I am not only fortunate for having so much, but especially because I am so undeserving of everything. What have I given? What have I done for others? I have spent a self-centered lifetime worrying about a future that hasn't come--and might never come. I have repeatedly let the empty promise of tomorrow dictate the course of today. Why do I worry so much about life? It has always been me making it hard to live all along.
It has been in my quickness to judge myself and in the harshness of my self-critique that I have become bitter and hard on others. I've had a tendency to make radical statements that I will later regret, because in spite of my not-so-positive view of myself, I've always considered myself superior in one department.
I thought that it would be impossible for me to give up on my dreams and my plans of future success; all this based on the solid belief that my human dignity depended on my capacity to stand by my word and to demonstrate tenacity in the face of adversity. "I am not like them", I thought, whenever I saw that old classmate who "ruined" her or his chances in life by dropping out of college or having a child "too early" by societal standards. I would judge those who bailed out on their families or their relationships or who simply wasted their talents and led "mediocre" lives. But I wasn't any different from any of them. In fact, I'm not. I have my fair share of unfinished business: the words that were never said and were left hanging to dry in midair, the ideas that never materialized, the helping hand that was never offered, the book that was never finished, the life that started 22 years ago but was only occasionally lived. There is no use in trying to differentiate the fool that I am from the rest of the fools. It will not make me any better, just an ignorant fool who cannot comprehend this universal struggle to become. "To become what?", I think, but I have no answer. There's no need for an answer, at least not until we are ready to meet the end of it all.
Today I am stepping down from this sickening treadmill that kept my eyes so glued to the finish line to let me realize that I had become a prisoner of the road. I have realized that for every person--for you, for me--there will come a time when he/she'll be too tired to fold the laundry or to do the dishes. Eventually, we'll forget to charge our phones and to go to meetings,and we'll purposely get drunk the night before exams.And it will be then,in the midst of apathy,that we'll wonder if this is what growing old is all about or if we have simply lost the will to live. It will be then that you'll realize that those things don't matter anymore,simply because--as I have already figured out-- they truly never did.
