The Change

If somebody asked me to say one thing, which is in my opinion the very cause of most of the fears that I have in life, I would say with no doubt say

THE CHANGE.

The reason for that response is my strong conviction that the core of every fear that we have, lies in the fact that something about our lives might change dramatically at some point. I believe that a large percentage of our psychological distresses are brought by some kind of the urge to change, by the obligation or the necessity to change, by the possibility that things will never again be the same. That is what we fear. We despise instability. We need a wall, metaphorically speaking, to lean on, even if that is the wall that sometimes stands in the way of our happiness. We always need one certain person to be with us no matter what. We need one special thing to be attached to. We deeply know inside, that if we decide to go forward, to move on, to let go, to save the existing relationship, to find new paths, to go in new directions etc. we need to be ready to stand on our own for a while. Sadly, we often run away from that thought. Even when we know that everything will turn out the best possible way, just the fact that we need to change something about ourselves, about our surroundings, about our relationships, all of which are important aspects of our lives, we fear. We hesitate. We postpone the decision time. We pause.

However, because we are changing, we are growing. Unfortunately, we never think about that in the process of changing. That is what we learn after the change. There is no progress without a change. But despite that, it is always okay to fear. It is ok to have doubts. No big decisions should be made instantly. They demand contemplation. And after the decisions are made, we need to prepare ourselves to accept the change and to embrace the new things that appear on the horizon. If we have left something good behind, it is ok that we have our mourning period. It is healthy to be sad sometimes. But we mustn't let ourselves doubt that in the end we will be okay.

I believe that all things happen for some mysterious reason that we might or might not find sometime in the future, but which existence we should never question. Let's limit our knowledge so that we can have some faith, and believe that we are all part of somebody's story which has it's plots, it's ups and downs. Let's believe that we are experiencing variety of things in life so that we can learn from them and implement them in our future doings.

I love this quote, although I am not familiar with the author....

What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven in the life of others.

We are all in a crazy train of life. People get in on every station, and some people leave. Every person, good or bad, enriches our lives. In the picture frames in the gallery of our memories, we display various works of art. We display images of happiness and sadness, joy and sorrow, sanity and madness and each and every picture has is characters, has it's story. Therefore, every picture is valuable asset without which some other picture, that follows it's creation could not be painted. We define dark as the absence of light just because we know that the light exists.

It is important to bear in mind that:

Nothing you love is lost. Not really. Things, people- they always go away, sooner or later. You can't hold them, anymore than you can hold the moonlight. But if they've touched you, if they're inside of you, then- they are still yours. The only things you ever really have are the ones you hold inside your heart.

Memories. They can never be taken away from us. Our heart is our treasure chest. You can't stop loving someone. Either you never did, or you always will. Love is like energy. And we all know that by the law of conservation of energy, the energy can never be lost. The total amount of energy remains consistent. It just changes from one form to another. :)

Change is inevitable. Everything changes eventually.


Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal. - Arthur Schopenhauer

Keep on. Never give up, but always be ready to let go.

Things that should come back to their places, will come back to them eventually if that is how it is supposed to be. :)

This life is a one heck of a ride. Enjoy it.

Happiness

Happiness. One thing we constantly crave for. As Ivo Andric, Serbian Nobel prize winner once said:

It is strange that we need just a little to be happy, and it is more strange how often we miss just that little.

Yes, we always seem to be missing that one small thing. Shall we manage to get it, we'll just find a way to replace it with something else, something new. The question is, can we ever be completely happy or is happiness just an undefined mystery mostly out of our reach, of which we can only catch a glimpse and nothing else?
No one knows the answer. :) While we search for the ultimate happiness and build bridges that might take us to what we think will make us complete, we forget to look at the wonderful rivers flowing under. If we concentrate only on building, we'll forget why we are building.

I have already been writing about how we should enjoy life and never waste a second of it...By writing I try to pursue myself into thinking that way and living in that direction, although I admit that I am among those countless people who keep seeking for the unknown and who feel that if they stop for just one second, everything that they have been building will just disappear.

We can't be happy all the time. That is a fact. If we were happy all the time, we wouldn't know anything about sadness, and if we did not know anything about sadness, we wouldn't be able to define what happiness is. :) We have the natural right to be sad when we want to and when we need to, we have the right to savor melancholy, which can sometimes be strangely wonderful, to cry, to get angry, be upset or filled with anxiety. No one can take that right away from us. But what we mustn't do is forget that, in the end, life is too short for us to feel like that all the time.

Moments of happiness tend to be quite tricky. They sneak around in disguise, and we need to be extra cautious not to miss them. They are everywhere and they deeply want you to catch them. Once you catch them, don't forget to truly savor them, because they are unbelievably fleeting. When they reach their ends, don't be too sad because, they will sneak into your life again if you only let them to. Keep your eyes wide open.

