After the fall.

How hard can a fall be? How bad would it hurt to fall down? What would you actually feel when you’re down there? These are a couple of the many questions which almost never come to the mind. Why? 

Who wants to fail? 

You know the answer already.

If you don’t want to fail, why would you think about something you don’t want to see yourself in. And it’s a reflex, we associate failure with the end of an opportunity. To most people failing marks the end, sure it hurts to fail. You had invested a substantial amount of time, energy and finances to attain a goal, but for some reason or another you couldn’t. In every situation, there are some factors that you can control, some factors you can influence but to an extent and then there’ll always be things that you can’t control at all. We are so fixated about controlling what we can that we lose the scope of reality, that there are factors we can’t fully influence or control at all. 

After the fall, the hardest part is making sense and finding the energy to sustain yourself. The urge to get back up almost instantaneously is not the drive to succeed, but the anger. This anger is volatile, it’ll evaporate quickly, you’ll be left empty and without that drive. Sometimes, we mistakes that anger for the drive, for the fuel to get us through and it is only near the midway that we figure out that wait, where am I? And what am I doing? 

You’re seeing others walking past while you’re still standing at the same spot, you want to join the crowd but there’s something that is holding you back. Look down, your shoes are untied. But the reflex is to join the crowd right away, right now. You ask yourself that Why should I stay back for a few more minutes? A few minutes later,  you tell yourself that I can walk with this, a couple of meters away your shoe starts to loosen around your feet. You end up struggling, but you tell yourself I don’t want to behind them. You have to stop again, tie your shoes and then start walking again. By this time, someone would’ve reached their destination, someone who was behind you must’ve gotten ahead and someone behind you must be walking right next to you, shoulder by shoulder. 

Soon you’ll see someone turning in to the next street, someone new would take that place. They might even do it flawlessly, but sooner or later they will blend in the crowd. You are still worried about why you are behind, but as you walk and walk, nearing to the sunset, something interesting will happen. You will get ahead of someone, you will make a turn to a street that you’ve never walked. A time will come when you will feel you’re tired, but still you will want to go on, and eventually you’ll reach a point where you need to sit down. 

It’ll be a beautiful evening for you, as you find a bench to sit down on, you’ll see a reflection. You’re old, wrinkled and you’re not what you used to look like anymore. Some of the others will still be walking, some of them will come and sit near you. You will slowly find your presence being vaporised, but someone else will be sitting at where you sat, someone else will be walking where you once walked, someone else will be tying their shoes and someone else will be rushing to join back the crowd with their shoes untied. 

Once you’ve nearly vaporised you’ll see the road is never ending, and everyone is being replaced by someone and no one is irreplaceable.