I always told myself that Allah would reward me after having hard times, but I never imagined that one of my hard times would be facing death.

I faced death, and I lived.

Before we realized it, fire was everywhere, and we couldn’t even escape. I stayed inside my house, trying to keep the fire from entering it. We couldn’t stop the smoke, though. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t even breathe.

Mom was terrified. She was screaming, “We are going to die.”

I went to the window. I looked outside and saw fire eating everything. The window was barely blocking it from eating me. I thought that maybe it was all just a dream. I looked at my fingers. They were five, not six. It wasn’t a dream. It was my reality.

As hard as it seemed, I realized that it was over. We were going to die that night because it was impossible to survive what my eyes were witnessing.

And suddenly, nothing mattered.

People couldn’t help. Everyone ran away trying to save their souls. Money didn’t matter. It was only paper, after all.

I was left with my Creator. Only He could hear my screams. Only He could see my suffering. He was the only Savior I had, the only one I had ever had.

I started praying to Allah to help us survive, to keep us alive.

I suddenly realized what it was like to LIVE, and what a great, great, great blessing it is to be able to breathe, to simply be alive.

I was terrified too.

My dad put on wet clothes, covered his nose and mouth with a wet towel soaked in vinegar, and told me to close the door after him. He was trying to save the car.

I told him not to go, not to risk his life for it. It wasn’t worth it. Nothing in this life was worth dying for.

He didn’t listen to me. He told me not to go after him. He had to throw water on the door handle just to be able to open it.

We opened the door.

Fire faced us.

I took a step back. He took a step forward and kept going until he disappeared into the fire.

I kept waiting.

I was afraid to wait forever. I was afraid to die waiting. I wanted to die with him and my mom.

I waited for God knows how long. Time was slow.

And then I realized he might be dead by then. When that thought crossed my mind, I felt like I had lost my mind itself. I started screaming my lungs out.

No answer.

“Dad is my everything. I can’t lose him, Ya Allah. Take me instead, Allah. Give him back to me, Allah.”

This was playing in my head the whole time. I kept screaming, waiting for an answer.

No answer was given until I heard him calling my name from the window of the other room.

And I felt my soul entering my body again.

Allah gave me my dad back.

After a while, the fire had left nothing. Dad told us to come out of the house because we were barely breathing in there. He told me and my mom that it was over.

We survived this terrible nightmare.

Everything was gone, but we weren’t.

The three of us survived.

It was a miracle. Fire surrounded us, but we didn’t die.

I looked around me, and there was nothing really to look at. Everything was gone.

Every tree my dad had planted and waited years to see grow had died. Every tree that he had taken care of for years and years was lifeless.

Part of his car was destroyed. He had saved most of it by risking his life.

Black and gray covered the place.

Some of our family came that night, checked on us, and gave us the bad news. A lot of people died that night. May they rest in peace, inshaAllah.

Anyway, when my hard time was over, I realized that Allah had rewarded me this time with my life, and my parents’ lives.

And it was the most precious reward He had ever given me.

Alhamdulillah, after all.

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May allah protect my algeria and all its people inshaAllah.

I find it strange how we can look at someone else’s life and so confidently decide that it’s not enough to be called success, as if success was meant to look the same for everyone.

There are people whose biggest dream is to build a family, a home full of love and stability, a place where emotional support is given freely, in which you realize the value of having people who share with you the smallest details before the biggest ones.

While there are others that see travel as a lifestyle, a mindset built on stepping out of comfort zones, defining joy by having a fridge covered with tiny souvenirs from around the world and passports slowly filling with proof that they lived. For them, stability feels boring, while flexibility and adventure are not a choice but a way of living.

Then there are those who spend years of discipline chasing degrees, staring at their diplomas as a precious prize for all their efforts and securing a valuable social status in the community. To them, success is proof, something they earned.

And others who look at their faith and closeness to God as the greatest accomplishment. This is what gives their life a meaning.

Without forgetting the ones who consider getting out of bed and washing the laziness off of them is a battle itself, and winning counts as a success.

We forgot that all of these count as success, every version of it, just in different fonts, different shapes.

Success is too wide to have one definition, it’s too complex to be measured by a single standard, yet people still do it. They compare, judge, rank, as if success is something fixed.

But it’s not.

What feels like everything to one person might feel like nothing to another, and that doesn’t make either of them wrong.

it just means they are different.

It’s no one’s place to make someone feel like they’re doing less. It’s not fair to decide what’s enough and what’s not, because you simply don’t understand their priorities.

Success isn’t one path, it’s personal. It can be seen or hidden, but it doesn’t change the value of it.

It was never meant to look the same,it was only meant to feel true to the person living it.

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If I sat in front of my childhood self and told her what goes on in my mind now, I don’t think she would recognize me.

