Opportunities

Every time life shakes us up – whether through an external blow or an internal shock – an opportunity opens up. Not just to resist, endure or put up with, but to review how we are interpreting what is happening to us. Sometimes, those difficult moments can become an invitation to start over. And I’m not talking about a radical change that happens only once, as if it were something exceptional. I’m talking about a disposition that we can renew as many times as we are willing to do so.
A single life can have many versions of itself. A single life can contain many. The key is not in how many opportunities life gives us, but in how many we are really willing to live with intensity and commitment.
There are days — perhaps without anything external changing — when something happens inside us. And that is enough for us to be able to look at the past in a different way, to give it new meaning and to open ourselves up to a different direction. Because life is not fixed. It is dynamic, it is always in motion. The body changes, the environment changes, the people around us change… and, with all that, the story we tell ourselves about who we are also changes. That story, our narrative, is not written in stone. It can be revised, expanded, transformed.
However, we often suffer because reality does not meet the expectations we have placed on it. We suffer when we realize that the world is not here to fulfill our plans. Suffering emerges when we realize that existence does not meet our expectations as if it were a tailor-made choice. And when that happens, frustration sets in. Conflict arises between what we wanted it to be… and what it is.
At times like these it is important to remember something: the future is not a threat. It is not an uncertain cloud that comes along and darkens everything. It is something that we are starting to build now. It is true that we cannot foresee it completely, but neither is it totally out of our reach. The future is not something that we can control, but we can accompany it. The challenge is to remain alert, open, accessible and responsible. And to act from today, with a vision that allows us to open up new meanings and new possibilities.
Nothing — neither what happens to us outside nor what we feel inside — should serve as an excuse to close the door to change and become stagnant. Generally, the biggest obstacles are not in the environment, but in our own ways of thinking, in our attitude. There are always other paths.
And sometimes the first step is forgiveness. Forgiving others. Forgiving ourselves. Not as a moral obligation, but as a decision that helps us reconnect with what still drives us to move forward. Even in the midst of pain, it is possible to get back up.
That change that many await as something that will come someday… can no longer be postponed. It doesn’t happen in the distant future, it happens in the present. Only from the now can a new direction be chosen. Because transformation does not depend on everything outside being fine. Rather than changing the world around us, effective change is related to transforming our disposition towards what lies ahead.
Prabhuji