I was recently reading this thread on Twitter, and it really got me thinking. I don’t know about what in particular, but life seems to lose focus in these moments and there are so many things to be thought when one gets thinking. How far we’ve come. Things we’ve achieved. The things we haven’t. The people we love. Those we don’t. But most importantly, how much we’ve changed and grown.

If I think back a couple of years, I remember just how stigmatised even the conversations surrounding mental health were, let alone owning up to feeling a little less than your optimal self. We’ve become so much better as a society at allowing people to feel as though they can open up about their feelings without the worry of judgement being passed. And I’m glad, so glad. It’s been such a long time coming to get to this point, but we’re finally here. We lend a listening ear, a friendly conversation, and even a meal or two. But, are we really there?

I can only speak for myself when I say this, but every time someone tells me I can reach out to them in my time of need, while I’m touched by the sentiment, I’m also completely overwhelmed by the fact that I most probably won’t. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t want to. But, think of it like this, how do you say to someone for the millionth time “haha, my life’s falling apart again, you got a minute?” – see what I mean? Not only are you trying to unpack your mind, but now you feel that extra added pressure of being a burden on someone.

And I know, I know this isn’t a healthy way to live, but I am still unlearning these bad habits and trying to let the people who love me be there for me from time to time. But, we live in this world where we’re constantly trying to maintain an image of ourselves, and my God, is it exhausting! The funny thing is though, I’ve been holding onto this idea of building an image for a very long time. I remember reading this a few years back, and it stuck with me in a place I never thought it would:

People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don’t deserve them, or that they’ll be unable to achieve them, or of moments that could have been good but weren’t. They don’t suffer. But they don’t live either.

Paulo Coelho

For a long time, I convinced myself that I was undeserving of the good things in life. That I didn’t deserve good people in my life. As though there was something so inexplicably bad within that it would somehow corrupt all those around me. But, the more I grow and the more I leave the doors of my life open to people who fill it with light, the more I come to realise that I was wrong. I was so wrong. My first mistake was believing that I was made in a form less than perfection. My second mistake was believing that it was ever too late to start again. But, I was wrong. On both accounts.

I should have known better than to think Allāh ﷻ would ever make a mistake in His creation. But, we live and we learn, and that is the point of life. To learn and grow in any and every case. To understand that with each rising sun is the opportunity to start again. The point of life, is to live.