Courtesy: Pinterest.com/Purgatori (2018)
I can’t believe it’s been 6 months already?! Who would have thought I’d still be alive. Not just alive, but thrive at the unconventionality of what constitutes my life these days. And how fast these months have fled? It’s been messy, sometimes unplanned, the worst, ugh…perfection eludes me. There have been way more uncomfortable moments that I never knew I had the courage to take up – it seems like half of these past 6 months, I dissemble, a majority of these months I have lived outside my comfort zone. It has been exhilarating, I must admit. And my old friend, boring, well, I don’t know when she will ever come back into fashion.
Entrepreneurship embodies everything that I never knew I wanted out of my career – to be independent, illimitable, lawless. Has it been though? If I’m honest, I have been brought back down to earth more times than I would care to admit, that comfort zone eludes me. And my favourite pose when I’m working these days is to hold my chin in one hand, waiting for that disruption to my day, because I have learnt that that is the one constant I can count on in my life now.
It is against this turmoil that a recent offer to merge, which ordinarily I would never consider, became extremely tempting. And I’m appalled that my first thought of it, was hurray, freedom. You see, jumping at this opportunity would be the ultimate betrayal of everything that I believe in. Who else would take up these ideals, and this dream? Where else would we have an all-women led firm? Well, at least one with me in it. And yet, if I rejected it, I’d pass up a potential buffer with my nemesis – clients, people, my emotional battery depleter. How could I carry on doing this when my fantasy beckons?
And that familiar annoying voice within me reminds me of everything that I hold dear, of that road most rarely taken I have always dreamt of traversing, and what difference it has made for travellers who’ve trodden down its trails. But it will take me years to get to my boring, am I prepared to suffer that much, any longer? And what am I suffering for? Is this my purpose in this world? The pursuit of independence, financial security and, gasp, stature, eminence, vanity? Distinction in the dearth of my kind? Is this what I seek? And yet, another voice interrupts, what of those little girls I have always wanted to mentor, to whom I wish to serve as a presence, if not a model, in this field, to whom I wish to provide a comfort zone, to clear the vines on these tracks so they don’t have to. What about them?
Logic and pragmatism rules me. It reminds me to keep my goals in view- success, abbreviated, but within my range now, diminished strain, don’t I want that? It entreats me to be sensible, to keep the stars in sight, victory at the clasp of my hands, that the means matter little when the goals are attained. Isn’t that what I believe in? Winners or Losers, and no in-betweens? Behold my dilemma, a battle between the rational and the idealist in me.
It is painful to decline the offer before me, it is even more painful when fog surrounds these footpaths. But I cannot betray myself. After all is said and done, I never want to look back at a life where I know that I took the easy way out. I want it said that I took the untravelled road, those muddy unpleasant trails, and I may or may not succeed, but I perished trying my damnest to make things work out. And it won’t be a pretty story, but at least it won’t be an ordinary one. It has made all the difference in others. And I hope that I will join them in those hallowed hallways someday. And if I don’t, you know what, I gave it my best shot.
My loves, only God knows where this road leads. And if I don’t get to that promised land, I hope my mistakes shine a light for whoever is behind me to keep off those treacherous vines that doomed me. And wherever it is I get to reach, I hope I never ever think that that is all there is to this. That my toils count for nothing. It’s so easy to forget to enjoy this journey. To take a time-out and look at the bigger picture when things don’t go according to plan. And I have to write it down, growl it out every morning, beg with all my being that it stays at the cortex of my mind. That my hereafter far transcends this world, and every goal, path, dream of mine must align to this. And my journey must reflect this reality. To do good, no matter what, where, whom. That I never forget that all this is evanescent and fleeting. And the fact that I gave it my very best should be enough for me.
The least traversed path is my path, it is the path of the true traveller in this world. That this is what should be familiar to me. This is my comfort zone, the discomfort. No matter the censure of this entire world, we have to remember that a life far much bigger than this awaits us all. I hope I never forget that my loves – my Lord, please help me never to forget it. As to those forks in my road, there is no choice is there really, but to take them all.
