I

first heard that phrase about four years ago while I was watching the last episode of Sex and the City. The phrase stayed with me for a very long time and only now have I decided to dig a little deeper into what its essence is.

Carrie Bradshaw, the lead character in the US comedy hit and my inspiration to become a columnist in the first place, was basically reminiscing and reflecting on her life with her three best friends and thinking how different her life would have been without them by her side.

I was then reminded of the fear I had when I first arrived at my high school building seven years ago. Back then, I was so afraid of high school. There was the fear of not being accepted, and the fear that many unpleasant things would happen at a moment’s notice: How I conjured up the imagined beatings and threats cast down upon me by those more “superior” in the school.

The whole story would have been bestseller had I written a novel, but I did not.

I would not say that my high school life went smoothly; there were some obstructions and setbacks along the way but it was not as frightening as I thought it would be. Turned out, I even made a great many friends, who still mean a great deal to me to this day.

Life, I see it, is like having to make hard choices and try out new things you first felt unsure of.

Although I was never a believer of how I should just “go with the flow” and let the stream take me whenever it wanted, I have discovered lately a newfound belief that my life had been written down “somewhere and somehow”; that I ended up doing something, or becoming someone, or living someplace, not because I wanted my life to be that way but rather because I was meant to be doing that something, being that someone and living in that someplace.

Do you get it?

I didn’t want to go to that high school but somehow the higher power (God?) managed to put me on a chair in one particular classroom within that school building and I ended up spending the most incredible three years of my life and graduating with top marks in the Cambridge-supplement English class.

I sometimes wonder what would have happened to my whole life if I had never gone to study at the places I was supposed to; if I had never met those people who shaped my then-dormant personality; if I hadn’t watched certain movies or listened to certain music; if I hadn’t read certain books that I thought might be boring at first. I could never figure it out. I would be somewhat different. Less interesting? Or mundane? I will never know.

I live my life trying to be “the captain on the sea”; I hoist my sail, steady the mast and moor my boat whenever I feel like it. But there are times when I need to “let the boat work on its own” to bring me to land; when the best I can do is wait patiently and hopefully, while watching out for any lingering storms and waves to pass overhead. Let the wind be my guide and force for the sail.

I spend my life planning to be better, more spiritual and loving, wiser and more financially stable and successful. I have not given up on those dreams but as I head down the road of life, I begin to realize that I will encounter numerous things I would wish never to see.

If I can avoid them, I will. But if I can’t, I will need to put up with it. As I soak myself on grouse, the only thing left to ask is: “How different would my life be had I never got you?”

— Yoz Tanuwiria