of course that doesn’t happen. Instead, you get all the motions, good, bad, and ugly.

The reality now becomes that all your dreams don’t often come true at once, you cannot escape your life, you cannot pause it or fast forward, or rewind like you would a movie, all you get is to live it for whatever it is worth as long as you get. It is in these in-betweens that we define purpose.

Tricklet is about accepting moments even when you cannot see the whole picture. It is the continuous striving for hope and optimism, faith and struggle.

Xoxo,

Dcconoisseur