There is an invisible life within us that has not yet dared to take on flesh and blood.
The life we didn't live slips through our hands without us realizing it, because at first, when we're young, we simply don't realize it. Then we get used to it and there comes a time when we consider it normal not to have fulfilled our dreams.
But the primal desire exists in the back of our hearts, raw and perhaps stubbornly demanding. Over the years, we have weighed it against society's standards. We have filtered it through the "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts." We have sculpted it so that it no longer challenges us. We have shrunk it so that it does not disturb our balance.
So, our repressed self becomes manageable. And I don't think it's the fear of failure that's holding us back. I think it's the fear of revealing another side of ourselves, to ourselves. An image that we ourselves are not familiar with.
There is an almost addictive security in not achieving what we dream of. As long as we don't dare to take the first step, we keep the illusion of our identity intact. We can always say: "If that... I could do that..." And this "I could" functions as a consolation and at the same time as an excuse for ourselves.
But the heart doesn't forget. It remembers the times you've sunk your dreams. It remembers the times you've backed down so as not to disrupt an order of things. And the times you've betrayed your inner voice in the name of decency.
As we grow older, the life we didn't live doesn't punish us, but it makes us melancholic without us realizing it and leaves us with a huge void, in a life where we don't feel complete.
It can take us down and make us mourn the mistakes we've made. But the biggest mistake will be not accepting that, if we draw the strength from within, we can see a new version of ourselves. Because deep down we know the turn we need to make. We just haven't dared yet.
Change doesn't have to be huge overnight. Initially, it requires acceptance. That we are ready for the first step, no matter what happens next. To envision the completion of the initial desire that we once considered excessive. To examine it without saying "I can't do it" or "where am I going to get into trouble...". To look at it with admiration, because all that exists within us is part of ourselves. Without the well-known phrase... "These are for others."
And the longer we postpone the first step, the deeper the gap between who we are and who we could become. At some point, however, postponement can become a life attitude. And then we talk about giving up. And there, in honest thoughts with ourselves, only one question remains:
If you knew you had no one and nothing to fear, wouldn't you dare to live the life you didn't live?
photo jarmoluk, https://pixabay.com
