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BE LIKE THE RIVER

2026-09-07T00:00:00Z

BE LIKE THE RIVER

Why does a river reach the sea?

Is it because it is the strongest?

Because it can break through every rock in its way?

No.

Most of the time, a river does not even fight the rocks in its path. When it comes across a rock, it changes direction, flows around it, and keeps moving.

Sometimes its path becomes narrow. Sometimes its water runs low. Sometimes a huge obstacle stands in its way. But somehow, it finds a way forward.

Perhaps this is the most important lesson a river can teach us:

“We don’t have to overcome every obstacle. Sometimes we simply need to keep going.”

A few days ago, I came across a beautiful wisdom story about this.

A young man, overwhelmed by the difficulties in his life, went to an old sage.

“Nothing seems to work, no matter what I do,” he said. “I try to fix one thing, and another problem appears. I try to get along with people, but we don’t understand each other. I set a goal, and another obstacle gets in my way. I don’t know what to do anymore.”

The sage listened but did not answer right away. Instead, he took the young man to the bank of a river.

They stood there for a while, quietly watching the water flow.

Then the sage asked:

“Why do you think this river will reach the sea?”

The young man looked at the river.

“Because it is strong,” he said.

The sage shook his head.

“No.”

“Because it can overcome the obstacles in its path?”

“No.”

The young man thought for a moment.

“Then why?”

The sage looked at the river and said:

“Because it keeps flowing.”

Then he pointed to a large rock on the riverbank.

“Look at that rock. It is much stronger than the river. But that rock has been sitting here for years. The river, meanwhile, keeps moving forward.”

The young man asked:

“What if it comes across an obstacle that is too big to get past?”

The sage smiled.

“Then it finds another way.”

Something similar happens in our lives.

We often think being strong means overcoming everything that stands in our way.

We want to win every argument.

We feel that we must respond to everyone who treats us unfairly.

We keep pushing against a door that has already closed.

We spend hours, sometimes days, trying to explain ourselves to people who simply do not understand us.

And then we wonder why we are so exhausted.

The truth is, some things cannot be changed by force.

We cannot change some people.

Some doors are simply closed to us.

And some paths no longer lead anywhere.

Accepting this is not easy. We don’t like giving up on something we have invested so much in. We think, “Have I really come all this way for nothing?”

But sometimes giving up is not the same as losing.

Sometimes giving up means continuing your journey from somewhere else.

The river seems to understand this better than we do.

It does not get angry at the rock in its path.

It does not ask, “Why are you here?”

It does not keep crashing into the rock and trying to go backward.

It simply changes direction.

We, on the other hand, often get stuck in the same place.

“If only things had been different.”

“If only that person had not done that.”

“If only I hadn’t missed that opportunity.”

“If only that door hadn’t closed.”

We know we cannot change the past, yet we keep going back to it.

But you cannot move forward by constantly looking behind you.

The river does not flow because it keeps thinking about where it has been. It flows because it continues from where it is.

Sometimes we need to do the same.

If something didn’t happen, it didn’t happen.

If someone wants to leave, let them go.

If a door has closed, perhaps it is time to look for another one.

If a plan has failed, we can make a new plan.

None of this is easy. But expecting life to always go the way we want is not realistic either.

What matters is not only what happens to us, but what we do with what happens to us.

Maybe there is a big rock in front of you today.

Maybe something you have wanted for years has never happened.

Maybe someone you trusted deeply disappointed you.

Maybe something you started did not turn out the way you hoped.

Maybe you feel that no matter what you do, you simply cannot move forward.

At times like these, instead of asking yourself, “Why am I not strong enough?” try asking a different question:

“How can I move forward from here?”

Because sometimes what we need is not more strength, but a different direction.

Sometimes we need to slow down.

Sometimes we need to rest.

Sometimes we need to step back.

And sometimes we need to let go of something we have been holding on to for far too long.

None of these things means that we have failed.

What matters is that we do not stop completely.

A river does not always flow quickly. In some places it rushes. In others, it moves slowly. Sometimes it becomes wider. Sometimes it narrows.

But eventually, it reaches the sea.

Our lives are like that too.

Not every period of our lives will be the same.

Sometimes things will go well. Sometimes they won’t.

Sometimes we will feel strong. Sometimes we will be tired.

Sometimes the road ahead will be clear. Other times, we will have no idea what to do next.

All of this is part of life.

So don’t expect yourself to be strong all the time.

You don’t have to win every battle.

You don’t have to explain yourself to everyone.

And you don’t have to open every door.

Just remember this:

A closed road does not mean the journey is over.

Maybe you simply need to take another road.

Think like a river.

Don’t fight every rock that appears in your path.

Go around it if you have to.

Wait for a while if you need to.

Change direction if necessary.

But eventually, start flowing again.

Because sometimes the most important thing in life is not being strong.

It is being able to keep going without giving up.

The river quietly teaches us this:

“You don’t have to overcome every obstacle to reach the sea. Sometimes, you just have to keep flowing.”

LIFE DOESN’T HAPPEN TO US; IT HAPPENS FOR US

2026-09-06T00:00:00Z

LIFE DOESN’T HAPPEN TO US; IT HAPPENS FOR US

There are things that happen to us throughout our lives whose meaning we cannot understand at the time. A door we desperately wanted to open suddenly closes in our face. Someone we trusted disappoints us. A plan we have been working on for years falls apart in an instant. Sometimes, we are confronted with a loss we never expected.

At such times, we cannot help but ask ourselves the same question:

“Why is all of this happening to me?”

Perhaps this is not the question we should be asking ourselves during the difficult times in our lives. Perhaps we need to change the question slightly:

“What is all of this trying to tell me?”

Because we cannot always understand immediately why every event enters our lives. Some things have a logical explanation; others do not. Some events are the result of our own choices, while others are simply part of life that lies beyond our control. But we always have some power over the kind of mark our experiences will leave on us.

Beautiful days make this easier to understand.

Sometimes, when we open the curtains in the morning and sunlight fills the room, when we have a cup of coffee with someone we love, or when an old friend we have not heard from in a long time calls us, we remember once again how beautiful life can actually be. In those moments, we realize that we do not need extraordinary things. How wonderful it would be if we could recognize the value of what we have before we lose it.

Good days teach us:

“To notice the beauty of life.”

The lesson of bad days is somewhat heavier.

