To friends!

About a month ago, I traveled over 1,500 kilometers on a special journey.
There were days filled with hard work, sometimes to the point of complete exhaustion.
I met with friends, passed through the beautiful landscapes of our Croatia and neighboring Montenegro,
but there were also moments that weren’t exactly pleasant.
Yet, all in all, it was perhaps the most beautiful period of my life!

For a while, I couldn’t quite understand where that feeling came from!

But I realized:
when a person truly understands the world we live in and finds their purpose,
all difficulties—hard work, unpleasant moments, bad weather—become merely temporary.
They cannot disturb the inner peace and happiness we carry within us.
A calmness, even joy, is born inside us, unshakable by anything.

And when we share that feeling with friends,
whether they are physically with us or just in our hearts,
that experience becomes indescribable.
In those moments, one wishes to be a poet, just to express that beauty in words.

The scenes of stormy weather you see are just an illustration.
It was brief, fleeting, and couldn’t change my mood.
Because external circumstances do not define our inner peace.

When I speak of friends, I don’t just mean those I personally know.
I mean all the people who strive for a world without wars, conflicts, or divisions,
a world where we collaborate for the common good.

I wish all people on Earth would live by these values,
because then I could call each one of them my friend,
whether I’ve ever met them or not.

Thank you, friends, known and unknown,
for reminding me that life,
when lived with true values,
is truly wonderful!