Shaped by life

Many things that look the same at first glance are not. Individualism and diversity are a basic principle of our world order. Anyone who goes through life with open eyes can recognize this everywhere.

Sometimes I feel like I’m not getting anywhere and I don’t know whether it’s a lack of discipline or simply the fact that things always happen in life that we didn’t expect. All the planning I use to organize my weeks sometimes seems of no use. The perfect plan is worthless in an imperfect world. There’s nothing you can do about it, so I try to enrich my life with a certain degree of stoicism and accept that things can’t always go my way.

Bad surprise

This week, it was a negative experience that threw me off course. A break-in at our house, in which a neighbor’s expensive bike and my two hiking jackets, which I had hung up in the cellar to dry, were stolen. Thanks to insurance, the whole thing is not too big a deal financially. The feeling that someone has invaded my privacy weighs more, as does the feeling of powerlessness and the fear that comes with it. In the nights that followed, every noise was a suspicion. And then, out of nowhere, there was another list of tasks that had to be done. Police, report, insurance, repairing the broken cellar compartment locks. Life is never boring. It was the first time in my life that I was confronted with a burglary and I ticked this incident off my mental list of life experiences. This item can be found there in the subcategory “what I don’t really need to experience”. But well, destiny didn’t care and I am one experience richer.

Keeping the eyes open

Apart from this inconvenience, this week has been one of the more unspectacular ones. The days passed with the usual administrative tasks, some sport and caring for my father. But I love discovering exciting or new things in this everyday life. This time, on a jog, it was the pillars of the river power station, which I’ve run past so many times and never noticed how different each one is from the others. Over the years, graffiti and tags that are probably put up there from time to time have been painted over again and again. However – as is usually the case – the original color could not be restored and each of these patches is visible. They turn each of the identical pillars into an individual, something special.

Embracing uniqueness

I think this is a perfect metaphor for the fact that we humans are also shaped by negative experiences as well as positive ones, but that this makes us individual and unique. Something we can be proud of. I will paint over the negative feelings caused by the burglary with a suitable color, no question, but what I have experienced will remain visible a bit for ever. At the latest when I next hang up my new hiking jacket, which I have now bought, in the drying room after washing it, where the old one was stolen.

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