Difficult times do not leave us alone. They demand patience. They demand resilience. Sometimes they disrupt the life we have become accustomed to and force us to make decisions for which we were never prepared. Yet years later, when we look back, we may realize that the periods that changed us the most were not the times when we were comfortable, but the times when we had no choice but to struggle.

Because we come to know ourselves best during difficult times.

It is during those days that you discover who is truly there for you. You realize that you gave some people more importance than they deserved, while you may have been unfair to others. You also begin to understand what truly matters, often when you are faced with the possibility of losing something.

And there is more.

Sometimes, we discover a strength within ourselves that we never knew existed only because circumstances leave us no choice but to find it.

Good people, on the other hand, become part of the beautiful memories of our lives.

There are people who, when they enter our lives, make everything seem a little easier and a little more meaningful. We feel comfortable around them. We laugh together and talk for hours. Sometimes, simply sitting beside each other without saying a word is enough.

Then life takes us in different directions.

We lose touch with some people; we lose others altogether. But the mark left by good people is not easily erased. Even years later, a song, a street, a particular scent, or an ordinary sentence can bring them back to us. We may remove certain people from our lives, but we cannot remove the beautiful moments we shared with them.

Perhaps the people who hurt us do not enter our lives for no reason either.

They teach us harder lessons. They teach us whom to trust, where we need to say “no,” and that no matter how much we give to others without respecting ourselves, eventually we will have nothing left to give.

Sometimes, someone leaving our life hurts deeply. At the time, we cannot understand why it happened. But as time passes, we may realize that some separations were not so much a loss as a space being created in our lives.

Perhaps one of life's important lessons is this:

“We do not have to love everything we experience. But neither do we have to experience anything in vain.”

Life does not always give us what we want. In fact, something we desperately wanted but did not receive may, years later, turn out to have been one of the best things that ever happened to us.

A closed door may lead us somewhere else.

A relationship we ended may give us the opportunity to rediscover ourselves.

An opportunity we thought we had lost may become the beginning of a path we had never even considered.

But there is something we need to be careful about here.

It would be simplistic to say that every pain we experience must have a “good reason.” Sometimes life really is unfair. Some losses cannot be undone. Some wounds are carried for years. And some questions never find an answer.

Even so, there is one precious power that remains in our hands:

The power to choose the meaning we give to what we have experienced.

Instead of asking, “Why did this happen to me?”, sometimes we need to ask, “What can I do from this point forward?”

Because the first question ties us to the past. The second allows us to look ahead.

Perhaps life is not always working against us. Perhaps it is simply moving in a direction we cannot yet see.

Understanding this does not mean that we have to accept everything that happens to us. It does not mean remaining silent when we are treated unfairly, smiling when we are hurt, or pretending that our pain does not exist. On the contrary, it means accepting what has happened as it is and deciding what we are going to do with it.

Enjoying life on good days, and not losing ourselves on bad days…

Valuing good people, learning from difficult people, and continuing on our way…

And most importantly, understanding that we do not have to figure out the entire meaning of our lives today.

Because when we are living our own story, we cannot see the whole story.

You cannot know the ending while you are in the middle of a book. Some pages may seem meaningless, some may hurt you, and others may make you laugh. But when you finish the entire book, you may look back and understand more clearly why certain chapters were there.

Life is somewhat like that.

What we see as an ending today may be the beginning of tomorrow. What we see as a loss today may, years later, turn out to have opened another door for us. An event whose meaning we cannot understand today may, in time, reveal an important truth about who we are.

That is why, instead of trying to control everything in life, perhaps it is more valuable to learn how to live with whatever life brings us.

Good days remind us of the beauty of life.

Bad days reveal our strength to endure.

Good people leave beautiful memories.

Difficult people teach us important lessons.

And perhaps what truly matters is not so much what happens to us, but what we choose to do with what happens to us.

We do not have to understand everything today.

Some things need to be left to time. Let the wounds heal, let the anger fade, let life move forward a little…

Because as time passes, some answers reveal themselves naturally.

And one day, when we look back, perhaps we will be able to say:

“I did not understand why it happened that day. Now I can see more clearly where life was taking me.”

BEFORE LIFE GROWS COLD

2026-09-05T00:00:00Z

BEFORE LIFE GROWS COLD

One of life’s biggest tricks is making us believe that we have plenty of time. We always think we have a little more time. We put off saying what we want to say. We tell ourselves, “I’ll call later,” and leave a friend waiting. We keep looking for the right moment to show someone how much we love them.

But time doesn’t follow our plans. Yesterday becomes today, and today turns into tomorrow. Most of the time, we don’t even notice what we have lost or when we lost it.

Perhaps our deepest regrets come not from the mistakes we made, but from the things we never had the chance to do.

The “I love you” we never quite managed to say...

The visit we kept postponing...

The friend waiting for a call...

A mother or father we never found the time to hug...

We often understand the value of these things only after they are gone.

But some things should not have to be lost before we understand their value.

If we love someone, we should tell them. If we miss someone, we should call. If we want to hug someone, we shouldn’t wait for a special occasion. If we have something to be thankful for, we should say it today.

Because life may not be long enough for us to keep putting our feelings off.

These lines attributed to Can Yücel make us think about exactly this:

Drink in life while it still has its taste

Without letting love grow cold

Without letting passion grow cold

Without letting friendship grow cold

Live it to the fullest

If you love someone, run after them

There isn’t even five minutes to waste

Love people

Without hurting them, without breaking their hearts

There is no time for breaking hearts

Drink your tea

Before it gets cold in the cup

Life is passing

Living can hurt the heart…

The word that stays with me most in these lines is “without letting it grow cold.”

Tea is easy to let grow cold. You leave it for a while and its taste changes. If you want, you can heat it up again. But human relationships are not like tea.

A friendship that has grown cold may never return to the warmth it once had. A broken heart may not be easy to mend. A love neglected for years may not always come back to life.

Sometimes all it takes is time.

Sometimes pride.

Sometimes resentment.

And sometimes the weight of all the things we never said...

We are remarkably good at putting love off.

“I’ll call later.”

“I’ll go next week.”

“We’ll talk sometime.”

“Now isn’t a good time.”

“We have plenty of time.”

Perhaps one of the most dangerous things we tell ourselves is this:

“We have plenty of time.”

Do we really?

We have no way of knowing.

This is one of the strange things about life. While chasing after great happiness, we fail to notice the small moments of happiness right in front of us.

We think about the vacation we have been waiting for, yet we overlook the simple pleasure of having a cup of tea with someone we love today. We wait for the day when we finally achieve something important and miss the beauty offered by an ordinary day.

