Heads or tails.

I often see life as a coin—not life itself, but the way we behave. I know there are shades of grey between light and dark, yet I’m still surprised by how easily a coin can decide: heads or tails, yes or no.

What surprises me isn’t just our ambiguity when it comes to making choices, but those moments when grey doesn’t exist—when only the extremes remain.

If a coin could always land on its edge, there would be no need to choose heads or tails.

If we weren’t capable of experiencing all our emotions, we wouldn’t live between angels and demons, between love and hate, between yes and no. And yet, I often think that sometimes, you can choose how the coin will fall.

I really like Carl Jung’s psychological theory of the shadow, which explores that dark part of ourselves that sometimes seems to draw us uncontrollably toward what is harmful. It explains how we self-sabotage by projecting our fears and insecurities onto others—or even onto our own successes. It’s also true that we’re fully aware of our strengths and the good we’re capable of.

To me, this theory provided a powerful explanation for the emotional extremes we often live in—more often than we should—because the unconscious is always present, no matter how ironic that may sound. The shadow comforts me, because it is part of me, and I am part of it. Because if I listen to it and understand it, it will listen to me—and allow me the peace of living happily with my emotions, actions, and thoughts.

However, when I seem to forget all of this—when I feel I no longer need anything else, even when things are going well—I’m overwhelmed by an unstoppable urge to make everything explode. Because nothing seems to matter if the ending is the same for everyone. I often hear—not in words, but as a feeling deep inside me—this truth every time I shatter a little more.

On the other hand, in those moments when I was crying, convinced I’d never be able to get up off the ground again, I was suddenly overcome with the urge to fix all my mistakes—or at least to accept them—in order to seek my own happiness, instead of staying trapped in a self-destructive cycle of false self-pity. Because, in reality, I’m the one who knows myself best. I’m the one who can make myself happy. I am my shadow and my light.

Life is not a coin. It is not an angel. It is not a demon. It is not a yes, and it is not a no.

It is your soul against your soul.

It is your decision facing your decision.

You are the one who chooses whether the coin lands on heads or tails.

Not everything lies in simply deciding or in suffering. It's also about not limiting yourself to what was predicted or expected. It’s about discovering, about reinventing yourself, about truly living. It's about feeling every moment you experience, about enjoying even the smallest things—like those rare coins that, by sheer chance, land perfectly on their edge and cross your path.

It’s about understanding that extremes, even when they seem harmless, can lead to butterfly effects—small causes that set off powerful, unrelenting consequences.

Just remember this: you are not condemned. You are free—free to choose, to decide, in every single second, every minute, and every hour of your life, right up until the very end.