No one is really sitting to sip their hot drinks and they’re all running in and out, so a little girl and her mother sitting in a lonely corner catch my eye. At first, I envy her. Her eyes seem to take in everything and she seems to be observing information at lightning speed. Her future ahead of her, she can do anything. Life hasn’t worn her down, she isn’t plagued by skepticism. She is running at full speed, but she never seems to feel the need to catch her breath. I envy her because, lately, catching my breath is all I’ve needed. Searching relentlessly for those moments of quiet and peace when a deadline isn’t always looming and I don’t have to constantly worry about everything around me.
I envy her, but she seems sad. I want to talk to her and ask her about her day, about what she dreams of. I want to tell her she can have it all and she should never limit herself to the expectations of a cruel world. She seems lonely. I notice her trying to catch her mother’s attention. She tries so hard but her mother pushes her away as she slams away on her keyboard and answers call after call after call. I don’t blame her. Being a working mother is no easy task and I know she doesn’t mean to, but I can see the frustration in that little girl’s eyes and it breaks my heart.
I’ve been thinking a lot about priorities lately. I’ve been thinking about what I want more than anything in this life and what gives me the most joy. I’ve been thinking about the things for which I would give up my entire existence; the things upon which my existence hinges. It always comes down to one thing…people. If I woke up tomorrow with absolutely nothing but the breath in my lungs, more than anything, I would crave the people that I love. A miserable life is no life at all, and a life without the people you love is a miserable one at best.
You can learn a lot about a person by asking them what makes them happy. Actually, in today’s world, most people don’t even know how to answer that question. With so many stimulations, it can be difficult to pinpoint the exact things that bring you joy. In my experience, most peoples' answers center around professional or academic success. They feel that the sense of fulfillment and joy in their life is supplied by their professional performance. In this endless race to be on top, I don’t blame them. People are turning into vultures constantly trying to draw out the competition and be one step ahead. But tell me if you died tomorrow, would they even care? Or would you be just this dispensable part in a machine that functions just as wel without you.
Society teaches us to devote all of our time and effort into the things that enrich our life, as opposed to the things that ARE our life. My education, my professional success, my professional goals and ambitions, the way I look, the vacations I want to take, the way I am portrayed, my social media presence, the amount of money I want to make… all of these things enrich my life. And yes, they bring me happiness, but it’s only temporary. It’s fleeting and in 10, 20, or 30 years all of these temporary sources of joy will be replaced by other ones that are far better and more impressive in nature. The only thing that will last and will endure the many years ahead are the people that I love and the relationships that I foster with them. They will be all that remains of today, and honestly, they have helped shape me into who I am so there is no greater testament of my past, than the relationships that follow me to my future.
Someone asked me what I regret in my life. I like to think that I don’t regret anything, and that I made the decisions that I valued to be the best, at the time, and that those decisions have helped shape who I am as a person. It’s true, I don’t really regret any decisions I made with respects to the areas of my life that enrich me, but I do regret the decisions I made with the people I love.
I regret that one summer, in Albania, I was so busy spending my last day with friends, that when I went to kiss my grandmother goodbye it was very late and she was sleeping. And so, the next day, I left without giving her that goodbye kiss, and it haunted me every single day and every time we talked on the phone until I saw her again. Priorities. How easy it is to mistake them in the moment. How easy it is to get caught up in the busy cycles of life and forget the ones that mean the most.
I regret not having one more laugh with my cousins, I regret not giving one more kiss to my three beautiful nephews, I regret not telling my mother how much she means to me and how my life without her would be empty. I regret not telling my best friend the things I love about her, I regret the not sharing more coffees with my grandfather. I regret the moments when I have made the people I love feel neglected because I was simply too busy doing things that could never even come close to being as important as them. I regret prioritizing my life in a way that the people I love often times came secondary to my other obligations.
It’s definitely easier said than done to consciously put more effort into the relationships you foster with the people in your life. Sometimes it’s even draining and you just want to be alone. Yet, every single time I think about what makes me happy, it always comes down to those people. The things they do, the things they say, the lives they chose to live. They make me so completely and utterly happy. They fill my heart with so much joy and I am truly so deeply blessed.
I wish there was more time in this world to show the people I love just how much they mean to me. I wish they could see the profound influence they have had in shaping who I am and I hope they know that a piece of them will always live in me. After all, I believe we are all a sum of the people we meet and the experiences we have with them.
To everyone that has touched my life, I hope you know that I wouldn’t be me, without a piece of you.
Live simply,
Ersi Dani
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