That is what I keep repeating to myself.

Yesterday I got to spend some wonderful time with wonderful people who keep amazing me day by day, and who are so lovable that you just can't help but love them...Today, Serbian national volleyball team officially became the European champion and I got to watch the game with my best friend and jump in front of the TV with her, cheering for our guys... Now, I am sitting in my cozy chair and writing, while listening to some great Greek songs for which I know all the lyrics, even though this time last year I did not know how to say a single word in Greek... I can feel the evening summer breeze on my cheeks coming through the open windows of my small room... I know that there are several people who are missing me at the moment, and I know that I have some dear people on my mind right now too. I know that everything I do, or almost everything :), I do because I want to and because I love to. I had some amazing experiences this year and I am unbelievably grateful for them...
I am among the luckiest, and I often forget about that.


I just felt like writing about happiness tonight. Finally, the moments in which we become aware of how happy we are, also last very shortly because, with no doubt, we soon again find another thing to miss in our lives. :)

And for the end, here is one cute thing I found :)
Afterall, happy is all we ever want to be when we grow up :)

Life and Basketball

I would like to start this post with this quote:

Not only is there more to life than basketball, there's a lot more to basketball than basketball. -Phil Jackson

Basketball has always been my favourite sport. From the first time I saw my cousin and my older brother play, I knew I wanted to do the same. I knew that I wanted to be on the court and have fun. So, in my fourth grade of primary school I joined a team. There are many things that I learned through basketball. I could never had expected that those 7 years of my life would have such an influence on me. I think basketball made me tougher, more competitive, taught me a lot about being on the team, about trust and about strong will, work ethics and effort. I never was a very good player, but I always loved the game.

Be strong in body, clean in mind, lofty in ideals. -James Naismith

When you are on the court, you know what your goal is- to win the game by giving your best. The same is in life. You always strive to be the best version yourself, even when you face the bad days. The truth is, for some people, being the best seems like a piece of cake. However, we rarely admit to ourselves that the best players, both on court and in life, are those who have worked the hardest and invested themselves completely in what they chose to do.

Those people are ready for the action when no one is. Those are the people who have guts to step up, when everyone's afraid. They know that little things that we do are the ones that determine whether we'll succeed. What we sometimes do not realize is that sometimes, small things are bigger than big things.

I try to do the right thing at the right time. They may just be little things, but usually they make the difference between winning and losing.

- Kareem Adbul-Jabbar

We are facing challenges constantly through our lives. In basketball, we can struggle with the other team's strong defense or offense, with our own personal flaws in dribbling, shooting, etc. Obstacles are there to teach us how to jump over them. Flaws are there to show us what can be improved. No one is perfect, and that is why we need to practice and improve ourselves along the way.

Everything negative – pressure, challenges – are all an opportunity for me to rise.-Kobe Bryant

Good, better, best. Never let it rest. Until your good is better and your better is best.- Tim Duncan

My dad once told me that only fools are not afraid. Whenever you are about to have an important game, in life or basketball, it is normal to be afraid. It means that you have something to lose. However, fear should never stop us from fighting and making progress.

I know fear is an obstacle for some people, but it is an illusion to me . . . Failure always made me try harder next time.- Michael Jordan

Whenever you have potential, you have to bear in mind that there are envious people who will not be happy to see you progress. So, do not listen to the mean comments, and don't the let strong words, which are coming from people who do not wish you well, tackle your enthusiasm. You are who you want to be. You are always what you ch

oose to be.

Don’t let what other people think decide who you are.-Dennis Rodman

Bad days, both on the court and in life are inevitable. Michael Jordan says:

I have missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot…and missed. And I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why… I succeed.

Whenever we face a failure, it is up to us whether we will step back and give up, or come back stronger and more determined to correct the wrong and achieve what we intended in the first place.

You never make any of the shots you never take. 87% of the ones you do take, you’ll miss too. I make 110% of my shots.-Larry Bird

In order to succeed you need to try your hardest. You will never make a shot unless you dare to shoot towards the basket. Everything is possible in basketball. Everything is possible in life. You can win everything and lose everything in the blink of an eye. Therefore, never give up! Whenever you hear that something cannot be done, try even harder. When you are read

y to work your hardest, you are ready to win.

Push yourself again and again. Don’t give an inch until the final buzzer sounds.-Larry Bird

In order to be the best version of yourself, you need to trust yourself that you can be one. You can push yourself only when you have a goal in front of you towards which you can push.