Then, one day, we look back.

And we realize that life was made up less of those great days we were waiting for and more of the small moments we actually lived.

A friend knocking on the door...

Our mother’s voice on the phone...

A child’s laughter...

A cup of tea in the late afternoon...

The familiar smile on the face of someone we haven’t seen in a long time...

Or simply sitting quietly beside someone we love, without saying a word...

These are not insignificant details of life.

Perhaps life itself is made up of exactly these moments.

We often think we will remember the big events. But years later, what stays with us is usually something else: the way someone looked at us, who we laughed with one evening, or which words warmed our hearts.

And then there is hurting people.

One of the easiest things we do in relationships is hurt each other. One of the hardest is winning back the heart of someone we have hurt.

A few words spoken in anger can cast a shadow over a relationship built over many years. It may take only a few seconds to say those words, but years to erase the mark they leave behind.

That is why sometimes silence can be the wisest thing we can say.

Stopping for a moment, taking a breath, and asking ourselves, “What will happen if I say this now?” can save us from many regrets.

Because being right and being happy are not always the same thing.

Sometimes we win an argument but lose the person standing in front of us. In the end, we may still have our sense of being right, but we may no longer have a friend to share things with, a loved one to hug, or someone to talk to.

Of course, this does not mean we should accept every injustice or simply give in. We need to protect ourselves, set boundaries when necessary, and speak up when we are treated unfairly.

But we don’t have to humiliate the other person or wound their dignity while doing so.

This is where maturity begins.

Knowing what to say is important. Knowing what not to say is just as important.

Perhaps one of the simplest lessons life teaches us is this:

If you love someone, don’t wait.

If you miss them, call.

If you hurt someone, make amends.

If you have something to be thankful for, say it today.

If you want to hug someone, hug them.

Because some things really do have an expiration date.

Tea gets cold.

Food gets cold.

A house becomes quiet.

A room becomes empty.

A phone stops ringing as often as it once did.

And sometimes a person quietly leaves our life.

By then, sentences beginning with “If only...” don’t mean much anymore.

That is why we should not keep putting life off until some supposedly better time. If we wait for everything to be perfect, we may end up missing life itself.

The time we have today is, in fact, the most valuable time we possess.

The first thing these lines remind me of is that we should not put love off.

We should show people how much they mean to us instead of waiting for them to somehow understand it on their own. Love is not simply a feeling we carry inside ourselves. It needs to be expressed, shown, and lived.

The second lesson is accepting that time is not unlimited.

We can make plans for tomorrow. But there is no guarantee that tomorrow will be given to us. That is why we should stop constantly handing today over to tomorrow.

Another lesson is not neglecting our friendships and relationships.

Relationships do not take care of themselves. Sometimes a phone call, a short visit, or a sincere “How are you?” can strengthen a bond that lasts for years.

Another important lesson is learning to speak without hurting people.

Once words leave our mouths, they are no longer under our control. We cannot know in advance what kind of mark they will leave on another person’s heart. That is why, especially when we are angry, waiting a little can often be wiser than speaking immediately.

And perhaps most importantly, we should not miss the small joys while waiting for the big ones.

It is a mistake to tie all the beauty of life to major achievements, long vacations, or special occasions.

Sometimes happiness is in the smell of tea brewing in the kitchen.

Sometimes it is in the smile of someone we love...

And sometimes it is simply in a short conversation with a friend we haven’t seen in a long time...

That is why we should occasionally ask ourselves a very simple question:

Did I show the people I love that I love them today?

If the answer is no, perhaps it is not too late.

We can pick up the phone.

We can send a message.

We can knock on a door.

We can say, “I’m here for you.”

We can say, “I love you.”

We can say, “Forgive me.”

Or we can simply sit beside someone we love and have a cup of tea together without saying anything at all.

Because life really is passing.

Tea really does get cold.

People change.

Paths separate.

And time keeps moving, whether we are ready or not.

So let’s live without letting love grow cold, without leaving friendships waiting, without hurting people unnecessarily, and without constantly putting life off until another day.

Because some things can be warmed up again.

But time that has passed never can.

THREE KINDS OF FRIENDSHIP

2026-09-04T00:00:00Z

THREE KINDS OF FRIENDSHIP

How many friends do we really need in our lives?

If we asked ourselves that question, the answer might seem like a surprisingly large number at first. We have hundreds of names in our phones and hundreds of followers on social media. On our birthdays, dozens of messages arrive. When we share a photograph, people we know and many we barely know click “like.”

All of this may give us the feeling that we are surrounded by people. But being surrounded by people is not the same as being close to them.

We can be among hundreds of people and still feel completely alone. At the same time, we may have only three or four people in our lives whose presence feels like more than enough. Because the measure of friendship is not so much how many people surround us, but how many truly remain beside us when life gets difficult.

I tend to think that the friendships we need throughout our lives can be grouped into three kinds.

The first is the friend we can laugh with when life is going well.

When everything is going smoothly, it isn't difficult to find people willing to share our happiness. There are those who celebrate our successes, rejoice in our good news, and laugh with us around a table. Happiness has a way of spreading. We naturally enjoy being part of someone else's joy.

But the real value of friendship is rarely revealed when everything is going well.

The real question is not who stays with us when life is smiling at us, but who doesn't walk away when life turns its back on us.

Because life has its dark days, too.

There are losses. Failures. Disappointments. Resentments we keep to ourselves. And sometimes there are wounds we cannot tell anyone about perhaps because we cannot even find the words to describe them.

That is when we discover the value of the second kind of friend:

The person who stays when we are hurting.

Such a friend does not always need to have the right answer. Sometimes they don't need to say anything at all. Sitting beside us, truly listening, not dismissing what we are going through, and simply staying even when they have no idea what to do may be enough.

Because some pain cannot be fixed right away.

There are times when what we need is not advice but to be understood.

“Forget about it. It will pass.”

“What is there to be so upset about?”

“It could have been worse.”

Of course, these things are usually said with good intentions. But sometimes even well-meaning words can make us feel more alone rather than less hurt.

A true friend does not rush to silence our pain. First, they stay with us in it.

Perhaps someone who remains beside us on our hardest day says more by simply being there than they could ever say with a hundred comforting words.

But friendship has another dimension, perhaps an even deeper one:

Not losing each other as we change.

Because we do not remain the same people throughout our lives.

