You know that nagging self doubt that comes even after you made the right decision? Here you are today feeling so sure of yourself, so happy and everything looks shiny and promising. Yes you’ve earned it with your (cliched but true)blood, sweat and tears. Suddenly tomorrow everything looks like it’s wilting. That’s the general human brain’s bipolar percentage and its called Existentialism. In theory it’s necessary and keeps you grounded.

Then there’s the practical aspect. And these seem to add up as we celebrate birthdays. You find a thorn and you think you took it out. You had a bad feeling and you thought you resolved it. You compare things as they are to things that could be or could have been! It’s nothing short of death to all those happy brain cells you’ve been growing in your mental nursery.

Here’s a question for you - Who does not regret at least three moments in life? They might not be big. It might just be a conversation held for under one minute more than five years ago where you might have said something you regret. It might be a look you gave somebody when you knew you should have been kinder.

Oh well - there are a lot of things that are easier forgotten than resolved.

Growth is pretty similar to that scene from my favourite full-of-charming-metaphors-series: Harry Potter. There’s these kids struggling with a huge plant that’s aggressively wrapping itself around the kids - much like a python. And then they have to - in that madness of nearly being crushed to death - relax their muscles and calm down and suddenly the plant lets them go through to the floor below. That is the only way to enter that chamber.

So if things are testing us - it’s a necessary evil that we have to go through the problem and not around it.

Well, good luck then, with all problems great and small! May you find a way through them.