RECKONING

Ah, Nevin…

Who was Nevin?

Nevin was a woman in her late thirties with a successful career.

She had attended countless self-development seminars, read piles of personal growth books, and yet — she still felt there was something left within her that she hadn’t managed to improve.

Why?

Because for the past six months, every morning when she woke up, she could no longer find a reason to get out of bed. Her complaints had grown so much that they began to make her miserable.

“Every day is just the same as the one before… Monotony. There’s nothing that excites or motivates me anymore. If everything keeps being the same, how can I ever change myself, my life, or my future?”

If one’s today was no different from yesterday, how could tomorrow ever change?

All her life, Nevin had felt she had to work hard and dedicate all her time to her job. Yet, there was also a part of her that comforted herself by saying, “I still have things to get from life. Once I retire, I’ll finally have everything I want.”

But as she waited for retirement, seeing her married friends, those preparing for marriage, or her friends with children made her ask herself: “Why don’t I have those things?”

And while Nevin was this unhappy and joyless, she often thought she was the only one going through such troubles — when in fact, she was just one of many people living the same kind of days.

Facing the past had always felt heavy for her. So unless she had no choice, she never looked back or wandered into the places where lessons might be learned. Sobbs, screams, tears… those were things she preferred not to see.

But the more she avoided the past, the more life seemed to notice — and forced her to face it. That only led her deeper into a place of no solutions.

When did people face their reckonings, anyway?

When they were happiest, most joyful, most excited — or when they were at their lowest, most depressed, and broken?

Did people face reckoning when they failed to get what they wanted — or after they finally got it?

And did one do this reckoning with oneself or with others?

Did these reckonings always lead to growth, or could one stay stuck, moving not even an inch forward?

Most people who complained like Nevin weren’t really looking for solutions… They just turned their complaints into questions — or rather, they grumbled at life itself.

They didn’t ask, “Where is the root of the problem that hurts me?”

Instead, they said things like, “Why am I unhappy? Why is this vicious cycle lasting so long this time? After all I’ve been through, why can’t I be happy?”

She waited for a miracle — while blaming life for everything.

And in her darkest moments, she would say to herself, “Don’t make plans for tomorrow; you’ll only be disappointed.” And somehow, life always brought her events to prove her right.

Yet life always whispered in advance — only, so few people actually heard it.

While Nevin was still tangled in this struggle, she ran into her old university friend Nermin — the one who had always told her, “You can’t escape your problems, Nevin. They’re called problems for a reason — they’re waiting for you to solve them.”

Where did they meet? At a work conference.

Nermin had changed so much. Her speech, her walk, her gaze — all radiated maturity. In a quick chat, she told Nevin she was married, had two children, and was attending the conference with her husband. Unlike Nevin, she still had so much to tell.

When Nermin asked, “So, what have you been up to?”

Nevin replied, “Oh, you know… same struggles, same routine. I’m just killing time.”

Little did she know that what Nermin was about to say would change her life.

*“My dear… We think we’re killing time, but in truth, time is the one killing us. Yes, maybe we’re both nearing forty — I agree with you there. But do we know how much time we have left?

Think of it this way — from today onward, this is the first day of the rest of our lives. Whether we have three months, three years, or thirty years left — it doesn’t matter. Every morning, I wake up and say, ‘Today is the first day of the rest of my life.’ And I try to both clear the debris of the past and build new things for the future.

You know what I’ve realized? You can’t move forward in life without making peace with your past and learning from it. You have to solve each problem and keep going. If you don’t, if you skip the lesson, that same problem will come back to you again.

Remember? In university, I failed Statistics in our first year and struggled so much in the final year because of it. Life’s the same — if you don’t pass the test, you can’t graduate. Life keeps saying, ‘Deal with the lesson, and move on.’

So when you think you’re moving forward without solving a problem, you’re not really moving. You just think you’ve left it behind, but that problem keeps showing up again and again.”*

Like lightbulbs flickering on one by one, each question Nermin asked lit up something in Nevin’s mind.

“That’s exactly what I’ve been doing… I’ve been running away. I haven’t been reckoning. And when reckonings pile up, the losses grow too. If you don’t notice it, those losses can last three years — or a lifetime.”

So this time, Nevin made a decision. No matter what, after every event, she would reflect: “What did I do wrong? What did I do right? What will I do differently next time?”

And Nermin added one last striking line:
“And of course, Nevin — not with complaints or whining. Because life asks us questions every moment through problems. But we turn those questions into troubles by complaining about them.”

Yes — the decision was made. From that day on, Nevin would no longer let her reckonings pile up. Before they turned into full-blown battles, she would face them slowly but surely, step by step — answering every question life posed until her very last breath.

And today was the first day of her life. And she would go on designing it the best way she could.

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Experiential Design Teaching is a knowledge community that produces strategies for designing our future based on past experiences.

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"There is only one thing in life that can never be discovered; The better one..."

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Yahya Hamurcu