A mirror held close—
Reflects not the face,
But the mind behind it.
The supermarket hummed with a strange, artificial stillness. It was that time of evening when people wandered the aisles not out of necessity, but because they had nowhere else to be. The fluorescent lights above cast a dull, flickering glow, stretching shadows where they shouldn’t be, making the whole place feel slightly unreal.
He stood in front of the shelves, staring at the rows of bottled water. Still or sparkling, mineral or purified, glass or plastic. A simple decision, yet he felt stuck.
His hands rested deep in his coat pockets, as if by keeping them hidden, he could anchor himself, stop himself from drifting further into the inertia that had taken over his life.
Around him, people moved, but he barely registered them.
A woman in a long coat picked up a bottle, then put it back, as if waiting for some invisible signal to tell her which was the right choice. A young man in earbuds grabbed a can of something without looking, his fingers barely brushing the label before tossing it into his basket. A supermarket clerk restocked a shelf mechanically, his gaze distant, lost in a place far beyond this aisle.
These were people living. Existing. Moving forward.
And yet, he felt separate from them. Like a ghost watching the world pass by, unseen, untouched.
There had been a time when he moved effortlessly through the rhythm of life. When things had weight, meaning, texture. When choices were just choices, not a suffocating reminder of all the ways he had become unmoored.
But at some point, that had changed.
At some point, the world had blurred. Not in a sudden, catastrophic way, but in the slow erosion of clarity—like ink bleeding into water, spreading, staining everything in soft, indistinct shades of gray.
The Mind as a Filter
People think thoughts are harmless, that they are separate from the real world.
But the mind does not observe passively—it filters, distorts, colors everything it touches.
- A man who fixates on loss will see absence in every empty chair.
- A woman who expects betrayal will find it in the faces of strangers.
- A person who believes the world is cruel will unconsciously reshape their life to confirm it.
He had spent months—maybe years—rewinding the past, analyzing, dissecting, replaying every moment where he had faltered. A conversation he should have ended differently. A path he should have taken. A version of himself that could have existed if only he had been someone else.
And in doing so, he had trained his mind to see nothing but the shape of his own regrets.
It wasn’t the world that had dimmed.
It was him.
Imperfection is not failure, that life is not meant to be controlled, and that what is absent is just as important as what is present.
A river does not resist its current; it moves.
A tree does not fight the wind; it bends.
A man does not have to battle his own mind—he only has to let thoughts pass without clinging to them.
Because thoughts are just that—thoughts.
And not all of them deserve to be believed.
Lessons from a Mind Learning to See Again
- Your thoughts shape your world—choose them carefully.
- Regret is only as heavy as you allow it to be.
- The past cannot be undone, only released.
- You are not your worst moments.
- A mind filled with light sees a world full of it.
He exhaled.
A small, insignificant breath. And yet, it felt like something. Like opening a window after a long, stagnant winter.
The supermarket was still the same. The clerk still stacking cans. The young man still lost in his music. The woman still hesitating over her choice of water.
But the moment stretched.
Not dramatically. Not in some grand, life-altering way. But in the quiet sense that this was a moment he could simply step through, rather than be trapped inside.
His hand moved—almost on its own—grabbing a bottle, unscrewing the cap. Still water, simple, unremarkable.
And then, without overthinking, without questioning, he drank.
The cool liquid moved down his throat, weightless, formless, filling the spaces he had been keeping empty for far too long.
The lights above flickered again.
And for the first time in a long time, he noticed that they were still shining.
life 
Leave a comment