As the years pass, our thoughts change. Our priorities change. Our understanding of life changes. When the values that guide us shift in importance, things we once considered essential may suddenly lose their meaning. We learn new things. We realize that we were wrong about some things. We question beliefs we once took for granted.

In short, without even realizing it, we become someone new.

The third kind of friend is the person who can keep walking with us through all of that change.

They do not imprison us in the person we used to be.

They do not turn our transformation into an accusation by saying, “You weren't like this before.” Instead, they try to understand who we are becoming.

Sometimes they encourage us. Sometimes they tell us the truth, even when we don't want to hear it. They may point out something in us that we cannot see ourselves. When necessary, they stop us from making a mistake; at other times, they give us the courage to take another step forward.

But they do not try to live our life for us.

Because friendship is not about managing each other's lives. It is about being able to walk alongside one another.

Perhaps that is why we don't need a great many friends.

Someone to laugh with when life is good...

Someone who can sit quietly beside us when life is painful...

Someone who can share the road with us as we change, grow older, and make our way through life's ups and downs...

Finding all three in different people is already a great blessing.

But if you are fortunate enough to find all three in one person, you possess one of life's greatest forms of wealth.

Some people enter our lives and walk with us for a while. They become part of our good days. Some hold our hand when times are hard. And some simply remain, year after year.

They know our childhood. They witnessed our youth. They have seen our mistakes as well as our successes. They know us when we are strong, and they know us when we fall apart.

Sometimes they understand what we are thinking before we even say it. Sometimes they can tell from the sound of our voice that something isn't right.

And as the years go by, the bond between two people changes in a quiet way. We no longer need to explain everything. We don't have to justify every action or spend time explaining why we did what we did.

Because truly knowing someone gradually reduces the need to explain ourselves to one another.

If you have found such a person, don't take their presence for granted.

We will meet many people throughout our lives. Some will quietly pass through. With some, our paths will eventually separate without an argument, without resentment, without anyone being at fault. With others, we may sit around the same table and laugh for hours, only to realize years later that we can barely remember their names.

But very few people will choose to remain part of the same story with us.

Those people are different.

They are more than friends.

They are witnesses to our lives.

They know where we have come from, see who we are today, and can still recognize us as we move toward the future.

If someone shares your happiness, stays beside you in your pain, and, when you change, chooses to walk with you rather than hold you back, recognize that person's worth.

Because many things in life can be replaced.

A new job...

A new home...

New surroundings, new acquaintances...

But it is not easy to fill the place of someone with whom you have laughed for years, sat in silence, and shared the story of your life.

Perhaps, when our lives are coming to an end, we will not remember how many friends we had. We will remember how many people we were truly able to be ourselves around.

And perhaps real friendship is not as complicated as we sometimes imagine.

Being able to laugh together...

Being able to sit in silence when words are not enough...

Being there for each other when it hurts...

And as life changes us, continuing to walk the same road despite all the storms along the way.

If you have found all three of these things in one person, do not think of them as merely a friend.

Recognize them for what they are: one of life's rare gifts.

SOME BATTLES ARE WON IN SILENCE

2026-09-03T00:00:00Z

SOME BATTLES ARE WON IN SILENCE

Sometimes, we become exhausted not because the problems in our lives are so big, but because we give them too much of our attention.

We have an argument with someone. Perhaps it lasts only a few minutes, yet it continues in our minds for days. We replay something that was said, asking ourselves over and over, “Why did they say that?” We reread a message, searching for hidden meanings between the words. We try to understand what lies behind a look, a silence, or a seemingly insignificant gesture.

Yet the incident is already over.

What continues is often not the event itself, but our habit of reliving it in our minds.

And so, a problem that was tiny to begin with can gradually take up an enormous amount of space in our lives without us even realizing it.

There is an old wisdom story about this.

A sage was walking through the forest with his student when they came upon a small fire on the ground. It was still very small, struggling to burn among a few dry branches.

The student immediately bent down and began adding wood to it.

The sage asked:

“What are you doing?”

“Master, I am making the fire bigger.”

The sage watched the fire for a while and then smiled.

“Why?”

The student was puzzled.

“Because the fire is burning.”

The sage nodded and said:

“You don't have to make everything that is burning grow.”

Then he walked away from the fire.

After a while, because no one added any more wood, the fire gradually became smaller and eventually went out.

The sage turned to his student and said:

“Some problems in life are like that. What makes them grow is often not how big they were in the beginning, but what we continue to give them.”

This applies not only to problems, but also to resentment, anger, arguments, and the injustices people sometimes inflict upon us.

Someone has hurt you.

And every time you remember that hurt, you throw another piece of wood onto the fire.

Someone has said something cruel to you. Each time you replay those words in your mind, you begin living through something that was actually said and finished long ago.

Someone has belittled you. As you spend days thinking, “How could they say that to me?” you allow that person to occupy far more space in your life than they deserve.

Perhaps this is where the real problem begins.

What someone does to us matters, but so does the amount of mental energy we continue to give that event afterward.

Of course, this does not mean ignoring injustice.

It does not mean putting up with everything, abandoning our boundaries, or remaining silent in the face of wrongdoing. Sometimes we need to speak. Sometimes we need to stand up for ourselves. And sometimes we need to look someone in the eye and say, “This is where I draw the line.”

But if, after doing all that, we continue replaying the same event in our minds hundreds of times, perhaps we are no longer struggling with the other person. Perhaps we are struggling with our own minds.

Because our minds grow around whatever we repeatedly turn toward.

If we keep returning to anger, our anger deepens. If we continually feed our fears, they become stronger. The more we dwell on our resentments, the more the past finds its way into our present.

But the opposite is also possible.

We can nurture peace, understanding, and calm.

That is why sometimes the first step toward solving a problem is to stop giving it more of our thoughts.

We do not have to win every argument.

We do not have to correct every misunderstanding or explain ourselves to everyone. The energy we spend trying to make someone understand us when they have no intention of doing so often comes at the expense of the time and attention we should be giving ourselves.

Besides, our time in this life is already short enough.

To spend it repeatedly thinking about a few words spoken by someone else is to unknowingly steal that time from ourselves.

Sometimes silence is the strongest answer.

Sometimes the most mature thing we can do is refuse to prolong an argument. Sometimes the way to win is not to fight back, but to take a step away.

Because stepping into every battle is not courage.

Knowing which battles are not yours to fight is also wisdom.

Not every problem in our lives has to be solved. Some problems disappear not because we solve them, but because we stop making them bigger.

