Years ago, I had a conversation with a Dutch journalist about migrants fleeing war zones and the challenges many of them face when trying to start a new life in a foreign country. She said something I never forgot:
“I have no problem cleaning bathrooms if I have to, as long as it covers my basic needs.”

She said it calmly and confidently, as if stating an obvious fact not worth pausing over.
Although our conversation was about a specific situation, I see it now as an example that applies to many other aspects of life.

Life can take something important from you without warning, like money, social status, or even more. Suddenly, you may find yourself facing options you never wished for. This doesn’t only apply to war refugees, but even to people in stable countries. I’ve come across dozens of stories from people who lost a great deal, each loss unique in type and scale.

It’s never easy, not emotionally nor practically, especially when the loss is large. Some people fall and get back up again. Others stay down, not because they lack resources, but because they no longer believe that small beginnings can lead anywhere, or because they keep waiting for a “perfect opportunity.”

I’ve come to believe, more with time, that the worst thing life can strip you of is not money or chances, but your belief in basic truths. These so-called clichés, which may sound simplistic at first, often carry the breath of survival:
“Hard work pays off.” “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

To strive, to hustle, to sweat under the sun of this earth. To begin from the crack in the wall, the basement of a dream, and believe, not just hope, that this small step could become a turning point. To wash dishes, to work in a grocery store or café, and then see where the road might lead.

Those who never rise again often don’t lack strength or intelligence but suffer from an inner collapse that makes them believe they are too old, too experienced, or too set in their status to start over.

But if you cannot accept beginnings, you will never master learning. And you certainly won’t endure its slow and humbling pace. Everything new, a skill, a craft, a language, a life, begins from nothing.

Life doesn’t ask you to be brilliant or successful (whatever that means), but simply to be willing to begin. That, to me, is one of the greatest traits of survival.

To learn how to begin again and again, whenever needed, and without preconditions.

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A film worth watching

The Return – 2003

A Russian film by director Andrey Zvyagintsev, it tells the seemingly simple story of a father who returns after a 12-year absence to take his two sons on a trip that slowly becomes an existential journey.

Personally, I love films that pose questions and leave the responsibility of answering them to the viewer: Who is this father? Why did he return? What do his children feel about him? The cinematography is stunning.

The film isn’t about the return itself, but about absence; about fragile trust, lost safety, and the complex longing to love those we don’t fully know.

The film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival (2003).

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