One of the beauties of life is nostalgic experiences. When you get a whiff of a familiar smell, or hear a certain tune, or see a certain sight that brings back memories you thought were locked away. Nostalgia is such a beautiful human experience but to me it can be a dark rabbit hole. I tend to romanticise my past so much and I think we all do to some degree. Like the early high school years or the summer of 2017 or the gaming marathons of covid lockdown. I miss it all but in that time I recall not being truly happy. And that’s what sticks out to me, I sit there sometimes for long periods of time replaying times in my life and memories in my head repeatedly. That version of myself seems like such a stranger but it was still me. The sad reality of this escapade is when I truly realise that I didn’t know how good I had it back then.

Truth is it does not truly get better wholistically. Yes you start to feel better and become wiser as you get older. But the responsibilities grow too, so do the financial burdens and your goals. Your ambitions grow with you and you feel like you are running out of time. If only 1 year ago I was working as a cabler and wouldn’t have imagined where I am now would even happen. Who knows what the future holds, and we get so caught up in chasing that next version of ourselves or that pay rise or that milestone that we forget to live in the now. We forget we are living in the path that we once prayed for. I love the concept of letting your future shape you and not your past. The past is not you, what you learn from it and make of your future is the real you.

The other night the window of my room was letting in a slight breeze, I sat in the darkness of my room with the minimal clouded sunlight peering through my window. I stared left at myself in the mirror and then looked at my desk. It was clean, had my laptop in front of my small monitor, with my workbook on my left side, and jotted on it was my to do list for the day. And then it hit me, I am here right now, I have been yearning to get back into content creation and my passion for videography. But I was so caught up with a tough project at work and kept giving myself excuses. All that lost time caught up with the hustle and bustle of this constantly moving city. I even rushed my meals, rushed my entertainment, I rushed work, I rushed my commute. My whole life was rushed. I am done living like that, and I made a conscious decision that as soon as that rough project was completed I am reverting back to who I was. I am going to re-invest all that time into myself, taking all the lessons learnt from that short stressful period of my life and just tackle the future head on. And as the breeze swooped into my room that night, I opened my drawer, dusted it off, and returned my camera back to my desk. I fired it up and recorded what I felt.

I am done living in the past and putting my passions off to the future. I am going to live in the now and hopefully one day feel content and comfortable in my pursuits as a person. Then my future self can finally be nostalgic but look back and thank me.

All the Best

H

Live Today

Houssam S