Not in the obvious ways people talk about. Not in the “you grew up” kind of way.

Something quieter than that.

Back then, things ended when they ended.

A moment passed, and it was gone.

Now, nothing really does.

Everything stays a little longer than it should. A sentence, a look, a small detail can sit in my head for hours, stretching itself into something bigger than it ever was.

It’s not even about the thoughts themselves that feel unfamiliar.

It’s about how constant they are.

When i started comparing myself to her i realised how diffrent we are. She knew how to live the moment, unlike me who lives in the idea of it.

I think about it before it happens. I imagine how it will feel, how it will look, how I will act. And by the time it actually arrives, part of me is already distant from it.

There’s always a small gap now.

A space between living something and thinking about it.

It shows up in quiet ways,

being somewhere but not fully there,

listening but also analyzing,

feeling something and immediately questioning it.

Emotions don’t just happen anymore. They get processed, named, sometimes even doubted.

Nothing feels completely simple.

And it’s strange, because nothing is necessarily wrong either.

Life isn’t heavier in an obvious way, but it feels heavier. The weight is almost invisible, yet constant.

It’s the kind of heaviness that comes from carrying too many unfinished thoughts.

From replaying things that already passed.

From turning small moments into something that needs to be understood instead of just lived. Your head feels full, as if you have used up all the free space in it.

This didn’t happen all at once. It was gradual.

A little more awareness, a little more thinking, a little more distance each time until thinking started to feel louder than living.

And at some point, without noticing, I stopped experiencing things directly.

I started observing them.

The version of me I used to be didn’t treat life like something to figure out.

There was no need to step back and analyze every feeling, no need to question every reaction. Things were felt fully, then released just as naturally.

Now, everything seems to pass through an extra layer first.

A layer of thought, of hesitation.

It’s thin, almost unnoticeable, but it’s always there.

And it changes everything.

Because instead of being completely inside a moment, I’m slightly outside of it too, aware of it while it’s happening, thinking about it while I’m still in it.

That quiet distance is hard to explain.

But it’s enough to make familiar experiences feel a little less immediate, a little less whole.

Maybe that’s what growing up actually does.

Not just changing who you are, but changing how you exist in your own life.

Not taking things away, but placing something in between.

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What scares me more than failure is becoming someone who stays average in a life that could have been more. The worst part is that no one would even notice. People would say you’re doing fine, that you should be grateful, but deep inside you would know the truth: you could have done more, you could have been more. You had potential, and you let it fade.

The thing is, no one really explains what potential is. They just tell you that you have it, and suddenly it becomes this invisible responsibility you carry. You feel the constant pressure to turn it into something real and valuable. If you don’t, you’ve failed in a way no one else can see but you .

We’re almost always in a hurry, pressured, trying to stay ahead of the version of ourselves we fear becoming ,the one that wakes up one day realizing it stayed the same, waited too long, and chose comfort too many times until it was too late.

That thought stays with me quietly, in everything. When I rest, it feels like time is slipping. When I try, it still feels like it’s not enough. Even when I succeed, I wonder if I could have done more or done it better. It never goes away.

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Potential isn’t the beautiful gift we imagine. It’s something that follows you, always asking for more, without ever telling you what “enough” looks like. How do you even know when you’ve wasted it? There’s no final moment to say, “Okay, I did it. I used all of it.” It just keeps going.

Sometimes I wonder whether I push so hard because I truly want success, or because I’m scared of waking up one day realizing I let the chance slip away without really trying. This fear doesn’t feel loud. It shows up in small moments…when you scroll instead of work, when you tell yourself “tomorrow” instead of starting now, when you settle for “good enough” even though you know it could be better. It’s that quiet conversation we all have with ourselves.

And so the quiet pressure continues. Perhaps the best thing we can do is keep acknowledging that voice, even when it’s uncomfortable. Not because we’re chasing a perfect life, but because none of us wants to look back and feel like we quietly let ourselves down.

In the end, maybe that’s all we have…this quiet awareness that we still have a choice. We may never feel we’ve used every bit of our potential, but we can refuse to let the average version of ourselves win.

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Watching movies with open endings always feels a little uncomfortable, questioning , and trying to accept that it didn’t give you the satisfaction of a complete ending. And no matter how much you think about it, it never feels fully finished.

(By the way, that’s exactly what I felt after finishing Inception. I’d recommend watching it. Great movie.)

Back to what i was saying , In movies, everything seems to have an explanation. Every shot, every line, and every action of every character has a meaning in the story. Everything feels clear.

But in real life, things aren’t always so neat. Not every action has an explanation. Not every ending makes sense. And not every goodbye has a closure . and that’s what makes letting go so hard.

