We are born, we grow up, we grow old and we die.
Well, its not that simple is it ?
Though time is linear, the journeys and experiences that impact us and change us often occur unnanounced and shape our lives in a completely non chronological order.
It is this intricacy ..that makes Growing up ..Painful.
It is also this - that keeps us eternally young and secretly optimistic.
Even at 30, there are parts of me that are still as emotionally mature as a six year old.
And even at 60, Hopefully..there will be parts of me that will still feel as excited as I did at 18.
Often, things happen in my life and days or months later, I realize what their significance was in the wheel of my time. And I look back and replay these moments, kind of like watching a movie where I star.I watch myself fall down, fall apart, put things together, move on, move ahead and become whole. Until I repeat the cycle.
However, sometimes I know for sure in my heart as I wait, at an exact moment that in a split second I will be making a precise choice that will change my life and how I will look at myself forever. A moment's hestitation worth its weight in gold. I can smell it. The loaded minute. Where I could do or say something that will either make me move one step ahead in a snakes and ladder game ..or slide three rungs below and then it would be years before I have a chance to fight that exact demon.
This weekend - I was at one such inflection point.
As I waited first for 10 minutes, then 15 and finally over 30. I knew what I had to do.
I had to speak up for myself or hold my thoughts forever. It would have been easy to smile and say I'd get over it and forget about it. But suddenly, it wasnt just about this situation. It was about every other similiar situation, where I'd not been able to muster the courage to say what I wanted to say, when I wanted to say it. It was waking up ever single morning and looking at myself in the mirror and making a decision that would go chin up or eyes down.
Suddenly, I didnt want to be the guy on the cover page of Atlas Shrugged.
I had a minute and I had a choice.
And I chose to stand up for myself.
Like they said " If you dont stand for something, you will fall for anything"
I do and I won't.
Not again. Not ever.
