Well, I had an hour and a half long walk tonight/this morning, and since I’m supposed to be up in two hours anyway, I figure I might as well forego sleep and write. It’s really quiet walking home at four in the morning, and it’s really conducive to thinking.
Dreams, hopes, aspirations. People talk about them, plan their lives around them, and do everything they can to realize them. In my mind, with these kinds of things you have three options. 1) You can do everything you can to realize your dream, hope, or aspiration come hell or high water. 2) You can give up on your dream and find another passion to follow. 3) You give up altogether and settle for something less. As far as I’m concerned, option number 3 is unacceptable. A person can never reach their full potential if they aren’t passionate about what they do. Deciding what to do, and what you want to do, you have to have passion behind it. Otherwise you’ll be miserable all the time.
Don’t seek and don’t expect. A friend of mine told me this once, but I never really put all that much thought into it. But since I had the time, I really gave it some deeper thought and broke it down. Don’t seek. Instead of meaning not to go looking for a dream, it means not to go blindly looking. Don’t go looking for something that isn’t there or can’t exists. Rather, know your potential, know your capabilities, know yourself. By doing that, you can find the best way to realize your dreams. Don’t expect. Basically, don’t expect things to go according to plan. Don’t expect to get what you want. Don’t expect life to be easy. It isn’t. You will be tested, there will be pain, it will be difficult. As long as you don’t let your expectations get the best of you, you’ll be able to find the right path to what you want.
For the most part I’ve got a bunch of my hopes and dreams figured out, but some things still elude me. I’ve been referred to a lot of ways. I’ve been called “my guy”, “the guy”, “Mr. dependable”, “Mr. indestructible”, “bro”, among other names. People depend on me, but few if any seem to really care. I’m an implement – an instrument, a weapon, a shield, a toy. I am a machine. When people need me, they call on me for whatever purpose because they know that I can handle just about any situation. Whatever damage I suffer, I can recover from. Whatever difficulties I come up against, I can overcome them. After they’re done, I’m forgotten until the next time I’m needed. Before, this used to depress me, leaving me questioning my self-worth. I felt like it wouldn’t matter if I wasn’t around. Now though, it doesn’t affect me so much. I’ve come to accept it as a fact of my life. It’s why I tell people not to apologize to me, that they don’t need to thank me, and not to worry about me, whether they care about me or not. Because in the end, if I’m not around or not needed, I don’t exist.
It’s a bit depressing at times because I hate being single – I’m not good at it. Wanting to have someone to love, wanting to devote myself to someone, that’s not a problem. I just hope someone could feel that way about me before I’m damaged beyond repair. So here I sit, sweaty, exhausted, and my leg shot to all hell and feeling like it’s going to explode. But not for a second do I doubt or question why I do what I do. For every second of agony that I endure, it means that someone else doesn’t have to. For every breath I lose, someone else gains more. It’s a fair if not beneficial trade-off, so very little thought has to go into it. Until I've got someone for whom I need to stop taking all this damage and enduring the pain, I'll keep going on doing what I'm doing. In the story of life, I’m no main character. I’m the guy who does much, achieves much, and then is left to be forgotten in the pages.
I’ll close this entry with some lyrics to a song sung by Frank Sinatra.
“Don’t worry ‘bout me
I’ll get along
Just you forget about me
Be happy, my love
Just say our little show is over
And so the story ends
Why not call it a day, in a sensible way
And we’ll remain friends
Look out, look out for yourself
Should be the rule
You just give your heart and your love
To whomever you love, don’t you be a fool
Baby why stop and cling
To some fading thing that used to be
So if you can forget
Don’t you worry ‘bout me”
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