The concept of closure is often sold to us as a necessary final chapter in the story ,an answer to all the questions that are left, an apology that will fix what was broken. Or it can even be just a small message to quiet the confusion in our minds.

But in reality closure isn’t something anyone gives you? It’s not a conversation, an apology, or a message that makes everything feels complete. Because when you seek closure from someone, you are basically saying ”I cannot heal until you give me permission”. You are handing the keys to your emotional peace to the person who likely disturbed it in the first place.

And that’s why I think it is something we convince ourselves we need, so we don’t have to accept that some endings simply…end. The true closure is something you give yourself when you decide that the “why” doesn’t matter as much as the “now”. It is realizing you’ll never get the answers you want and accepting that “because they chose to “is the only answer you’re ever going to get, and it is a good reason for you to move on .

It’s not about forgetting or pretending it didn’t hurt, because letting go was never about erasing what happened. It’s more about what you carry with you once the moment has passed. We spend so much time trying to decode the “why”, as if the answer will finally unlock our permission to be happy again. But the truth is, some people are never going to give you the clarity you deserve, and waiting for them to do so keeps you trapped as a background character in their story.

Understanding that some stories just stop mid-sentence and be truly okay with it ,is what gives you The real closure. Some endings spin endlessly, leaving you unsure what’s real and what’s not, and maybe that’s the point: to decide for yourself what to believe is real.

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I’m not an expert when it comes to love. I’ve never really experienced it, but even from the outside, watching people and relationships, I’ve developed what might be a very unpopular opinion about finding the right person. I mean, is there really such a thing as the right person?

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I saw a man on TikTok asking, “After a breakup, how can the person know that he made the right decision ? How can he know that he didn’t just lose the right person?” And I couldn’t help but wonder, “What does he mean by losing the right person? What makes a person call another THE right person?”

“Wait for the right person,” they say. People spend years waiting for the right person, imagining someone who will perfectly fit in their life, as if somewhere in the world there is a flawless human being designed just for them. But I think the truth is much simpler and much less romantic: the right person does not exist.

Each person on this earth has flaws, imperfections, and bad habits. You choose the ones you can handle in the person you want to spend the rest of your life with. I think about it as the family we were born in: not all of us are happy with our parents, but most of us learned how to deal with them and accept who they are.

Yes, the partner is someone we choose, but just like the parents and every human on this earth, you will always find flaws. And no matter how much your partner seems to look perfect, your relationship will surely include differences and imperfections.

So the real question isn’t, “Is this the right person?” but, “Are these the flaws I can accept and live with?”

In my perspective, one of the main reasons relationships fail nowadays is that both sides expect the ideal partner, someone who is perfectly made for them, and treating each other based on that expectation. That creates pressure on the other person. It creates either a person who always tries to be someone perfect and ends up losing themselves in a no-way-out maze by being someone different, or they simply leave.

So maybe what makes a relationship work isn’t perfection, but two people willing to understand and deal with each other’s flaws, focusing more on the effort, the respect, the emotional maturity, and shared values.

Maybe love isn’t about finding the right person. Maybe it’s about choosing someone whose imperfections you’re willing to embrace and who chooses yours too.

Flaws and all, that’s what makes it real.

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For years, I’ve wondered why people repeat the advice “choose yourself” as if it holds some profound truth. To me, it always felt cliché and unnecessary, since human beings naturally tend to prioritize themselves.

But day after day, I began to realize that choosing yourself is actually something we learn. And that advice turned out to be one of the best pieces of advice someone could give. Because it’s something we need to hear every morning.

Choosing yourself sometimes means going to sleep early, simply because you don’t deserve that guilty feeling at 1 a.m.—blaming yourself the next morning after getting out of bed, making empty promises that tomorrow you’ll change.

And that’s where everything shifted for me.

When it finally sank in that choosing yourself means giving yourself what you deserve before expecting it from anyone else, I started seeing things differently.

I noticed that I enjoyed being around people who seemed to know a little about everything. I found them smart, curious, and interesting. I loved friends who talked about politics, world news, and random facts.

But I hated the fact that I couldn’t keep up with them, because I lacked the information they had.

And I realized why.

I had never truly given myself the priority to learn the things I genuinely enjoyed discussing. I was too focused on learning what I was supposed to learn, rather than what I actually loved learning.

So I began giving myself the time to explore the things that interested me.

Step by step, I started building a person I would actually enjoy being around. I started defending myself the way I once hoped others would defend me.

And suddenly, I didn’t need anyone else to do it anymore.

I was enough for myself in every possible way.

I became the person I once saw as interesting. I became someone I liked—someone I truly appreciate and respect.

And that’s when I realized something simple:

I had already chosen myself.

And strangely, once I did, everyone else seemed to as well.

And if you. even if it’s one person. made it to this sentence i would take it as a win , i hope you enjoyed reading .

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