Through a Storm

Being able to flourish under normal circumstances certainly isn't anything to knock, but it happens all the time. Don't get me wrong, making something of your life when you aren't weighed down or hindered in any significant way is great and anyone who can do that should be thankful for their fortunate situation. However, being able to make something out of less than desirable conditions is much more impressive. I look at it this way; a bouquet is a beautiful thing right? No one would deny that. It's something everyone looks at and admires for its elegance, grace, and colorful appearance, but there's something about a single flower in a field that's able to bloom after a harsh winter that just makes it so much more breath taking. That something is its resilience. The ability to not only hold on throughout a storm, but to come out thriving is one of the most impressive and captivating qualities I've ever known of. A bouquet is aesthetically pleasing, but that's exactly how it was created to be. It was crafted from flowers grown specifically under conditions that would give them vibrant and healthy colors, but that flower in the field had so many chances to wilt, yet it didn't and again, that is what makes it a more powerful image. At first glance, the flower analogy seems pretty insignificant. You might have read that and thought that it's such a small thing that it's stupid to be impressed by, but I believe it's one of those things that's more significant the more you look at and think about what else it could be applied to. Obviously this entry isn't about flowers, it's about people. It's about people who can look at their crap circumstances and say that they're still going to push onward and make the most of things. As a person who has a history of giving up when presented with difficulty, seeing individuals like that never fails to catch my attention and impress me. To me, success doesn't carry much weight if it wasn't earned. You could have all the money, fame, beauty and power in the world, but if you didn't have to work and fight for it, you're really not much of a success story in my eyes. The flower analogy is pretty adept to my current position in life, which is in its winter. The way I see it, I haven't wilted yet, but I haven't bloomed either. I've definitely had my storm, and I'm not quite out of it, but that presents the duality of my circumstance; at this point I can either wilt or bloom, and I still haven't really selected the path that I'll go down. I should clarify, I don't think I'm anything special. I've encountered countless people who have been faced with the same two paths. I've seen many turn their lives around, find their place in the world, and make something beautiful of their lives. Those people obviously bloomed. Unfortunately, I've also seen quite a few people lose track of their priorities, succumb to their previous mistakes, and end up stuck in a state where they're very unlikely to come back from. They of course wilted. What route will I take? Some would spew out the cliché "only time will tell" but I know it wont, I will. On a side note, I've recently met an individual who seems to be in a similar situation. They're someone I'm coming to admire, yet at the same time feel could very much be a bad influence. I've met quite a few people of that type, and from my experience I know that it's best to not let them get too entangled in my head and life, but every once in a while we all meet someone who gets under our skin, sometimes in both a good and a bad way, and we just cant help but bring them along for the ride. I would say this woman is in a storm of her own, and from what I can tell, she's making the most of things which is the exact admirable trait I've been talking about throughout this whole entry. Of course I'm not a stranger to crafting romanticized depictions of people that don't exactly reflect reality and that could very well be precisely what I'm doing with this latest individual. Nonetheless, I've found that until you get to know someone better, romanticizing people isn't always a bad thing, at least not when it's for the purpose of inspiration and writing. Yet still, there are some traits that cause me a bit of unease about her. One thing I know for certain, sometimes two storms coming close sends them both in safer directions, but sometimes they just make each other bigger. Either way, caution is never a bad idea in these instances. While meeting new people is usually great and can help one discover things about the world and about themselves that they would have otherwise never found, I'm not letting anyone else be the factor that determines whether I wilt or bloom. No matter what happens, it'll be my hand that shapes the direction I take.