On life

In Turkish, we have this saying:

Günaydın lan yaşamak!

by Ferhan Şensoy, meaning (more or less): "Good morning to life!"

Let me greet life in the same manner; good morning to life!

I went through the hardest and most instructive period of my life in the summer of 2025. I experienced a lot, learned much about life. I felt the support of my circle very strongly; family, relatives, friends, and colleagues. I'm thankful to all of them.

There is another related saying. Since high school, when I first met Friedrich Nietzsche, I have kept these words in mind: Amor Fati.

Amor Fati: 'love of fate' or 'love of one's fate'. It is used to describe an attitude in which one sees everything that happens in one's life, including suffering and loss, as good or, at the very least, necessary.

It does not have to be true as a fact (as we say in STEM), but I choose to believe in it, and I love my fate, with all the good and bad things...

Recently, I had a small moment that made me think about this. There was a small decorative mug on my desk with the saying "Good morning to life" written on it. One day, it fell off my desk and broke, totally my fault :).

I collected every piece, and tried to fix it. The result:

Now I still use it, sometimes on my desk and sometimes on my bookshelf.

I recreated it from its broken pieces, and now it has a different meaning for me. It is no longer the old version that someone else created; now it has my touch.

I remember the summer of 2025 whenever I look at this mug, and I admire life. Enjoying it is most of the time related to how we look at it.

With all the good and bad things, I will keep accepting life as it is.

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Related to the ideas above, I would suggest reading this article about enjoying life: Limonata ve Rafadan Yumurta.