searching for a former clarity

What does a guy do when he suddenly wakes up one morning and realises that his life isn't going the way it was supposed to five years ago when he dreamt it all up? Or that he's so far off the course he'd set for himself it's like he's become a totally different person altogether? When he can no longer see it as being even within the realm of possibility? Does he sit down and dream again a dream less lofty than the other one? Or does he soldier on, always believing that if it was possible once it could be possible again? It's the age old question - when does it stop being perseverance and determination and become stupidity? How many times should one try before they realise it's a lost cause, and they need to find a different course to follow? If you can answer that question, then you're smarter than I am, coz I've been thinking about it alot, and I still don't get it. Say I have this friend, who got a job once that he thought was what he needed to get him launched on the path to glory, and then with time came to start feeling that he was merely wasting himself, and that where rubber meets the road the place he was at was nothing like he thought it was going to be. Now it's not a completely lost cause, it's really all just about differences between him and the leadership at that place, nothing physically inhibitive. So if he tried and waited long enough, maybe they could change, and he'd become happier. But say he's tried it and thinks it'll take too long for that to happen, and the he might burn out earlier than that time. So he'd rather just call it quits and go back to the drawing board, see if it's really true when one door closes another one opens. He's got me thinking. Im wondering if I'd have the fortitude to just take the plunge like that. Comfort is a feeling of freedom from worry and disappointment, so I guess that's why they call where you are right now and are afraid to leave a "comfort zone". Worry and disappointment are all the things associated with taking risks, which happens to be the one thing you have to leave the comfort zone to do. This guy says he wants control over what he does, and what he earns. They say the higher the risk the greater the returns. But mostly the thing they don't tell you is that they mean at the stock market, not really out in the real world where the difference between success and failure is you having a hot plate in the evening and sleeping out in the rain. And also that the higher the risk the higher the price you pay, so really those higher returns, whatever they may be, have been earned, right?

So anyway my friend's jumping into the deep end, with both feet. These are the people who make us start thinking. He got a deal, he found it raw, and instead of just sucking up and compromising like most of would have (I think yours truly included, up to a certain level), he's walking away and looking elsewhere. It's pretty amazing, how much people can do if they look deep enough within themselves. In a country like the one we're leaving in I know at least 20 people who'd call you a fool for leaving a job, ANY kind of job. They'd say how it's better than nothing, and how maybe that's where God wants you to start, and how there's a million other people out there with the same degree who dint get the chance you got, however paltry, and so you should put up or shut up, and be grateful, and quit your whining and go back to work. So you had dreams about something different, well face it, it's called life! Dreams don't come easy. No pain no gain. You know, the works! But there's another side to all this. "Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate; our greatest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us." I wanna be that guy who can stand up and say enough is enough, because I think inasmuch as situtations make you complacent they're not necessarily better than nothing. "Nothing", if nothing else (excuse the pun), is a strong motivator. When push comes to shove we always manage to step up to the plate. At the precipice, there's nothing man cannot do. The problem is usually getting ourselves to that point. And unless we're there we're never really gonna improve ourselves.

There are moments in our lives when we find ourselves at a crossroads; afraid, confused, without a roadmap. The choices we make in those moments will define us for the rest of our days. Of course, when faced with the unknown, most of us prefer to turn around and go back. But every once in a while people push onto something better. Something found just beyond the pain of doing it alone, and just beyond the bravery and courage it takes to pick up and start over again, for no reason other than the fact that you're not happy where you are. Something beyond the quiet persistence of a dream. Because it's only when you're tested that you discover who you truly are. And it's only when you're tested that you discover who you can be. The person you want to be does exist, somewhere on the other side of hard work, faith and belief. And beyond the heartache and the fear of what lies ahead.

END

it gets the worst at night

Here are those lamentations again, this time after the fact. It's starting to seem as though there are people who are destined to be alone, and that I'm one of those people. I had thought I had found real love, I had thought I was in it for the long haul. Me and the subject of my unopened letter to the world, we thought we were going to have it all. But alas! It was not to be :( It appears "the long haul" just got drastically shortened. To 2 months! Things came up during the last few days that led me to believe the world is not nearly big enough. There was a slight conflict of interests between us and another couple. We figured since we were the new kids on the block, so to speak, it should be us who let up and not those others (hurray me! performing a selfless act! omg), so we sort of mutually agreed to disagree. I can't help sometimes but wonder where those days are in which Shakespeare was writing his stuff, when love used to reign supreme and it could go up against even two families and still triumph, albeit tragically. Us going on might have meant alienating the families, and for some reason we decided that was too high a cost to pay (I guess things to do with curses, parents getting cardiac arrests, it's not the african way... that kind of thing...). But had it been, say, Romeo and Juliet, they would probably have said "...Screweth thee the Montagues and the Capulets!...Love give me strength, and strength will help me through. Goodbye, dear father..." Wait... they did actually say that! But we apparently are living in a different day and age, or perhaps a better description would be "the real world" where snow white dies every time.

Now all I do is think about what could have been... The places we could have gone (there's a song that sez "...love lifts us up where we belong..." or something like that - from those old Sundowner days)... All the experiences shared... All the little arguments, and fights, and the happy times, and the movies, and the texts and phone calls. I'll miss those things. We're supposed to still be friends tho, so I'm waiting to see how that goes, if all these "unresolved feelings" will come back up again to haunt me. But right now this emotional turmoil I'm in gets the worst at night. When it's dark and I'm all alone and there's this eerie silence interspersed with the ocassional mosquito buzzing past, those are the times I die a thousand deaths. Anyway, I saw this written somewhere once, and I agree: When your heart breaks, you've got to fight like hell to make sure you're still alive, coz you are. And the pain that you feel, that's life. The confusion and the fear, that's there to remind you that somewhere out there is something better; and that something... is worth fighting for. The important thing is not to be bitter over life's disappointments. Learn to let go of the past, and recognize that every day won't be sunny.

Even though it ended ten years too soon, at least I got a chance to for ever so short an instance live in the moment. To reach out and hold on to the possibilities without regard for future consequences. I finally did something I wanted to do when I wanted to do it and, surprise!! surprise!! the world didn't end! Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. said many people die with their music still inside them, and that too often, it's because they're always getting ready to live, and, before they know it, time runs out. Well, at least I enjoyed my fifteen minutes. I have no regrets. Maybe we did deserve better, but who can ever tell these things? The more I think about it, the more I see no rhyme and reason to life. No one knows why some things work out and others don't. It's a shame though, coz I could have held her in my arms forever, and it still wouldn't have been long enough...

END {{in more ways than one!}}