Just as a fire eventually dies when no one adds more wood, some arguments gradually lose their meaning when we stop adding more words, anger, and attention to them.

So today, ask yourself:

“What problem in my life am I still giving more energy to than it deserves?”

Perhaps it is something someone said years ago...

Perhaps it is someone who is no longer part of your life...

Perhaps it is an argument that ended long ago...

Perhaps it is a past you have no power to change...

Or perhaps it is a tiny issue that has grown larger and larger simply because you keep carrying it in your mind.

Maybe it is time to let it go.

You don't have to solve everything.

You don't have to explain everything.

You don't have to have the last word in every argument.

Let some things go quietly.

Before removing some people from your life, remove them from your mind.

End some arguments without responding.

Because sometimes what changes our lives is not doing something new. It is simply refusing to give the same amount of attention to what is hurting us.

Wherever we place our attention, we leave a part of our lives there.

So don't assume that everything deserves your attention.

Not everything deserves your energy.

Some victories are won not by having the last word, but by realizing that there is nothing left to say.

Some battles are won not by fighting, but by quietly walking away from the battlefield.

And sometimes the greatest freedom we can give ourselves is to be able to say, and truly mean:

“I will no longer carry this in my mind.”

WE ALL TALK, BUT WHO IS LISTENING?

2026-09-01T00:00:00Z

WE ALL TALK, BUT WHO IS LISTENING?

Have you ever noticed? Throughout the day, we may talk to dozens of people. We make phone calls, send messages, comment on social media, and keep telling one another things. Reaching each other has never been easier.

And yet, in the middle of all this communication, we are experiencing a strange deficiency: Perhaps we are gradually forgetting how to listen.

When someone is speaking, instead of truly listening to them, we are often thinking about what we are going to say. Before they have even finished their sentence, we are already composing our response in our minds. Sometimes, something they tell us reminds us of an experience of our own, and without realizing it, we shift the conversation toward ourselves.

“I’ve been through something like that too.”

“The same thing happened to me.”

“When you say that, it reminds me of something…”

Before the other person has finished telling their story, we insert our own story into theirs.

Perhaps there is a small but important distinction here: Listening does not mean silently waiting for our turn to speak. Truly listening means stepping back for a while and trying to understand what the other person is actually trying to tell us.

And that is harder than we think.

Sometimes, Truly Helping Someone Means Being Silent

The approach known as “active listening,” developed by Carl Rogers and Richard Farson in the 1950s, drew attention to an important aspect of communication: people do not always want someone to give them a solution. Sometimes, they simply want to be understood first.

We see this in our own lives.

Imagine that a friend is telling you that they have lost a member of their family. Our first instinct may be to respond with a story of our own that begins, “Me too…” We try to show that we understand them by connecting their experience to something we have experienced ourselves.

But their loss is not our loss. Even when the pain has the same name, the way it is experienced is different.

That is why sometimes, instead of talking at length, it may be more meaningful to say, “Tell me. I’m listening,” even before saying, “I understand you.”

When we do not try to measure another person’s pain against our own experience, we create genuine space for them.

We all know people who try to guess what the other person is going to say before they have even finished their sentence and then speak for them.

“So what you’re really trying to say is…”

But perhaps that is not what they were trying to say at all.

Besides, people do not always know everything they are thinking from beginning to end while they are speaking. Sometimes thoughts take shape in the process of talking. We search for a word, a sentence remains unfinished, there is a moment of silence. Then, gradually, what we are trying to say becomes clearer.

That is why we do not have to fill every silence in a conversation.

Yes, listening to someone who speaks slowly can require patience. Sometimes we may even find ourselves thinking, “Come on, just say it already.” But respecting the other person’s pace is a small act of kindness we can offer them.

Being a good listener also means knowing how to wait.

We do not always need to listen to someone’s words to understand whether they are listening to us. Body language reveals a great deal.

Are they looking at their phone?

Are they paying attention to what is happening around them?

Are they interrupting us?

Are their eyes somewhere else?

Each of these things tells us something about how present and open the other person is with us.

Of course, constantly maintaining eye contact does not necessarily mean that someone is listening. It is perfectly normal for people to look away, think, or focus their eyes on another point. Listening is not a performance.

What really matters is being there.

Being genuinely present while the other person is speaking. Putting the phone aside, not doing something else at the same time, and giving our attention to what they are saying rather than preparing our next sentence.

Because people notice, surprisingly quickly, when they have someone’s full attention.

A good listener does not remember only the big problems. They remember the small details too.

Suppose a friend tells you during a conversation that they spent much of their childhood with their grandmother. Some time later, when the conversation turns to something else, you might ask:

“You mentioned your grandmother the other day. What was your relationship with her like when you were a child?”

That question may not change your friend’s life. But it may awaken a different feeling in them:

“So they really did listen to me.”

Most people do not want the things they say while talking to simply disappear into thin air. They want what they share to find some kind of response.

Sometimes one of the most beautiful ways of showing someone that we care about them is to remember a small detail they mentioned days ago.

When someone tells us about a problem, our instinct to immediately start offering solutions usually comes from good intentions.

“I think you should do this.”

“If I were you, I would do this.”

“You haven’t thought about this.”

“Forget it. Don’t let it bother you.”

But did the other person really ask us for advice?

Perhaps they simply wanted to talk.

Perhaps they already know what they should do and simply need to think out loud in the presence of someone else.

That is why, sometimes, asking a question may be better than giving advice:

“What did you feel while you were going through that?”

“What happened next?”

“What was the hardest part for you?”

“What do you think about it?”

Questions like these can help the other person find their own thoughts and answers. They also show that we are not looking down on them or trying to make decisions on their behalf.

Being a friend is one thing; acting like a judge is another.

From childhood, we are taught how to speak: how to speak well, how to express ourselves, how to persuade people…

But listening?

We are often simply expected to learn it on our own.

Yet listening is also a skill that needs to be learned. In fact, it is one of the most important skills shaping our relationships.

Because we cannot solve every problem in another person’s life. We cannot make decisions for them. We cannot change their past. We cannot take away their pain.

But we can listen to them.

Sometimes, it is enough to put our phone down on the table, look at the person in front of us, wait until they have finished without interrupting, and resist the urge to immediately tell our own story.

The message this gives the other person is actually very simple:

“Right now, you matter to me.”

Perhaps there are very few things in human relationships more valuable than that.

