Tuesday 20 May 2008

The one that got away?


When the weights of the world are off your shoulders and you start to feel the wind, problems will always arise. It’s a simple fact of life; that is, that life is never easy, nor will it ever be so. They say that ‘too often we are so preoccupied with the destination that we forget the journey.’ So often it is that while day dreaming our future we can misplace our present and find the world has passed by. But why does the future seem so distant? And why if our train falls off the rails does it seem impossible to get back on track? I find myself asking; Is it true that if our ship has already sailed, we cannot catch it up?

It is an everyday problem, we reach the platform and the doors are shutting. Do we risk all humiliation and bother running or do we accept defeat and wait? And what is it that makes us so mad that we missed it? Is it the opportunities that we may have missed or the frustration of having to wait? But in life will there ever be another train? What if you’ve missed the boat? Is there still a future?

As a result of customer service if we miss our method of transport then we can get on another one at a later time or be compensated for the journey. But if we miss our journey in life how are compensated? Do we simply have to deal with it? Is our compensation the thought that the reason we didn’t get on is because there is still unfinished business? In other words what if fate is telling us something; What if we never meant to get on in the first place?

So then, do we even bother catching it up? Is it worth chasing that that doesn’t want to be chased? Or is that all part of the test? By rejection we may well be on the path to acceptance. For rejection was and still is the beginning of all the large movements, the woman’s vote and the civil rights movement. And like the Nazi’s violent rejection of the Jews, someone will always stand in the way and force change on wrongdoing. And all of these things have made good out of bad. So is that the answer? To chase to your hearts content.

Each of us knows what it is that we want and that which we don’t, because in life it is the future that gives motivation for the present. Just don’t get so wound up in the future that the present becomes lost. In real life we cannot help but chase because what we want is always somewhere above what we have, so we can never truly catch our ship, we are merely lagging behind its shadow on the horizon. And though occasionally we may lose sight of it we know it’s heading because it is the same as our own. And the effort we put in determines the distance between our ship of dreams and our ship of reality.

And where does the journey end? We cannot say because on the way our journeys intertwine with those of others and our paths distorted evermore. But we must make the most of it all because although it is good to have an end to the journey, it is the journey that matters in the end.