Life is challenging for all of us. It forces us to make changes we never thought we would have to make. Some of those changes can hurt us beyond our imagination, making us wish there was a way to go back or a way to change our lives for the better and end the heartbreak and suffering.

There is no way to change the course of life once we have chosen the path we wish to take, or is there?

I wondered what it would feel like to be in someone else’s shoes and live life according to their point of view. I always thought it would be so exciting to be someone different than what I already was. I now realise that is what everyone wishes. Life can be annoying because people around us, people we love, have so many expectations that one just don’t know what to do anymore.

It feels like we are carrying a mountain on our shoulders and we don’t know it’s even there. It feels like a burden that we can never relieve ourselves of. We have set our own standards and if we sink even a little bit, we feel like we are turning into a failure and we are a disappointment to those around us. It is like wanting something so badly that we work day and night for it but we still can’t have it and the loss feels like a big black hole in our hearts that can never be sewed back together.

Being what we are, it doesn’t always please us, but knowing what we might become one day makes us want to work harder and achieve the goal we have set for ourselves, no matter what hardships we might have to go through.

Everyday challenges like studies, taking care of our family and supporting them by working to the bone are inevitable and we have to push past them, no matter what the cost may be. That’s just how life works and it doesn’t make an exception for even the richest of men because at some point even they struggled with either their financial or family affairs. They might not have had enough time for themselves and may have not been seen for who they really are.

Everyone feels the need to show others how good they can be at something or everything. They keep struggling with themselves, hoping maybe one day they will find what they are really after. It’s something that one just can’t help feeling. It is an aching desire in our hearts that urges us to become something more than we already are. It is a big part of our ego and if we are not able to control it, it will tear us up on the inside, knowing we are not what we want to be or are expected to be. I think life can bring people together as well as tear them apart.

Take the example of the government. Their job is to govern people, but do the people see it that way? Some of them do not approve of the methods the government uses to keep law and order, so they rebel against it and take it upon themselves to fix their mistakes. This may not be considered the best course of action by others, so it leads to chaos and corruption which destroys the community.

People have different perspectives about how others live their life. I think my life is hard because I am pressured by everyone to be perfect, even though everyone knows there is no such thing as perfection. They keep pushing me to be something I’m not and don’t want to be. They won’t even listen to what I have to say about who I want to be.

Others think differently, they think that I’m lucky to have parents who believe that I can be the best of the best and that I have no limits. One thing can be perceived by so many different angles that at times it becomes difficult to know the truth.

According to William Shakespeare, “We know what we are, but not what we may be.”

These, in my opinion, are the truest words ever spoken.

Being what we are, it doesn’t always please us, but knowing what we might become one day makes us want to work harder and achieve that goal we have set for ourselves, no matter what hardships we might have to go through.

I’ve realised after a long time that no matter what I do or what precautions I take, there will always be obstacles in my path that I must overcome and I won’t always be satisfied with the outcome, because that’s life. It’s like a huge wave that forms over the waterbed and you have to ride it all the way to its unknown destination and hope for the best.

But, at the same time, you have to make sure you don’t lose that wave or you might never reach your destination. We don’t always get what we want, but we strive to achieve what we want. It has been like that ever since man first stepped on Earth.

I remember I once read somewhere a quote that really inspired me when I had lost all hope, “If life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavour.”

Published in Dawn, Young World, April 4th, 2020