This is one of my favourite quotes:

There are plenty of teams in every sport that have great players and never win titles. Most of the time, those players aren't willing to sacrifice for the greater good of the team. The funny thing is, in the end, their unwillingness to sacrifice only makes individual goals more difficult to achieve. One thing I believe to the fullest is that if you think and achieve as a team, the individual accolades will take care of themselves. Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.- Michael Jordan

As individuals, we must work on improving our skills. But, in the end, even with the best individuals, the team can be bad. A team is more than a sum of players. While I was playing basketball in the States, on my basketball equipment we have printed "ONE HEARTBEAT", two words to symbolize the strength of the team. You need to work with your friends, join potentials, support each other and never leave anybody behind. That is how any team in real life must function in order to succeed.

I have noticed that some players became great ones, not because of their talent but because of their passion and effort. It seems that all you need in order to be great, both in basketball and life is a strong determination, commitment, devotion and above all, you have to love the game.

It is not about what is outside. It is about the inside. About the heart. It is about the will. In the end, it doesn't matter if you are an all star player, the MVP; it doesn't matter how much money you're making, what shoes you're wearing... it is about how much you love the game.

In the end- the bottom line is how much you're enjoying it.

So :

Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the

game

- Michael Jordan

Dreams....

I am a dreamer. I proudly admit, although dreamers are considered to be fools these days. Somehow, the world which has been transformed so much by dreams, that has evolved because of the people who strongly believed they can change the unchangeable, turned into a place where you can barely find a person who won't tell you that dreams are not "only for rookies". Even when you dare to dream, it takes so much effort and energy to preserve the enthusiasm and faith because wherever you go, you are told that "the real life is different" and that there is no such thing as a "dream come true".

I believe that...

Dreams are like stars. You may never touch them, but if you follow them, they will lead you to your destiny.

So much has been written about dreams and about faith. But surprisingly, having faith in dreams is a rare phenomenon. I just can't help but wonder: "How empty is one's life without dreams?" Even if you don't get to live your dreams, just experiencing the joy of dreaming is something that enriches your life unbelievably. So, if you live without dreams, what is your guidance: The fact the the world is cruel? That fairy tales don't exist? I refuse to believe in that.

Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.

The truth is, believers and dreamers are more exposed to disappointment. But isn't that logical? If you don't have a dream, than you expect nothing, or you just expect the worst (so whatever happens, you are never caught off guard)... If you play more, you are more exposed to the risk of losing...However, I believe that if you play smart, if you're working hard towards your goal, you are decreasing the odds of losing. That is what we should do with our dreams. We should pursue them, do everything to get to the point of making them our reality. No one says there are no obstacles. But, are we bound to live without dreams, just because sometimes life isn't fair and does not treat us right?

When I say dreams, just to be precise, I am not thinking about the mental images that are result of brain activity during the time we are sleeping. I am thinking of a big wishes that are of such an importance to us that "a wish" is a soft word to be used in a description of it; those are the thoughts that rise so far above anything we have ever experienced... Greeks make a difference between ύπνος and όνειρο... The first one is plainly biological activity...The second one is "a dream" in the meaning I am using in this blog.

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

I really cannot get myself to the point of answering the questions such as:
Who are we without dreams? Who are we without a vision to brighten our roads at night? Who are we without faith?
...it is unthinkable for me that there is a life without dreams, visions and faith.

I am not saying that we should deceive and lie ourselves just to maintain the fantasy we envisioned...We should not twist the reality for that is not faith,but psychosis. We should not lose contact with the real world. What I am saying is that we should stick to believing, and keep in mind that sometimes the things for which we think are unachievable are just a couple of clouds away, but only for those who dare to walk on the sky when others decide to stay on the ground.

No one says how many miles we'll have to run when chasing a dream.

Among the most important things is a willingness to chase. A willingness to seek and to cherish the seeking process. A courage to step up. Have faith that what you believe in can come true, have a faith so strong that it cannot be broken by mean comments. A faith so strong that it can j break the walls of hostility and hatred, that can climb the highest mountains, tackle challenges and reach the stars. And most of all, have faith in yourself.I know where I want to be. I just need some time to get there. And once I do, all of them who had said that I couldn't, I wouldn't, I shouldn't, will say- She just believed strongly enough.

The Whisper

My personal opinion is that each person who gets into one’s heart is settled there forever. No other person can take one's spot. People do come and go, that's true, but the feelings we had for them, or at least the memories of those feelings last forever and continue to exist in that special part of the heart.

That is why it rarely occurs to me that we are replaceable. It does not matter if you once were a close friend to someone, if you had deep emotions for each other, if you were like close family, went to the same school or shared any kind of common experience… People fill the emptiness once you leave. It is in human nature to fix the holes, to repair the damaged.

I always had sense of pity, and admiration at the same time, for those who have an ability to isolate emotions from other things they do in life, for I trusted myself that the feelings are the drive for everything you do and that without them, you can never truly succeed. They are the fuel that keeps us running, but as any fuel, emotions are highly flammable. Everything good in life, comes with the caution label, and does it really make sense that you give up the good things just to isolate yourself from the possibility of getting hurt?

