“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
~ Mark Twain

 

So along the way you’ve given up the dream, put it away with your childish things. And so you go on, achieving or not achieving the world’s idea of success. Always with this niggling feeling that something is missing. A feeling you push into dark corners of the closets of your mind until one day you arrive.

You come to the peak of your success or the pits of your failure. You reach mid life or retirement. You experience a great joy or a great tragedy. And from out of the darkness creeps that gnawing feeling of “something is missing.”

You realize you have two choices. You can lock away the feeling again, pushing it back into the darkness, knowing it will rematerialize, and you will feel hopeless to understanding it again and again. Or you can take a deep breath and bravely decide to pursue the dream, the meaning of life, the something missing.

This decision is not an easy one. Peering into the darkness is frightening. Moving forward takes courage. You know you will go to places unknown, you will meet new ideas and perceptions, you will feel new feelings, you will never be the same.

Having opened the closet, turned on the lights, and gone on the journey myself I can tell you it is true. You will never be the same. And you will wonder: “Why did I wait so long?” And “Why didn’t someone tell me?” And “I wouldn’t have believed, I couldn’t have known.”

Have I tempted you?