Rule Number #1: NO PASA NADA

Yesterday it was a complete shitshow of a day. As I am having my usual cappuccino at the airport in front of my gate and people started to board, I received a message from my mother notifying me that I had forgotten my jacket at home and, subsequently, also the keys to my apartment in its pocket. Sheer terror took over me like a wave. What ensued was me checking for another flight later that day while I kept receiving messages from my mother telling me to just come back home. I checked, 750 euros, forget it. Then I wrote in the precedent night's wedding WhatsApp group asking people who were probably still drunk if any of them were going back to Brussels later that day. None of them replied, nor yesterday nor today. My message got lost among renewed congratulations and thanks to the couple. And today I feel guilty for having spoiled the chat with my drama.

Then I called my landlady, who, with a jolly voice that I think my rent contributes to, notified me that she’d come back from Rome only on Wednesday and that, in any case since she has been moving back to Rome she is not even sure she has a copy of the keys anyway. “Hahaha povera gioia”, she said “, I am sad I cannot help you, and today is even Sunday, so there must be nobody to come to help you”. The irony of calling me “gioia”, joy, when she is causing me other pain. Then I remembered that at the conventry of my friar friends, they have some rooms for guests, and I thought “bingo! that is what I need, a place where I will be alone in the presence of God”. I call Father Alessandro, and he is like, “Sorry, we are on our way to Lourdes, and there is no one to open to you. But call a blacksmith”. At that point, I was convinced I had to be on the bus to Lourdes too.

Long story short, out of a miracle, I did find somebody who happened to live not far from my place. He came, opened my door in what was scarily just 5 minutes and sat down for a coffee. He stayed 2 hours, we spoke, in order, about: the Moroccan diaspora in Belgium, the Albanian mafia in the 90s in Brussels, all the dead people’s bodies he finds decomposing after days nobody checked on them, the rich people he has met who confessed to him their loneliness, his brother trying to get a hold on the inheritance before their parents are even dead and passages of the quran.

When he said he met people who were in prison and were freer than people outside, when he said he finds 5 minutes to be with himself every day because he needs to examine his thoughts and that he tries everyday to not become a flatmate of his wife, I knew I had in front of me a philosopher. And I knew it was time to gather some courage and share with you some of my wisdom, too. For what is worth.

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“You are very wise, for your age”. I have heard this phrase one time too many. I wasn’t particularly proud about it, I did not see the perks of being wise when I considered myself inept at life since I can remember. I was always convinced others could handle life, and I just wasn’t able to. Until I realised that most of us feel just as incompetent towards life’s challenges, they just don’t openly share this feeling with others as I used to.

What’s that quote? "I felt ashamed when I realised that life was a costume party, and I'd attended with my real face." - Kafka.

So, when I turned 30, more or less 6 months ago, I got pencil and paper and decided I would list my “rules for life” and that they should be 30 because 30 is the years I have been on this planet. Needless to say, I have not completed the list; I am stuck at 25. And that as I wrote those rules, I realised some have been lived more than others. It has taken me years to “earn” them. I am resolute in living my 30s instead of enduring them. That is why these rules serve me as a reminder, sort of a GPS.

Perhaps, this series of articles will help you err less, too.

After the blacksmith left, I was in the shower, trying to think about which one I should start with. I am very indecisive. And then, as I started being frustrated with myself for being so indecisive, the reply came to me. Sadghuru, an Indian guru, some of my Indian friends hate for being a whitewashed version of a guru, says that the best ideas come in the shower. I believe him now. So, I must start from this rule: “No pasa nada”. Which is ironic for someone who is so damn harsh on herself, who has not been able to sleep much at night lately because of anxiety over work and other responsibilities. I tried to find a good translation of this saying, but in Spanish, it is too perfect, so I will keep it as original as possible. As it comes from the source.

Rule Number #1: NO PASA NADA

This is not a rule I have come up with by myself. It is a rule I have inherited from Ines, soon to be 6 years old. You expected someone old because it is true that we are so stubborn that it takes us sometimes a lifetime to learn some valid lessons from life and distil some wisdom from it. And yet, I believe that since children are so new to this world, their lessons are theirs entirely; there is something so instinctual to them, not yet fully diluted by the adults in their lives. For me, they make the best teachers. If learning is about freedom, the perspective of a child is so fresh that it gives you new eyes, too.

Seeing the way my friends raise Ines has been curative to me. They are accepting, welcoming, and they return to her a benevolent gaze. And she returns that benevolent gaze to herself. She drops a glass of water on the tablecloth? “No pasa nada” she says. “There is nothing amiss”. When I was her age, doing that would have earned me a harsh look, a sigh of frustration from my parents. I was not allowed to make mistakes, a mistake seemed a tragedy in my household. There was always this “one shot” mentality impeding you from really just experimenting. It had to work. What was amiss was compassion towards oneself. They did not have it for themselves, they could not pass it on to me.

Ines, 6 years old, taught me self-compassion. “No pasa nada” most of the time, we think something enormous happened.

Vilma Djala