Because not everyone is looking for a solution. Not everyone wants advice. Not everyone is asking, “What should I do?”

Sometimes, a person simply wants someone else to hear what they have been through.

To sit beside someone and tell their story. To be able to fall silent while telling it. To cry, to think, or even to have no idea what to say…

And to know that there is still someone sitting across from them, still there.

I think this may be one of the greatest forms of loneliness in the modern world.

We can all find someone to talk to. But finding someone who will truly listen to us is becoming increasingly difficult.

Perhaps that is why, in our next conversation, we should give ourselves a small task:

Not to immediately prepare an answer while the other person is speaking.

Not to wait for an opportunity to tell our own story.

Not to finish their sentences for them.

Not to look at our phone.

And most importantly, to try to understand them before trying to change them.

Because sometimes the most beautiful response we can give another person is not advice.

It is simply to have truly listened.

IS IT WHAT WE SEE, OR WHAT WE UNDERSTAND?

2026-08-31T00:00:00Z

IS IT WHAT WE SEE, OR WHAT WE UNDERSTAND?

We do not see the world with our eyes alone. We give meaning to what we see and interpret it in our minds; sometimes, without even realizing it, we add something from our own experiences, fears, and expectations. A facial expression, a hand gesture, a single word, a traffic light, or a simple symbol tells us something. Yet there is something interesting here: no sign carries its meaning entirely on its own. Meaning is created in the mind of the person who sees it.

When we see a red light, we know that we are supposed to stop. When we see someone smile at us, we usually interpret it as a sign of warmth and friendliness. When we encounter a brand logo, however, we do not see merely a shape; our previous experiences, what we have heard, and what we have felt about that brand can all suddenly come alive in our minds.

That is why communication is not only about what we say. How what we say or show is interpreted by the other person is at least as important as the message itself.

Semiotics, or göstergebilim in Turkish, is precisely the field that tries to understand this world. It examines how signs emerge, how they are used, and how people assign meaning to them. The reason it is connected to so many fields, from psychology and philosophy to sociology and linguistics, from art to design is that understanding signs is not easy without understanding how human beings create meaning.

Moreover, signs appear in far more places than we might imagine.

For example, an expensive car parked outside a house is not merely a means of transportation. Depending on whose car it is, where it is parked, and who is looking at it, it can become a sign of wealth, status, success, or ostentation.

The hundred-dollar bill lying on the table is not merely a piece of paper either. To one person, it means money; to another, it may represent power; to someone else, security or freedom.

An untied shoelace may suggest carelessness or absent-mindedness. A long line of cars stretching through traffic does not merely mean lost time; it may also tell us something about a city's transportation problems, poor planning, or the difficulties brought about by growth.

Even the blue sky does not mean the same thing to everyone. To a farmer, it may be a sign of a beautiful day. To a painter, it may be a source of inspiration. To a child, it may mean an opportunity to play outside. To someone else, it may mean that a long-awaited journey is finally about to begin.

So, most of the time, we do not see things simply as “what they are.” What we see becomes a sign of something else in our minds.

Perhaps this is one of the most important characteristics of the human mind:

“We do not simply see; we interpret what we see.”

What is more, our minds often process images faster than words. We can recognize a face, a picture, or a symbol within a few seconds. Explaining the same thing at length, however, may require many more words.

We do not read an explanation to understand a traffic sign. When we see a red light, we know what to do. An exclamation mark catches our attention, an arrow points us in a direction, a heart often evokes love and affection, and the image of a nurse making a “shushing” gesture in a hospital reminds us to remain quiet.

The power of visual communication comes partly from this. Images often leave a more direct impression on our minds than words do.

We may remember a photograph for years while having long forgotten the dozens of sentences that were spoken about it. Our childhood memories contain many examples of this. The image of an old house can bring back a street we have not visited for years; a person's face can remind us of a day we spent with them; an old photograph can bring an entire period of our lives back to memory.

Yet the power of visual communication also carries a danger. Because seeing does not necessarily mean understanding correctly.

Although it is easy to assume that a symbol has the same meaning for everyone, meaning can change according to culture, time, society, and the individual. A behavior that is considered a sign of respect in one society may be understood differently in another. A color may evoke happiness in one place while representing mourning somewhere else.

For this reason, the more powerful visual communication becomes, the more carefully it should be used.

A well-designed sign can communicate a complex idea within a few seconds. A poorly designed sign, on the other hand, can make even the simplest message difficult to understand. It is not enough for a symbol to look attractive; what it communicates must also be clear.

Because the real purpose of communication is not simply to show something. The real purpose is for what we show to create, in the mind of the other person, a meaning as close as possible to what we intended to communicate.

The German professor of mass communication Marion G. Müller offers a thought-provoking perspective on visual communication in this regard. The visual is, in a sense, like the political: everyone thinks they know something about it, and to some extent, they really do. But this does not mean that visual communication is simple.

On the contrary, the visual world is often far more complex than we imagine. Consider a photograph.

A photographer does not simply press the shutter. The photographer decides what to include in the frame and what to leave out. The angle is chosen, the light is adjusted, and the right moment is awaited. Another photograph of the same event, taken just a few meters away, may tell us an entirely different story.

The same person may appear strong in one photograph, sad in another, and threatening in yet another. Yet the person is the same. What has changed is the image presented to us.

That is why sometimes we see not reality itself, but the way reality is presented to us.

This has become even more important today. Much of our lives takes place among visual messages. Social media posts, advertisements, news photographs, short videos, emojis, logos, and graphics are constantly telling us something. And they often do so without our even noticing.

Before reading the content of a news story, we tend to look at its photograph. Before learning the features of a product, we are influenced by its appearance. Before we have even spoken a single word with someone, we can form an impression of them simply by looking at their photograph.

Sometimes a photograph really can be more powerful than a thousand words. But precisely for that reason, it can also mislead us more easily than a thousand words.

In such a world, visual literacy becomes an important skill. It is not enough merely to see an image; we need to be able to step back from it and look at it with some distance.

What are we being shown?

Why, specifically, are we being shown this?

What are we not seeing?

Why am I assigning this particular meaning to the image?

Could someone else interpret the same image differently from me?

These questions do not apply only to photographs or advertisements. We encounter the same problem in human relationships.

We may interpret someone's silence as indifference. Yet perhaps they are hurt. We may see someone's stern expression as arrogance; perhaps they are simply tired. We may interpret a friend's failure to respond to our messages as a sign that they do not care, when perhaps they are going through a difficult day in their own life.

