Your relationship has come to an end. The friendship you hold so dear to you has ended. The job that used to pay your bills is no more. Your services are no longer needed. We’ve all been there.

Sometimes we see it coming. Sometimes it completely catches us by surprise. And sometimes, we are the ones who end things. Endings can be painful, but they are part of living. Seasons change. Things come and go.

There are two extremes when it comes to how humans end things.

• The quitters — any sign of a bump in the road, and they…

Imagine if you were to have an “All you can eat and drink buffet” every day and everywhere you go. At home. At work. At the gym. In your car. In the schools. In the parks. Churches, and Mosques. This would require another level of self-control, or most of us would eat to stupor. Some would drown in alcohol….I don’t even want to imagine how that would look like. The world would be in shambles.

Sometimes we have to skip that pizza because we know we have issues with wheat. Sometimes we have to go slow with the alcohol because…

I undress in front of a mirror
I am afraid of what I am about to see
I need someone to help me stay put if what will be revealed from underneath turns out deathly

The only person I trust is the reflection on my mirror
I don’t want pity
I know she won’t tell anyone

As my dress slips down my body
I see that my old wound is still there
glaring at me with anger

I had hoped that by taking no heed to it
it would go away
I had hoped that by covering it
it would disappear altogether…

I have never forgotten the first time I cried at work. It was my first job after college. And the first time that I had to fire someone — instructions from my boss.

I had neither the experience nor the tact to deal with such sensitive matters. This colleague broke down in tears. He begged for a second chance. He told me that his wife was pregnant and was the sole breadwinner in his family.

“I am just the messenger here,” I told him.

I was young. I had never fired anyone before. And so, when he started crying, I…

Most of us are decent human beings, or at least we try. At a young age, when we start to interact with others, the first thing we are taught is to be kind- the golden rule — do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Which is good until you grow up and realize no one taught you how to be kind to yourself.

You were taught to work hard. To eat your veggies and fruits. To keep a tidy house. Proper grooming and table manners. To respect your elders, avoid fights, and be a good citizen.

…

“The only real teacher is not in a forest, or a hut or an ice cave in the Himalayas, it is within us.” Tiziano Terzani

Our society has long stigmatized solitude, we equate solitude with loneliness.

We forget that one can actually be surrounded by people but still feel lonely, and one can be alone without feeling lonely.

As an individual who loves spending time alone, I am often on the receiving end of questions like, is everything ok? Don’t you ever get lonely? Why do you like spending so much time alone?

You will have well-meaning friends and relatives…

We all have those days when we don’t feel like doing anything. The alarm goes off in the morning, but getting out of bed is a struggle. You have your coffee, but you still feel you want to crawl back under your duvet and put a do-not-disturb sign on your door. Only that if you do that, your boss might fire you. Your kid might end up not going to school. Your clients will run to your competition. In short, life doesn’t stop for you to get yourself together.

Our ability to keep going despite the daily life challenges that…