There are many things you want to achieve. While you understand that there are some things you should never put a benchmark on, age demands some things from us, and life demands hers too.
Here you are, scared to give up on your dreams. You don’t want to settle for a job; you don’t want to pay bills and die. You don’t want to get trapped in the rat race. But who are you to dictate your fate?
When you hear the word “potential,” you cringe because it has been repeated so much to you that it’s lost taste in your mouth. It sounds distant and painful to your ear. It comes with a heavy weight to succeed; you remember that it’s all or nothing for you. It feeds your fear, your fear of lack, and not living up to expectations. Who gave you those expectations, you or the society? Who gave you the supposed privilege, you or the society? Are we a creation of our own illusions, our own social construct, or we are doomed to always crave a sense of purpose.
People set goals, and your goals have a higher chance of being the same as the next person’s. The only identity you have is what motivates you.
Maybe you are part of a social class some people look at as privileged, but what is a privileged life when you know what you want and how to get it but can’t have it due to things you have no control over. That doesn’t hurt as much as watching people who have it, know nothing about what they wield, and don’t even try to learn how to wield it. It fell in their lap by birthright or knowing the right people. And you, the one with high understanding have to swallow your pride and dent your self-respect just to get a glimpse at what you wish you could have.
Such is the situation of people who have bits of privileges, enough to know they are not what the outside world sees them as. Cursed are the intelligent with nothing to show for it. Blessed are the fools who need not prove what they are. The burden of talent, knowledge, and intelligence is unhappiness.
You know what you could be doing, you know what you could achieve but have nothing to show for it.
We’ve been told privilege blinds. So are you privileged or too blind to see it? Or maybe you’re just living under the illusion of being privileged.
Privileged or not, we are what we are. Destiny might have nothing to do with it. Fate might be a decider.
Either way, you keep climbing those walls. Maybe one day, you’ll join the one percent who had it all rough and came out smooth, or … maybe not.
You see all the tired faces on the street, adults with burnt-out dreams. Some gave up, and others got given up on. But, hey... you’ll be fine.
Maybe not.
Jawondo Jr.
