The Fall

I often daydream about living a different life. Not in a "woe is me" kinda way, but more in a "hmmm what if" kinda way. I would watch a music video or see a play (on or off broadway) or a really good movie and wonder how it would be to live that life. In fact, as a child I would listen to my favorite songs and close my eyes, imagining the kind of music video I would put together for it. I still do that actually. I guess it's because it's fun for me to wonder and imagine. That's something that never left me, even as I've become an adult. 

I think about the people who make it on broadway, or the ones who are directing those music videos or acting on screen and I try to imagine how they got there. Hard work? Sacrifice? Chance? Luck? How did those who are able to create, whether it be a riveting character or beautiful crafted visual style, rise up to the level they are now. I feel like the process is like a roller coaster going up, up, up. You climb and you slip and you climb again and don't stop until you reach the pinnacle. I also think about the fall. How fast it came for some celebrities and well-known icons. It's slippery up there at the top. 

I think that why you must always keep climbing. Or find the plateau. It's the only way to avoid the fall. 

Then my mind wandered to the ones who can't seem to make it. The ones in which the bottom is all they've ever known. I thought about the struggle and despair of it all, having a desire but unable to see it through. It's heartbreaking. But even then, the dream is too powerful to give up on. It fuels them. They keep trying to climb up. 

I'd like to be able to be a climber. Reaching upward until I've found my peak. Balancing there and creating that plateau. But there's always struggle and that causes so many slips and trips that I often wonder if I will ever get up there. But I firmly believe in the determined spirit. I believe in the people that never give up. They are beacons, those dreamers. I want to shine like they do. Even when times get dark, I want to shine. 

To Run.

Earlier this morning as I made my way to work, I witnessed something that really made me stop and think. 

I was on an overly crowded bus (thank you Queens) headed to work. The rain was slapping against the windows and I happened to look out one of them and I noticed a man hunched in the rain, waiting by the bus-stop. Unfortunately for him he was standing at a local bus-stop and I was on the limited bus so I knew he would be passed by. But this man took one look at the bus and started running. At first I thought he had forgotten something at home. It took me a moment to realize that wasn't the case at all. He was running towards the limited bus-stop. He was trying to get there before we did. 

If that had been me I would have cursed my miserable luck and continued waiting for a local bus in the rain. That made me think. What motivates a man to risk running to a limited bus-stop when he was already at the local? Why would he run and not wait? Surely one would think the chances are too great to make it to the stop before the bus would. But he ran, even with the odds against him. 

He knew he could make it. 

This man saw a chance and took it, leaving the security of the place he was at to chase something better. I realized how different that would have been from my own actions. I also realized that while I would have still been waiting in the rain he would already have been on a bus heading towards his destination. 

Success feels like the same thing. It's an action, a chase. It's a man running towards a bus-stop three blocks down while a speeding bus drives by. It's no longer waiting for something to reach you, but instead getting up and getting it yourself. Success is not passivity. You've got to make a move. As he climbed into the bus, soaking wet and out of breath, I smiled at this man who had, in the flash of a moment changed something within me. Suddenly the world seemed to make more sense. It's amazing what the actions in everyday life can teach.