Independence is the biggest privilege of life.
Not the kind that makes your country have a constitution or the one that takes care of your finances for the rest of your life.
But the kind where you had thought you needed something, and you not having it didn’t bother you.
You are going to Europe but don’t get your Schengen visa.
Can you still be happy with your life back home?
Or you had conversations with a prospect on a project to the end of signing the agreement, and the project eventually didn’t materialise.
Could you really, genuinely wish them well?
Or you wanted to eat a special cuisine for your birthday but for some reason just could not have it.
Could you still be happy with the dal rice you “have to” eat on your special day?
By no means I wish upon ill fate for you or myself or anyone else.
But what if fate shows up nonetheless?
Can you honour it with what it brings, even though it brings things that aren’t akin to your liking? If you can still be at peace with whatever is happening, big or small, while dealing with it in the best way you can, that is when you are truly independent.
As the Latin phrase goes, “Amor fati”.
Not getting what you want