In short, we read people the way we read images. And sometimes, we read them incorrectly.

Perhaps maturity begins, in part, with learning not to immediately assign meaning to everything we see; with accepting that there can be a difference between a behavior and the intention behind that behavior; and with remembering that an image is not the whole of reality.

Because what we see and what it means to us are not always the same thing.

The world is not made up only of objects. The world is also made up of meanings. And we live our lives among those meanings. A smile, a silence, a glance, a color, a photograph, a symbol, a traffic light… Even a half-empty glass can tell us something.

But perhaps, at the end of all this, there is a more important question we should ask ourselves:

“Is what I see really what is there, or is it the meaning my mind has given to it?”

Human beings are not merely creatures who see. We are creatures who give meaning to what we see.

Perhaps the first step toward understanding life more accurately is to recognize the difference between what we see and the meaning we attach to it.

Because sometimes, we do not need to change the world.

We simply need to look at it a little more carefully.

CHANGING NOT THE WORLD, BUT THE PLACE FROM WHICH WE SEE IT

2026-08-30T00:00:00Z

CHANGING NOT THE WORLD, BUT THE PLACE FROM WHICH WE SEE IT

We do not always see the world as it really is. Sometimes, the world we see reflects what is happening inside us that day. When we are angry, people seem ruder, traffic feels more unbearable, and even ordinary conversations become irritating. The smallest inconvenience can seem much bigger than it really is. Then, by the end of the day, we find ourselves thinking:

“Why was everyone like that today?”

Perhaps everyone was not like that. Perhaps we were simply looking at everything a little more harshly that day.

Anger changes not only our emotions but also our attention. When we are upset, flaws catch our eye more easily while the good things fade into the background. Someone may have treated us kindly all day, listened to us, and helped us. But if that person says one thing that hurts or bothers us, we may carry those words in our minds for hours. We forget the good parts of the day and remain stuck on the one moment that upset us.

Everyday life is full of examples. We leave home in a bad mood. Someone cuts us off in traffic, the roads become congested, and an unexpected problem comes up at work. By evening, we put all these things together and say:

“Nothing went right today.”

But perhaps the whole day was not really like that. Perhaps a few unpleasant moments simply overshadowed everything else. Because more often than we realize, we look at the world through the mood we are in.

There is a beautiful wisdom story that I have shared before in one of my writings.

An old wise man had been observing a man who lived on the same street for a long time. Every morning, the man would open his window, look outside, and begin complaining:

“Just look at this street… People have no respect anymore. The children are so noisy. Nobody thinks about anyone but themselves.”

Wherever he looked, he found something wrong.

One day, the wise man asked him:

“How long has it been since you cleaned your window?”

The man was puzzled.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

The wise man pointed to the window.

“Perhaps the world outside is not as dirty as you think.”

The man cleaned his window that day. The next morning, he stood at the same window again.

The street had not changed. The same houses, the same sidewalks, the same trees, and the same people were still there.

But this time, he saw different things.

He noticed the flowers growing along the sidewalk. He saw the children playing happily in the street. He noticed an old man putting out food for stray animals. He saw a woman helping her neighbor.

After watching for a while, he said:

“This street is not so bad after all.”

The wise man smiled.

“You did not change the world outside. You simply cleaned the window through which you were looking at it.”

The story is really about something that happens in all of our lives. When we are at peace with ourselves, we begin to notice things in the same life that we had previously overlooked. A friend’s smile, a child’s laughter, the sunlight filtering through the window, the sound of birds as we walk, or a small act of kindness from a complete stranger…

None of these things suddenly appear that day. They were already there.

What changes is whether we are in a state of mind that allows us to see them.

There is, therefore, a strong connection between our inner world and the world around us. When we are troubled inside, the noise of life feels heavier. When we become a little calmer, we find more room to breathe within that same life.

The world has not changed.

Our way of looking at it has.

But saying “Everything is a matter of perspective” should not be an excuse for ignoring the real problems of life. Injustice is still injustice. Cruel behavior is still cruel. Some people really are hurtful, and some circumstances in life are genuinely difficult.

Being calm does not mean closing our eyes to these things.

The real question is how much space we are willing to give what happens outside us inside ourselves.

Someone may have treated us unfairly, but that does not mean we have to give that person our entire day. Carrying someone’s hurtful behavior in our minds for days does not change what happened; it only prolongs its effect on us.

We cannot always control people or life. We cannot change other people’s intentions, and we cannot know what life will put in front of us. But we still have a choice in how we respond to what happens.

Perhaps maturity begins here.

Being able to remain calm when we are hurt, to step back when we are angry, and to resist the urge to respond immediately when we have been wronged is not easy. Yet sometimes the greatest strength lies in choosing our response.

When we calm down, the problems do not disappear. Injustices are not suddenly corrected, and hurtful people do not magically change. But we begin to stand in a different place within the same situation.

Some things that once seemed enormous become smaller. We learn not to take everything personally. We stop allowing another person’s behavior to determine the course of our entire day. And when we stop filling our minds only with the things that hurt us, the beautiful parts of life become visible again.

Over time, we learn something important:

We cannot always change the world. Some people will disappoint us. Some doors will close in our faces. Some circumstances will not unfold the way we want them to.

Yet even within all of this, we have more influence than we think over the state of mind with which we look at the world.

Because our world is not made up only of what happens to us. It is also shaped by the meaning we give to what happens.

Perhaps changing our lives does not always require something dramatic. Sometimes we simply need to pause, calm down, step back, and look at what is happening from another place.

Perhaps, while blaming the outside world for so long, we have forgotten to clean the glass of our own window.

Because sometimes it is not the world that needs to change.

It is the window through which we see the world.

THOSE WHO TALK BEHIND YOUR BACK AND THE SILENCE WITHIN

2026-08-29T00:00:00Z

THOSE WHO TALK BEHIND YOUR BACK AND THE SILENCE WITHIN

Throughout our lives, we sometimes try to silence many voices: criticism, unfair accusations, and words whispered behind our backs. Yet, over time, we come to realize that the first voice we need to silence is not the noise outside us, but the echo we allow to grow within us. Perhaps the path to true peace lies not in changing what people say about us, but in changing the effect those words have on our souls.

