Remembering the Dance of Fate in Antibes

Another video is up, and this time I take you around the streets of Antibes. I like my videos to be immersive, so that you can feel you’re walking around with me. I know that it’s not possible for everyone to travel, but you can still have the same feeling as if you are elsewhere when watching a video from the eyes of someone else. Above all, I want my videos to help people feel relaxed, to help them feel that there is more to the four walls of our own life. There are a myriad of opportunities that exist for us, but by habit we limit ourselves to what seems to be possible from where we are. In reality, there is no reason why we can’t dream big. Last year, at this time, living in France was a dream to me. It seemed far off, unreachable, and now… I am living it. When I remember this, I remember that the desires I have yet still in my heart are not unrealistic. They are entirely possible…

All we need to do is fuel them with our attention, belief, with innocent eyes open to the wonders of life. All it requires is that we are open to the idea that… well, anything is possible. Indeed, if you take the time to look around the area where you already live, I guarantee you that you’ll notice things you hadn’t before. Simply taking the time to look with a different perspective at the things which already exist around you… will help you to see opportunities that previously seemed to be hidden. I would like that my videos help you to realise this, as creating them helps me to realise it myself. No matter where I was in the world, I always felt that I wanted to be somewhere else.

But on the flip side, no matter where I was in the world… I was not able to move onto something new until I learned to appreciate whatever was around me. What I had learned in life is that, yes, it is rare that something magically comes into our life and changes it overnight. Well, it is rare for something good like that to come around anyway. But, there will always be available to us the path towards whatever it is that we want. It is just a question of finding it, or making it. Sometimes we cannot see it, but it is always there. The question is… how do we find the start of the path towards something that may seem so far away?

Walking around Antibes, I asked myself this question. Now that I am living the thing I had once dreamed, I can’t quite remember how I did it. But taking the time to walk around, watch the sunrise, and enjoy the sunny winters day… I remembered the first time I went to Antibes. In fact, I remembered every single time I had gone back. The very first time, it was raining, and the town seemed empty as if no one lived there. After that, I took a French course based in Antibes and I went there every day. In fact, I would go to the same café that I went to in the video. It was the only café open that early. Every morning, I would sit outside and eat the same meal, with the same type of coffee. Some days, I’d be frantically trying to finish my homework before class, but most days I’d sit with my coffee and watch the morning market, the goings on in the town hall and the people on their way to whatever they had planned for the day. I remembered going back to Antibes every time after that, to meet with friends, to get administrative things done, or simply to pass the time. All those days, I had wished that I’d call Antibes my local.

And all those times, I was dancing with fate. I played my part by believing that in some way that I didn’t know, it was going to be possible to live in France. No matter how impossible it seemed. There were many times when I did not have enough energy to believe, or when I’d purposely try to talk myself out of wanting it at all — to protect myself from any disappointment or difficulties that I may face on my way there. But always, always I returned to the fact that it is easier for me to enjoy thinking about my desire, than to prevent myself from that pleasure because I was afraid of failure.

The fear of failure is so formidable sometimes. It forms the bars in which we imprison ourselves to repeating the things in our life that we sincerely would like to change. Yes, it all came back to me that day as I was walking around Antibes. All the tears I had cried, all the times I had screamed within the silence of my own mind out of frustration, all the times I had been too afraid to make the application for my visa. Now, I am free from that, but still, the next desire knocks on my door. It is natural and human to want more, to be sick of our life sometimes as it is… but it is good to not forget to be grateful. It is this gratitude that warps our sense of vision. It changes our surroundings, without our realising, and presents the path to our dreams before us.

On the way, I tortured myself. I thought far too much, I made plans, trying to chart my way there. But every single plan I made had failed. It was only when I gave up, and when I was able to look only for the next step… and the next step… and the next… that I was able to be here today, without remembering how it happened. I did not have a map with the route prepared, I burned all those plans. Neither did I pretend to resign myself to being happy with my life as it was, because that would have been unauthentic. Instead, I accepted that I had a wonderful life which didn’t really fulfil me, and I walked forward even then.

I accepted the momentum that my life was running on at that time, of travelling everywhere and anywhere. Constant movement, like a hamster stuck in a wheel with a very beautiful view. I planned more travel, believing that somehow this was going to be the way to my dreams even if I did not really know how. Even if that did not seem logical in my mind. And yet here I am. Last year, in my last short term travel to France, I found the courage that helped me to apply for my visa and everything went smoothly. That’s why it is a dance. We cannot achieve our dreams alone. Fate is always there with us, watching our next move, ready to take us to where we want… if we are ready to take the next step into the apparent emptiness. If we are ready to trust it.