YSunday, 3 February 2008
I think hope is a very strange and important thing. It can fill you with strength just as easily as it can reduce everything you've worked for into shreds. This week has been an unsettling one. I've been thinking a lot about how it was like when i sailed. Seems like a long time ago. But what i'm feeling right now..it can be compared most directly to the worse days when i was sailing.
In any race, it isn't actually that hard to win. The largest obstacle is always myself but i didn't see that for many years and by the time i realised it, it was too late and my passion for the competition had run dry. My fighting spirit was diminished, defeated and i took a 'can't be bothered' attitude to everything because i was afraid to give my all and fail in the end. But i've realised, such success and failure shouldn't be defining my life or my happiness.
Sometimes i don't know why we keep running and keep chasing our dreams. Do we really believe that if we keep running, we will get there in the end? Or are we afraid to stop running because that is the only direction we have known all our lives? When i was racing, i used to think, i can be better, i can improve and climb my way up so all this shit will be worth it in the end..i just must endure for now and keep going. And when i got there, it wasn't what i wanted at all. And i wondered why i had wasted so much time, all those weekends, all those years, chasing.
If you had known me as fellow sailor and known me in sch or elsewhere, i don't think you'll be able to reconcile the 2 sides of me because i had channeled all my passion and energy into something i had thought was all i wanted and i was so aggressive to achieve it that i did anything and was blinded.
Now, i'm feeling like i'm back to where i was. I'm afraid to move on because i don't know if it will be worth the chase. Its been a long time since i've given my all and persevered to the end. Will it be better to continue hoping and chasing?
I remember reading from the alchemist by paulo coelho: 'When you really want something bad enough, the whole world conspires to help you achieve it'. Is that how it really is? Can we always get everything we want so long as we want it badly enough?