debbiebradleyThat’s what happens.
Something comes along, happens, and then things are different.
They change.
When you’re driving along the road, and you can’t go the way you expect to, you divert.
Sometimes you follow the diversion laid out in front of you.
Sometimes, you just have to wing it and see where another road takes you.
We’re not all the same.
We all work in different ways.
We all want different things.
Some people want to follow the path… they feel valued by following in the footsteps of those before them. By taking up the mantle, by carrying on the tradition. By doing as the people before them did.
Some of us, we don’t see the appeal in that. We want to do the other thing. We want to explore the paths and ways less known.
We want to play in the shadows until we find the light.
Tread water until we find our own footing in the places most won’t even venture.
We want to push boundaries, test limits, break beyond.
We question the rules, and the ways of the many, and we do it to be part of the few.
We wander left, as the rest of the world pushes right.
We apply the brakes as the rest of the world rushes towards “the win.”
And we don’t mind if we lose.
We’d rather win in our own minds, by doing things our own way than be seen as someone winning at life by following someone else’s path.
We’d rather fall, fail, stand back up exhausted, battered and bruised.
We’d rather fight our way here beyond the Goblin City, than go down the path that takes us straight to the castle.
No… we can’t live like most, because we’re not most.
If we were in a faction, we’d be the Divergent.
The fearless.
The bold.
We’re the ones that take the leap, no matter how many people warn us, or try to protect us.
And we do it because we can’t not.
And we don’t give up. We don’t give in.
We’re the ones who constantly live our lives hearing “I don’t know how you do it”
“I don’t know how you keep going”
“Wouldn’t you like it to be easier? Even for just a little while”
And we’re the ones who smile and think of how boring life would be if it weren’t for the push. The struggle.
It’s what keeps us going, it’s what keeps us alive.
We thank you for your concern, but we’ll keep doing it our way.
I know, it’s crazy, you’re right.
But I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t do it like this.
Think this way
Live this way
I wouldn’t be me.
And you wouldn’t be you.
But now I feel a shift.
I can feel all the people who were following “the path.”
I can feel them shaking their heads, realising that living their mindless, easy, herd-led lives just weren’t worth it. Aren’t worth it.
The path well-worn is now pretty worn out.
It’s like their eyes are opening for the first time, where their questions reversed, turned inwards, towards themselves…
“How do you do this?”
“Is it really worth it?”
“Wouldn’t you feel better going in another way?”
“What am I missing? What could I have done differently?”
“What could I have done differently?”
It’s the person who gets up from behind their desk and starts to paint.
The person who steps away from the numbers and starts to write.
It’s the person who usually sits quietly at the back, too afraid to speak, who stands tall and says “I know the way”
Now is their time.
Now is your time.
The world is finally quiet, once you get past the noise.
That noise is nothing more than a panicked chattering, millions of people realising their safety net isn’t really all that safe.
But under that chatter, that noise, there’s silence.
A calm, relaxed silence, beneath the frenetic surface.
It’s there that the rest of us lie.
And it’s from here, that we get to rise.
It’s from that calm, the silence below the surface that we start to take hold.
It’s now that we slowly, one at a time, start to embrace the new.
We look around and see the opportunities, the new ways, the vast expanse of everything before us.
And for once, we’re not bound.
For once, we’re not the crazy ones.
No… we’re the ones that people are looking toward, wondering how they make it in our world, live our way. The way we’ve been living for years, not bound by their rules, and their ways, their wants.
We’re the ones who shunned that life for something “else”.
We’re the ones safely making our own way.
And in the most uncertain of times, we’re the most certain out there.
Even if sometimes the noise of “the others” had us questioning ourselves, we’ve finally realised that we were right all along.
We are the calm.
We do know the way.
And all that noise, well… that’s all it is. That’s all it ever was.
Just noise.
Now breathe.
