In our lives, the universe periodically gifts us the opportunity to transform how we live. It's as if life tells us, "Exploring land is cool, huh? Well, how about this: let's dive into the oceans instead." I could also argue that it's always possible -- however, when things are going well, we often ignore the universe's gift, or we are blind to it. Calling it a gift is a little bit of a misnomer. While it offers something that we might not have thought possible, it's not free in the sense that a gift is free.
Imagine life's gift as a crystal ball. At its core, we can see the most perfect version of ourselves. Swirling around are impure clouds marred with failure and defeat. Accepting life's gift is easy, but bringing its essence into being is difficult in every sense of the word. Trials of strength and willpower pave the road to happiness. Hardships mock us as we walk the road to satisfaction. Grief and pain, like wildfire, consume the path to inner peace.
With that in mind, the allure of our perfectly constructed life still holds strong. The life where we are happy with who we are, where we experience joy and love every day, where we are confident, fearless. The hardships ahead are only hurdles in our race to the finish. And so we sprint, ready to conquer the world, to face our demons, to absolve our past sins.
We fall, perhaps before we even get to the first hurdle. We realize that we cannot stand on our own two legs. We cannot walk, much less run. Life stands over us, smirking. Defeated, we can only crawl back to the starting line and try again. And we try again, and fail. Over and over, we fail. We look back at our string of attempts, only to see failures, and no success.
It is at this point when many people resign themselves to an imperfect version of life. They are caught up in one of the swirling visions in the crystal ball. They justify their decisions by settling for a version of life that is "good enough". Unwilling to fight for more, they resign themselves to fate, letting out a sigh of regret as their perfect vision slips away. It's simply the easier way out. In this manner, we reject the universe's gift. The swirling clouds carry us away, and we lose track of the real vision.
And as we tally up our failures, our defeats, with nothing to show in our success column, those who carry on notice something. Somehow, they've managed to not only stand on their own, but start walking. On our journey, we find kindred souls are all around us. We are all at various places in the race to the finish line. Some are still shaky on their feet, but standing. Some have managed to start running. Some, clearing the first hurdle but not quite the second. Very few, at the very end, proudly looking back at the race they've completed.
And we cheer each other on, encouraging those that fall to get back up when all seems hopeless. Slowly, taking baby steps, we hold strong and clear the first hurdle. And if we stay strong and we keep going, until we finally realize that we have become the person we once saw in the crystal ball. It is okay to falter. But if we resign, we doom ourselves to mediocrity and settling. Now that is the only outcome that is not okay.
Apart from all this abstract thinking and storytelling, I can relate where I am in my own life to this. Two weeks ago, I lost the first true love of my life because I pushed her away from me. My mental health issues proved to be too much for me to handle. Everything in my body screamed at me to let go of something I dearly loved. And try as I might, I couldn't defeat the anxiety.
So I resigned. People call me a quitter for not pursuing true love. I question myself, asking if what I had was love. Sometimes I hate myself for quitting. I blame myself for how I treated her, for how I threw her love away. For how I abandoned her when she was always there for me. And perhaps we weren't right for each other. Maybe the timing isn't right.
But the truth is, none of that matters. I made the decision to quit, to backstab, and its consequences are now very real. My first love is now but a painful memory, and I'm waiting for time to help it scar over.
The universe has presented me with its most precious gift. I don't want to quit again. I know how it feels now. I know what it's like to resign. You know what? I don't like that feeling. In fact, I absolutely loathe it. I don't ever want to quit again. Not like that.
So I'm going to go to a therapist. I'm going to address my mental health issues. And I'm not going to compromise any more. There is no more "good enough". I'm going to make a list of my dreams, and I won't stop until I'm there. From this day onwards, I'm going to try my damnedest to make sure that I'm the best version of me that I can be. Not for Nicole. Not for anyone else. Only for me.
Submitted April 30, 2017 at 01:59PM by Visegra http://ift.tt/2pLdk0B
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