Letting Go

Kamil gazed out the window of his apartment, watching the bustling streets of Johor Bahru below. Honking cars, jostling street vendors, and distant muezzin calls filled his ears as they did every day. But this time, it felt different. A heaviness pressed upon his chest, a dull ache that mirrored the grey clouds gathering above the city.

Then his eyes fell on the leather-bound notebook lying on his desk, his dream journal, with its detailed plans and earnest hopes for a better life. The pages had yellowed over time, the ink had faded, the dreams within them seemingly as elusive as the stars that he was no longer able to see from his window.

Kamil had poured his soul into his dream—a bistro to be located in the midst of the bustling shops of the local bazaar, with walls blushing from the smell of freshly brewed coffee and voices rattling with laughter and mirth. He had spent long nights drawing plans, researching recipes, and even thinking up names for the place. For five years, he had worked on the project. He had spent long hours sketching out layouts, imagining recipes, and even thinking up names. It had been his constant companion, his escape from the monotony of his job as a data entry clerk.

But life had other plans.

The café was never built. The glint of his dream dulled as the reality of lack of money, family obligations, and nagging self-doubt blunted it, turning it into a gritty, bitter pill that he’d swallowed. He’d let himself be immobilised by fear—the fear of failure, the fear of letting down his loved ones. In his silence, the dream had died, leaving behind an emptiness.

Kamil knew he had to get rid of it, to let go of the vestiges of a dream that was no longer possible. But the thought of doing so was like tearing off a part of himself. He was so intimately attached to the dream, to the hope that went along with it, to the image he had of himself as a cafe owner. He was scared of what he would be left with, scared of the nothingness.

He tried. He tried to move on, to focus on his humdrum life, to tell himself it was for the best. But the dream wouldn’t go away, a phantom limb that wouldn’t quit, a reminder of the life he could have had. He stared, and then stared some more, at the notebook, each page a painful reminder of his own failure. His dream became a weight, a constant presence in his daily life.

One afternoon, Kamil had been wandering through the market and chanced upon an inconspicuous old bookstore. He entered and was overcome by the familiar smell of old books and the soft crinkling of turning pages. He began to look through the bookshelves and spotted an old copy of The Alchemist. He picked it up and started to read through the novel about the shepherd boy who follows his dreams.

That evening, he read the book through, alone in his apartment, the words reverberating in the stillness of his home. The novel felt like an old friend who visits when you are in need, a reminder of the value of surrender and of the bravery it takes to travel into the abyss. The book was about the way, not the goal; about accepting the bumps and twists and dissatisfactions that inevitably come with life, about finding glory in the face of disappointment.

He closed the book with a sigh. A new thought seemed to lodge itself in his brain. He had been clinging to the past, clinging to a dream that no longer served him. He had been afraid to open himself to what a life without a cafe might hold, but maybe, just maybe, it might hold its own form of beauty and meaning.

The next morning, Kamil woke up with a renewed calm. He looked at the dream journal, not with longing but with gratitude. It had been part of his process, part of his life, part of his education. He put the journal in a box and stowed it away like a relic of the past and a pledge for the future—to the present, to open himself to the possibilities.

But Kamil did not open a café; the dream, though, had unleashed a larger latent passion in him. He took a culinary education and began to bake. He started a small bakery. And as he saw people smile upon eating his products, he knew his letting go had not been an act of retreat but a step toward something more appealing.

His dream might have changed, but his spirit hadn’t. He had realised that letting go was not about forgetting but about living in the moment, about opening his heart to the chance to create a life beyond the prison of his past. It was about enjoying the journey, not the goal, and the surprises that the journey could bring. And now, as he walked the crowded streets of the city, feeling lighter in his stride, he knew that his journey, like the city that he loved, was always about a tomorrow poised, full of promise, around every bend.