Statistics prove that heart failure is the most common type of death. In the fast time we live, we have certainly forgotten how to savor life… We pursue careers, rarely stop to enjoy because we are too busy surviving in nowadays materialistic world… We’ve forgotten how to express genuine feelings without using tactics…These are the times when our hearts turn backs on us. "Why do men love bitches?", is the name of a bestseller I have read couple of months ago. Surely, it has some useful advice on how to appreciate yourself more in the relationship but still... What happened to the good old fairy tales where love comes unconditionally? Now we live with masks, hiding who we truly are, thinking of strategies, behaving more like algorithms than like human beings.

An amazing person recently shared this beautiful citation with me:

Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back.

Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover,

everyone becomes a poet.

-Plato

I wonder: until we "become poets", are we all just a random page in someone's diary and nothing more than that?

I promised myself I won’t ask these questions. Paulo Coelho says that it is good to bear in mind that these question do exist and that even though we will never get the answers we still manage to find ways to be happy and live peacefully. However, "peaceful" is not the adjective that I want to use in future when i turn back to describe my life. I want to seek, to make mistakes, to think I've found and get disappointed, to cry along the sad songs. and then again get up and seek...all over again- until I find what I need.

I don't want to be afraid of getting hurt, for scars are the prof that we have survived the fall. After the time passes, some of them are barely visible, some of them are deep and ugly. But as long as you have them, you will know that you, for some reason, survived what other did not. You are richer for an experience, for a loss… The person I deeply cared about once said to me that the pain is healing and that it builds character. He said that if you know how to cherish sadness, you'll also know how to cherish love better than the others.

So, after putting all that's on my mind on the plain white computer screen, I have to admit that I do feel better. My friend Ana says that in the end, we do write just for ourselves. It is our way to express what we feel. :)

...το καλοκάιρι μου

The most extraordinary things appear on the horizon when you least expect them. Sounds like a cliché but, as years pass by, it seems to me that the confirmations of this saying hide around each and every corner. It also seems to me that real-life dreams can only be dreamed once you dare to walk on the street with your eyes closed and selfishly concentrated on just one thing - your happiness. Weird it is, to close your eyes in the middle of the crowd and walk, but I

believe that then in that moment you can experience the joy of dreaming awake. We rarely stop to care about ourselves. We deserve to be occupied just by ourselves sometimes, right? :)

Well, this was my summer. The only summer that I slept through even though I spent not so many hours actually sleeping, if that makes sense in any way. :)

I am still trying to figure out at which point I let myself forget about the rest of the world. I erased all the worries that I had on my mind... I stopped the time and enjoyed myself …

The one who believes in fairy tales, such as myself, never gives up on thinking how everything that happens in life is surely meant to be. The sea offers such a dazzling vista once it starts waking up with the sun… Covered in beautiful colors of sunrise, alongside the beach of Ierissos, the sea had given to me the most beautiful present I could have expected. A memory that will last forever. There will probably be many more sunrises, but not like that one. That one was special. Snuggled in a Greek hug with feeling of gentle touch of morning breeze on my cheeks, I experienced a sheer bliss… It was certainly one of a kind. Was the feeling mutual? That I have yet to discover. I would like to think there was more to it than just the beauty of the nature I was surrounded by.

The paths on which we walk are unpredictable. Each day brings us the joy of unexpected and encourages us to embrace the unknown. The odds are we are never going to experience the same moment twice. Τα Πάντα ῥεῖ, says Heraclitus. It will be either us who will be changed, or it will be the time which knows for no pause. Every moment we stop to think, we forget to cherish that fleeting present we have. I guess we would all feel much more relieved if only we lived more and thought less. Things that we regret in life are things that we never did. “What we remember the most are the things that never happened”, says Carlos Ruiz Zafon. I would add to the sentence, that we remember the most the things that never happened but could have happened while we were trying to make up our minds on whether we should do something or not. Alongside with those are the things that happened to us in the moments we decided to embrace.

This is the time for us to live. To figure out who we want to be. To enjoy every moment of a crazy ride. To stay up awake the whole night and watch the sunrise. To take a swim in the sea at night. To sing in the shower at the risk of driving the neighbors crazy. To lie in bed when you feel like watching cartoons all day. To laugh until you cry. Or to cry until you feel like laughing again. It is the time for us to do the things we want to do. To drink watermelon Bacardi Breezer and eat gyros. To play basketball. To get wasted with your friends. Do not contemplate about big life issues, about divine truths. They will all catch up with you later in life. Now, just enjoy it.

Everything happens for a reason. I just need to find mine. And I will. In due time. Maybe next year in Ierissos. Maybe here in Belgrade. Maybe on some other place in this small world. We are the writers of our own stories.

Don't go around the world saying that the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. -Mark Twain

Do what you want to do. Живот је само један. :))))