Would it be what you built, or would it be just… empty?
What would remain in the end? What would be the last thing you see with the last breath you breathe? A kaleidoscope of memories? Would it be what you built all these years or would it be just… empty?
The world moves too fast and burns too bright, so you try to run along, perhaps chasing a far seated dream or even perhaps seeking validation of your own worth, nobody would ever know, but you do, right? Our mind lets us think we are in control of everything around us and for a fleeting moment it is true, yet in the blink of an eye, the world comes crashing down upon us. The strings really seem to be connected, sometimes don't they? Everything makes sense, destiny makes sense, but destiny always had a complicated relationship with our existence. Is it still destiny when you are pulled away from something that destiny got you in the first place, or do you bend heaven and hell to write your own?
We often ask ourselves but will we ever know why we put on our armours each day and fight in the battlefield of life. We like to think we are winning, or so is the goal by the end of it, yet we bleed in the colours of the misery our own sorrow brews.
Drained of all the belief we sometimes fail to realise that; it is only a battle as long as you are fighting. Some days, more than the others it might be okay to let your armour down. There are elements in you transcending the landscape you paint to be your reality. Your reality changes, just as your landscape does and to every winter, there comes a summer but then, so does every night to day.
Somehow, in the process of chasing the perfect version of what we are, we lose out on actual moments with the people and things around us. We do not wake up grateful or sleep content. There are going to be times when the rain just won't stop pouring, but that doesn't mean you have to run away chasing the sun. Settling down doesn't mean letting go of your dreams and accepting stagnancy, it simply means being at peace with who you are and the world around you, and it is the hardest battle you will ever fight, and it would come along with embracing every chink in your armour you never knew you needed.
But when you do, you'll realise that perfection and success aren't farfetched dreams. Perfection doesn't lie in impeccability; it lies in the eye of the viewer. Even when the world seems to go against you, in your worst times and darkest nights, and sometimes even when you don't believe in yourself, there will always be people who love you, and have been doing so, not for what you do but for who you are. This is your circle of protection, your sanctuary, your safe haven. Maybe sometimes you will have to bend heaven and hell to safeguard it, and maybe you'll lose yourself trying to do so but it'll always be home, and you can always come back home. And someday, just over a flashback, when you stand over the pinnacle of your achievements or perhaps the brink of your existence, you would know, you lived, and not existed.
Hitarthi Angral, XII A, Editor in Chief
Cambridge International School for Girls
2019-2020
