Tales from Crete | 77

"When you close one door, another one always opens," said my father. As a child I didn't quite understand it, but over the years I got wiser and learned that it was mostly true. What he tried to instill in both my brother and I was that it was no use looking back at the door that was closed, but instead looking forward to the one that opened. There is just as little use in sitting and looking in the rearview mirror when driving forward in your car, because then you won't get very far without something going wrong.

My father was an irrepressible optimist. He always saw the best in others and always saw the positive rather than the negative. Right now, in the almost unmanageable situation we are in, with the extensive Pandemic we all have so close to our lives, there is not much positive to look forward to. It is not easy to notice that there is another door that opens for us when the Pandemic has released its iron grip on our world. But I still put my trust in the fact that we will probably all find the door that opens for us, because the Greek proverb says: "Everything changes, but nothing passes away". Our world is changing in these weeks and months, but that does not mean that it is passing away. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, but it may well be a while before we see it.

Personally, I think that this Corona virus, as terrible as it is, makes a lot of people think a little more about enjoying the life we ​​have each been given and making the most of it, because it is my clear conviction that we have given life to live it and use it and enjoy it. It may well happen that we sometimes do some stupid things, that we have some habits that may not be so sensible, but that is also part of living and using life.

When the cursed Corona virus is over at some point, we will probably all have had a wave of a wagon pole that we are only human and none of us are invincible, and I think we will remember that for many years to come. So in that way, little by little, a door is opening for us, albeit quite slowly. A door that shows us the way so that we must remember to live while we do it and as Piet Hein added: "and love while we dare".

So think positively, enjoy that the sun is shining and spring is on its way, then everything will probably work out.