The Lonely Chapter.

Sometimes you just have to go into uncharted territory. And to go boldly. And to keep on going when things get really tough. The easiest thing to do is always to turn tail and to go back to wherever you came from. It’s the easiest, and the option is always there, and that’s exactly why you should never do this.

The hardest things are usually also the most fulfilling, and if you manage to do something that’s really hard, and it’s something you enjoy and feel good about, then it just becomes obvious: then that is exactly what you should be doing.

But you will discover early on that these are rarely the sort of things you do with a group of people. Everything worthwhile will require some degree of going at it by yourself. This means that there is no one who is cheering you on. This means that you may have some indication that you are on the right track. But there is no certainty. There will be a little voice popping up in the back of your head that’s telling you that “it will ever work out”.

This means that you shouldn’t give in.

To give in is for the weak, and that ain’t you.

There will be these statements popping up about how most people give up “three feet before striking gold”, or you will see graphs that show a flat line and a little arrow pointing at “this is you” and then some indefinite time between that and striking it big.

And that’s where it’s really tough, and it’s really lonely. Because by that time you are at an intersection: you no longer really fit in with your old crowd, but you also don’t have the credentials to fit in with a new group of people. At this stage you are still a wannabe, no matter how hard you grind and keep going at it.

It will feel like every day is an uphill battle, and around every corner there is another obstacle that you couldn’t have anticipated. Even though you planned all the way to the end, you just end up doing the best that you can. And that little voice starts nagging again: is this enough? Do I have what it takes? Will this ever workout?

So you just keep on going, because it also feels like there is no turning back. And you keep going, and you keep going, and it will feel like it will never happen, and then you forget about thinking, you just keep on going.

And then a few years later, you take a minute, you look around at where you are at, and it’s then that you realize that you are right where you are supposed to be. Things did work out, and way bigger and way better than you ever imagined. Now ain’t that something?