I found myself sitting by a quiet lake in my city, a haven of stillness amidst the rhythm of daily life. The water shimmered under a soft sky, and every passing ripple felt like a whisper of time. As the breeze gently brushed my cheek and the clouds danced slowly across the horizon, a question stirred within me: What truly keeps us alive—is it faith, or is it reality?
Reality surrounds us, shapes us, often defines our choices. It consists of the haves and have-nots, our aspirations, and the constant hustle to achieve. It is rooted in our credibility, capability, and our power to manifest our dreams. But isn’t reality ultimately quantifiable? Doesn’t it have boundaries? Even if we don’t always see them, there’s an end point to every pursuit based solely on reality.
I thought of that momentous day when astronauts first set foot on the moon. One would imagine it to be profound, otherworldly, drenched in poetry. Yet, when asked later what it felt like to stand on the moon, one of the astronauts admitted they were too focused on protocol to fully take it in. Neil Armstrong himself mentioned that after their lunar exploration, he returned to the capsule hoping to rest, but couldn’t. There was a loud banging noise—persistent, mechanical. It turned out to be the water cooler. Imagine that! We reached the moon with perfect precision, but couldn’t engineer a quiet water cooler. That detail felt symbolic to me.
Despite standing in the poetic expanse of the moon, they were bound by earthly systems, checklists, and protocols. And isn’t that so much like our own lives? We strive, we plan, we follow systems—living as if life itself were a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) with targets to hit and milestones to tick off.
But as I looked out across the lake, I wondered—what is it that keeps the water flowing, the clouds drifting, the breeze moving? Do they have a defined destination? Are they bound by a checklist?
It dawned on me then: Faith is what truly keeps us alive.
We do not know what the next moment holds. Life is unpredictable. And yet, we plan. We hope. We love. We get up every day with the belief that tomorrow might be better. That’s not reality—it’s faith. Faith that things will work out. Faith that every step forward, no matter how small, leads somewhere meaningful.
Nature doesn’t worry about outcomes. It simply exists, beautifully, rhythmically, in perfect surrender to something larger than itself. In that moment, I saw that our true destination isn’t a goal. It’s not a title, an achievement, or a number in a bank account.
Our real destination is Faith.
Faith in the unseen.
Faith in movement.
Faith in the journey.
Faith that even the quietest ripple and the gentlest breeze have a purpose, even if we don’t understand it.
So, as I sat there by the lake, I let go of my thoughts about deadlines and duties. I let myself just be. And in that stillness, I was more alive than ever—not because I had all the answers, but because I was finally in sync with the question.
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