Dear self, I have brought the moon and gathered stars for you! 🌙✨🌼
A few days ago, I finished reading The Art of Being Alone by Renuka Gavrani — hands down, what a fabulous piece of work. I was amazed to learn she was just in her twenties when she wrote it. Inspired by her journey, I’ve started writing on Medium too — just like she did.
In her book, Renuka says that being alone is seen as a taboo or something abnormal because we don’t enjoy our own company. And why is that? Because we haven’t learned to love ourselves. We haven’t taken the time to discover what we truly want from life.
If you look closely at your life, ask yourself: when was the last time you did something just for you? Honestly, I can’t even remember. Actually, maybe we never did. Because we were never taught to.
If you’re a pretty lady, and you start preparing a meal — then suddenly your family says they’re going out — you stop cooking. Because you’re now alone. You’ll either survive on instant noodles or just skip the meal altogether. Similarly, if you’re craving coffee, you won’t bother making it unless someone else wants it too. You don’t get dressed up unless you have somewhere to go or someone’s coming over. You make every moment special for others — like birthdays and little achievements. But wait, do you even remember your own birthday? If yes, thank God you’re still alive.
If you’re a man earning well, you’ll buy clothes for everyone in the family but forget yourself. Because you’re busy paying the bills, the rent, school fees for your children, buying a house, and all the rest.
In reality, life has become a race. An endless one. Somewhere along the way, we’ve lost ourselves -far behind.
Most of us don’t even know what we truly want from life. If someone asks, we’ll say: a beautiful house, a Mercedes, branded clothes. But do we actually want those things? Or do we just want others to envy us — to elevate our social status? We live just once, then why this cruelty to our own selves?
I asked myself that same question: Hey Robi, what do you really want from life?
You know what my heart answered?
- A cup of tea on the rooftop, under the stars, feeling the cool breeze.
To look beautiful — not to impress anyone — but to look in the mirror, smile, and take sweet, cute selfies. - To read a book without worry.
- To buy everything my siblings want and everything my parents couldn’t, because they were too busy in this so-called race.
- To travel endlessly.
- To become an officer and serve the people of my country — the ones who go without food, clothes for Eid, or education for their children. The ones who sleep on the streets.
- To do a lot of social work.
- To speak at TED Talks one day and inspire people with my journey.
Don’t laugh I know many of these are still dreams. I can just work hard for them and pray for them. But you know what? I’ve started somewhere.
I’ve started making tea for myself.
When are you going to?
