Fight for your Dreams

I seem to be fond of seeking out the negative in life. It is often the only thing I can think about. A person’s kindness isn’t always met with thoughts of gratitude, but rather, I aim to discover their selfishly driven motivations.

It is an unhealthy habit, I know, one that I am trying to break. It is because of this habit that I allowed myself to fall prey to the hatred and self-loathing that I found myself in.

Dropping out of school for financial reasons was hard. So too was taking a job that promised enough to cure those financial reasons, though sacrificing my ability to attend school in the process.

That same year seemed riddled with minor and major calamities throughout my entire family. Illness and financial issues seemed to be widespread.

Thus, I was trapped, working to live, while living only to work. I could see no future in the job I had, your typical dead-end gig.

With the bad shape of the economy, I could hardly find any work elsewhere, and so the snare around my neck seemed to tighten even more.

Dreams I had, to become a writer, and to make artistic creations based on old traditions from long ago. To own a small corner of mountains and trees, where I could build a modest home with my own hands, a workshop for my artistic expressions, and live close to the natural world, far from the concerns of everything.

It would seem, though, that throughout the course of my new job, those dreams seemed to drift further and further away, so far out of reach, it had passed beyond the horizon.

How could I ever hope to write and study my true passions, if I was unable to receive an education? How was I to ever purchase a plot of land suitable for my dream home?

The answer, of course, was that I never would, not in my current situation.

The snare tightened further, threatening to cut off my last breath. I was alone to deal with the despair and desperation of what my life had become, and no matter how close a friend was, it seemed that any words of comfort were lost.

They could not know of the true hatred and anger I felt at the world. But further, would never know how much I came to despise myself.

Each fake smile at work, each false compliment given. I had succumbed to despair, and began to decay, because of it.

I was no longer the person I remembered being, or wanted to be. I was something else entirely, and it frightened me.

Then it happened. The great epiphany. It was not some major event that changed the fortunes of everything. It was rather small. A seed planted in my mind that each day grew stronger, until it was a burning desire.

A coworker commented on how life can pass you by. That is it. At the time, I chuckled, realizing that that was indeed what I was doing. Sitting in a stationary, frozen state of time, where work ruled my entire life. A life void of happiness and pleasure, and the simplicity I sought so desperately. Then, a simple quote came to mind. The quote comes from lord of the rings. The scene has the hero Aragorn speaking with the Aowyn about what she fears. She replies as such:

“A cage. To stay behind bars until use and old age accept them and all chance of valor has gone beyond beyond recall or desire.”

Over the course of weeks, then months, this seed emerged as the fiery passion, the knowledge that I must break my tethers; tear at the snare about my neck. It could potentially hurt people I cared for, but I forced that from my mind. I was decaying, becoming a heartless, soulless bastard, and I needed change.

Now, here I am, almost a year later, in a new apartment, a new city, back in school. Though I don’t necessarily have my quiet secluded mountain plot, far from the din of civilization, I am closer now than I ever was. The faint image of my dreams has once again crested the horizon, like the first rays of morning light, piercing the sky.

You must prepare yourself for a harsh road, because the fight for your dreams is the hardest one of your life, but it is also the one that yields the greatest reward.

Now I know that the only person who can stop me from fulfilling my dreams is myself, and that bastard will have a hell of a time trying!