Marcus Aurelius was a ruler and philosopher who understood this very well. As Roman Emperor, he commanded armies and shaped the fate of millions of people. Yet his greatest battle was fought neither against enemy armies nor against political intrigues. His real struggle was with his own mind. You can sense this immediately when reading Meditations. Throughout its pages, Aurelius does not appear as a ruler trying to correct others, but as a person first trying to discipline and educate himself. This is where the heart of Stoicism truly beats:

“Before trying to change the world, cultivate your own character.”

There is a truth almost as old as humanity itself: people will inevitably talk about you. They will talk when you succeed and when you fail. When you remain silent, they will interpret your silence in different ways; when you speak, they will attach different meanings to your words. Sometimes there may be jealousy behind it, sometimes competition, and sometimes it may simply be ordinary gossip born out of boredom. To assume that every behavior has a single cause is to overlook the complexity of human nature.

This is precisely where Stoic thought offers us an important warning. We can never know other people's intentions completely. Why someone speaks the way they do, what they are trying to achieve, or what they truly feel is often no more than our own interpretation. The only thing we can understand with certainty is our own response. That is why a wise person focuses less on trying to decipher other people's minds and more on keeping their own conscience clear.

There is an idea Marcus Aurelius emphasized repeatedly, and one that I, too, have emphasized many times in my previous writings:

“It is not the events themselves that disturb us, but the judgments we form about them. The same words can have completely different effects on two people. One may remain angry for days, while the other simply shrugs and moves on. This shows that the power of words is shaped less by the person who speaks them than by the mind that receives them.”

I often compare life to climbing a high mountain. As you approach the summit, the view becomes wider, but the wind becomes stronger as well. You become more visible, and more people begin to notice you. As a natural consequence, praise increases alongside criticism. Some see this as the price of success, while others accept it simply as an unavoidable part of life. Whichever view we take, one truth remains unchanged:

“A mountain standing at the summit does not change direction with every wind that blows.”

For the Stoics, a person's worth should never be sought in the applause of others. Applause is temporary, just like criticism. Those who praise you today may praise someone else tomorrow. Those who criticize you today may eventually fall silent. If you entrust your peace to the changing opinions of others, you also place your inner world at their mercy. A strong character, however, is one that does not change shape according to the voices outside. Its compass is not the approval of the crowd, but the quiet guidance of its conscience.

It is said that every morning Marcus Aurelius reminded himself that during the day he would encounter people who were rude, selfish, ungrateful, or jealous. At first glance, this may seem pessimistic. In reality, however, it was a way of accepting human nature as it is. A person who does not imagine life to be different from what it really is will not be destroyed when confronted with reality. When our expectations are grounded in reality, our disappointments become fewer as well.

No one has the power to prevent others from talking about you. But we can decide what their words will turn us into. This is where freedom begins. We are shaped not by what others say about us, but by the choices we make in response.

Years later, when we look back on our lives, we probably will not remember what people said about us. But we will remember how we responded to those words, whether we surrendered to anger or managed to preserve our composure. Because a person's true story is written not by what others say about them, but by the character with which they write their own story.

Perhaps this is the most valuable legacy Stoicism has left us:

“You cannot completely silence the noise of the world. But you can create such a deep silence within yourself that the voices outside begin to feel like nothing more than a distant wind passing by. As long as you can preserve your virtue, no gossip can truly hurt you”

BEFORE YOU JUDGE ME

2026-08-28T00:00:00Z

BEFORE YOU JUDGE ME

For some reason, talking about other people’s lives is easier than talking about our own. We question why someone behaved the way they did, criticize the decisions they made, and remind them of their mistakes. Sometimes, we even use our own beliefs and standards as a measure for how they should live. When we do this, we may feel a little more right, a little more powerful. Yet it is easy to judge someone when we are standing outside their life looking in. What is truly difficult is looking honestly at ourselves.

Some people seem to enjoy telling us how we should live. They ask why we made a particular decision and bring up a mistake we made years ago. They judge us as though they know every detail of our lives. But there is so much they do not know. They do not know the troubles we carry inside, the hurts we have never shared with anyone, the thoughts that keep us awake at night, or the choices we sometimes had to make even when we did not really want to...

So before you judge me, look in the mirror for once. Ask yourself:

“Have you never made a mistake? Have you never made the wrong decision? Is there really nothing in your past that you wish you had done differently? Have you never gone through a difficult period or a struggle that nobody knew about? Can you honestly say that you have always done the right thing, never hurt anyone, and made the right decision every time?”

If the answer to these questions is no, then why speak so confidently about someone else’s life?

It is easy to ignore our own mistakes while making someone else’s mistakes seem bigger than they are. We point a finger at the other person and forget to question ourselves. But turning that same finger toward ourselves is not easy. Seeing someone else’s mistake may require attention, but facing our own requires courage.

Besides, no human being is as simple as they may appear from the outside.

Someone who smiles may not necessarily be happy. Someone who remains silent may not be feeling nothing. And making a mistake does not automatically make someone a bad person. Behind something a person does today may lie years of experiences that we know nothing about, the disappointments, fears, losses, and habits they have carried with them. To judge someone solely by what we see, without knowing any of this, is often unfair.

Of course, criticism has its place. Sometimes we need someone to point out our mistakes, warn us, or show us something about ourselves that we cannot see. But there is a difference between criticizing someone and judging them. Criticism can help a person see themselves more clearly and grow. Judgment, on the other hand, often comes from the desire to put someone else down so that we can feel superior.

That is why, before looking at someone else’s life, we should turn our attention back to our own. If we are not perfect, exposing someone else’s flaws does not make us better or more valuable.

Being human means making mistakes. It means making the wrong choice sometimes, paying the price, and regretting what we have done. And then, despite all of it, finding the strength to stand up again. Isn’t that what life is partly about?

All of us have a side of ourselves that we do not share with anyone. We hide some of our wounds. Some of our struggles are known to no one. There is often a great difference between the life people see and the life a person is actually living. So before passing judgment on someone, we should remember that there may always be a part of their story that we simply do not know.

Before you judge me, look at yourself.

If you have truly never made a mistake, never been wrong, and never had a regret, then speak.

But if you have fallen too, if you have made mistakes, if there are things in your past you wish you could change, then pause for a moment. Do not rush to judgment. Try to understand first.

Because sometimes the greatest kindness we can offer someone is not telling them what they should do, but simply taking the time to truly listen to them.

The world does not need more judges. It needs more people who try to understand what others are going through, who are willing to see their own shortcomings, and who know when it is better to remain silent.

Because the person judging someone else’s life today may be the person tomorrow waiting for someone to understand their own story.