Life can often give you the feeling that every turn you take is blocked. It can give you the distinct impression that you are running around inside a maze and very quickly, you lose your way. With life, as with a maze, you can often wonder aimlessly around hoping that someday you will find the exit or opportunity you are looking for. Or you can put a plan in place that, at the very least stops you running around in circles. They say that a sign of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again whilst expecting different results. I know I have been there before!

So if you feel your life is giving you the feeling a you are walking around inside a maze. Stop. Look around, and take stock of everything before you continue onwards along your path. It is usually when we stop moving that we get a bearing on where we are and where we are heading. Like working for months on end and then suddenly having a long weekend, you look at things differently. Everything becomes clearer and you cannot believe you missed the exit that was right next to you, all the time. We often create the maze we live in, which means we have the answers to solve it, all we have to do is take the time to figure it out.

The problems we face in life can be devastating at the time. They can rip out our heart and leave us floundering in a fog that can last for days, if not longer. But often when we look back we notice the bigger picture, or the lessons we learned and have a positive feeling about something that, at the time, was very traumatic for us as an individual. I know, I have faced many demons in my life, and my life has taken many twists and turns that I didn’t understand at the time.

So even though I cannot prevent things coming into my life that change my direction, I have learned to accept them, at least I try to anyway. Because I realize that every bump in the road is not a full stop in a sentence. It is not an exclamation mark that screams for my entire life to freeze. Because life goes on, and that’s a fact. So I now see these bumps in the road, more as commas in a sentence. A pause to stop and reflect, before continuing on with my journey. I also know that after these commas in my life, I can write the rest of the sentence. I can use what happened before and create a better ending to that part of my life. It is my story, I am the author of which I am writing a classic and I am already writing the next chapter.

We often get caught up in our own world and problems so much that we forget that life can really change in a split second. Take a look at what is happening in Egypt for example. Less than two weeks ago everything was as it has been for the past 30 years. But one spark, one moment a person reacted to an opportunity and it caused a ripple of effects that has created the situation we see now.

The same can easily happen to any individual. I do not believe in a pre-ordained destiny that we are only living through the motions. I believe were given a mind to choose the path we walk. I feel we are gifted with equal opportunities and problems that we need to experience and learn or take hold of and grow. We see it all the time that ordinary humans live are transformed over night by one simple action that they took after an opportunity arose in their path. The difference between them and us is not education, lifestyle or birthright. The difference is simply they were walking with their eyes open through life’s eternal garden of opportunity.

I know life can be painful. But wipe away the tears for they are only blurring the opportunities that lie in front of you today and tomorrow. All you have to do is open your heart and your eyes.

I found myself in a supermarket queue of some length yesterday. You know, where the other isles seem to be on fast forward, yet your line seems to be in a perpetual state of animation, moving in slow motion. Even sounds of the bar code reader bleeping seem to be dragging on for double the amount of time. Although none of the customers in front of me had much in their trolleys, the sudden realization on them that yes, indeed you must have your money ready to pay at the end, seemed a little hazy for them. I don’t get angry in these situations. I usually just drift off somewhere and let my imagination run wild on some topic. And yesterday was no different.

Looking at all the people in all of the queues, all waiting, each with their own agenda and level of impatience, I suddenly started noticing the differences in people. Big, small, thin, fat and all the other types of idiosyncrasies that make us who we are and I wondered, and don’t ask me why as this is just how my mind works and I have given up trying to figure that out myself as I just go with it now, if reincarnation were true and people were given a few choices on their appearance in their next life, how would they act? I am sure that every little insecurity that they had in life would be the one thing they would change. For example, if weight were an issue then a perfect figure would be requested regardless if this meant that your nose became bigger. So imagine if you are faced with the option where you could up or lower the level of importance on certain areas of your appearance, what would you change in the next life?