“Let your words be seasoned with salt…” ~ St. Paul
“… – in case you have to eat them” ~ Imisi
“We all make choices, but in the end, our choices make us.” ~ K. Levine
Hi and welcome back to De-Me-Stified. Hope you’ve been up to much.
If you’ve seen the news lately, the biggest question on your mind is probably a variant of “how on earth did we get here?” As individuals, as a collective, how did we really get to this point?
It’s the kind of question one asks on realising they may be lost. It suddenly hits you that your current position is not the predicted summation of all the steps you’ve taken. You trace the crumbs back in your head. It probably all checks out. Yet, here you are – lost! How the heck did you get here?
Many years ago, on a nice Easter Sunday, my brother and I decided to break from the bunch and take a shortcut home. One foot in front of the other, as anyone would – until we were facing a river that could easily have had a jumbo jet for breakfast.
Our default instinct was to complain and ask a bunch of unhelpful questions. Why did we even choose such a God-forsaken path home? What were we even trying to prove. Wasn’t it easier to have stuck with the rest of the group? Eventually, realising salvation was ours to find, we learnt to ask the right questions. Where did we go wrong and what were our options? We didn’t own phones at the time. So, no way to dial in help. We had to figure it out on our own. Luckily, there was a farmer putting in an extra shift nearby. With his help, we made it home while lunch was still warm.
We were incredibly lucky. That entire ordeal only lasted about two hours. The equivalent of a blink in the grand scheme of things. That river, that moment of clarity, can typically be highly elusive. Some find it only after a decade on the job. Others may wake to it two decades into a major decision. Could yet be a good old midlife crisis for another group. A few inches past the third decade and you’re confronted with the jarring reality of existence. How did I become this person? What am I even doing? How did I get here?
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