memento mori

My greatest advice to you is this: never give people a second chance. The reason is that the exact same thing, or even something worse, will happen a second time, but this time they will make it look like you are the one at fault. You can be friends with everyone, but generally, you need to be very careful about who you spend the most time with. We are living in a time where you must be on high alert against any kind of emotional or psychological pressure and manipulation. Compromise absolutely nothing on this matter.

And by the way, the biggest lesson I have learned over the past few months is this: give the person across from you exactly as much value as they give you—no more, no less. Truly, the moment you give even a fraction more, the balance gets disrupted, and the other side starts acting as if you are obligated to always give that value. They start thinking too highly of themselves.

"I truly don't know whether I am calm, hyperactive, obsessive, cheerful, tired, or happy. But there is one thing I do know: I hate uncertainty. If I don't have a clear and defined place in your life, I would prefer not to be in your life at all; uncertainty is nothingness. I am either black or white; I don't want to be gray. As I get older, certain things have begun to hold much deeper meanings for me. Take love, for instance. Contrary to today's superficial relationships, I believe love is something incredibly precious. Rather than a mere two-second rush, I believe it possesses a power that can last for years, bringing goosebumps with every single glance, every single touch. To me, it is not just about two bodies, but rather two souls truly seeing each other, loving each other, striving to understand, showing mercy, respecting, protecting, and making sacrifices for one another."

"Human beings are created with emotions, feelings, and free will. Yet sometimes, these emotions, feelings, and thoughts weigh so heavily on us that almost our entire day is spent pondering over what has happened. In reality, there is nothing going on—no new development, no news, no encounter—but there are past memories, regrets, 'what-ifs,' doubts, and promises made; what more could there be? And then, after thinking about everything and overanalyzing it all, a single word comes along with that sense of exhaustion: 'Anyway.' In truth, it is those moments where we say 'anyway' that truly consume us. Sometimes, a war breaks out inside us, as if our swords are our 'what-ifs,' our doubts, our memories, our regrets, and those promises made but never kept… yet the person we are fighting is, once again, 'ourselves.' My mother always used to say that a person's greatest enemy is themselves: 'What a person does to themselves, the whole world could not do if they all came together, because a person's greatest enemy is themselves, their own mind.' This saying has started to make much more sense to me now. Then there are the things we give up on, the decisions we make, and being stuck in certain memories of the past. Giving up sounds so easy, doesn't it? How easily people make life-altering decisions. Have you ever heard of 'living in the past'? In reality, it is the things we give up on that make us who we are, because certain acts of letting go shape our lives. 'Giving up' sounds so cold, yet in some situations, it becomes a person's most healing medicine, their ultimate balm. How difficult it is for a person to give up on a powerful habit that harms them, like an addiction, isn't it? Ultimately, if giving up is what will bring healing, letting go is sometimes the only path. But you are addicted—how do you let go? At that exact point, you have to make a choice. Either you continue and knowingly allow it to harm you, or you lock your heart and mind against whatever it is you need to leave behind, wasting no more time on it, and if possible, you kill that thing inside you. Even while doing this, we remain unaware that we are fighting a war within ourselves. These are not feelings or actions that can be explained in just two or three sentences, but at some point, they are things that simply need to be poured into writing. 'Living in the past'—I must confess, I used to do this frequently myself, but I have started to do it less now because I have realized much more clearly that no matter what I do, I cannot change the past. As long as we are breathing, the future is always there. It took me some time to understand that while we have the chance to shape the future, we have no choice but to draw lessons and experience from what happened in the past; life itself taught me this…"

Real power might actually be knowing what you do and do not deserve.