Mamad Purbo

The Most Terrible Thing


Your life is not about you.
If your life is about something at all.
It is about everything else but you.

It is about the world turning days into nights.
It is about the laughter of strangers living next door.
It is about the fair weather at the other side of the earth.
It is about great deeds of great people you don't know.

The most terrible thing in your life is,
that it has never been at all yours.
It is about losing,
things that have never been yours anyway.

The only less terrible thing you can have in your life is,
not to have you yourself in your own life,
but to have you, in other people's life.