WALKING DOWN YOUR PATH: PART ONE

You need to take a path before you can get to a destination. You also need to know if the path you're treading on is where you're supposed to be. For everything you want to accomplish, there must be a series of action, which would require that thing or that dream to be accomplished. When you’ve accomplished the dream, it means you’ve gotten to your destination.

Following a path leads you to your destination. But it isn’t every path you take that would lead you to your chosen destination. In following your path, the nasty part of life comes every time to stall your movement or push you off your path completely. Some of them may be tragic events; some of them may be happy events. The tragic ones could be death of a loved one, a bad experience like a robbery, illness, recession, poverty, a breakup, etc.

I’ll focus more on the happy ones because some people might begin to question how a happy event would stall someone walking down his/her road.

The happy events that might stall your progress to your destination might come in these forms; drugs, gaming, or maybe that lady/guy you’ve been asking out has finally agreed into the relationship.

Drugs: People do drugs for a lot of reasons. Some do drugs as escape from reality, some, as a means to be happy, some do drugs for doing sake, especially because of peer pressure. Most people witness a kind of ecstatic feeling after doing drugs. They are filled with a blissful happiness. But drugs have many negative effects on your body. Soon, you’d begin to lose touch with reality; you’d begin to fall off your track into an entirely unknown track. Sometimes you’d think it doesn’t affect you. But you don’t know it affects the people around you. It affects your family and your relationship with some friends of yours. Maybe they don’t cry in your presence, but some of them cry in your absence. 

Gaming: I’m an avid gamer. I love computer games just like I’d love to go to heaven. I know a lot about games. I’ve played almost all of the Call of Duty and Resident Evil series and I’m waiting for the next installment in the series. But I also know the disadvantages of gaming or excessive gaming. Gaming somehow stalls someone walking down his/her path. It stalls me. I’ve noticed it. My normal writing budget on any project I’m working on is to reach about one thousand words a day, but when I become too engaged in gaming, I come out with an output of five hundred or less words. It happens like this because I’ve used my sleep time for gaming. Or when my brain is supposed to sort out how this chapter or scene would be like, it’d be sorting out how the next mission in the game would be or how I’d kill the BIG boss or defeat the monster in the final mission. So… somehow, gaming has stalled me from quickly reaching my destination.

Then I came up with an idea. I said to myself, ‘Hey bro, its writing first, then any other things can follow. You cannot serve two masters at a time.’ What I do is that I put games aside whenever I’m working on a project. But when I’m done with that project, I go back to my lovely games and play the heck out of them as a celebration for finishing the project I started. As a celebration for reaching my DESTINATION. I love gaming but I know my destination is more important than gaming. You can try the method I used. I might work just fine for you.

Nota Bene: Please if you’re planning to throw away that game you bought, you may change your mind and send them to me instead.

A New Relationship: Wow! You’ve been wooing her for sometime or you being in love with him for a long time. But now you guys are together. It calls for celebration. Doesn’t it? You don’t feel lonely anymore. You feel loved and you’d do whatever it takes to make the relationship work. Because you love him. Because you love her. 

 

Okay…

Before you met that nice person, you were on your path walking, running, and dashing to your destination. Now, you’ve brought someone into your path with you. You should know that person has a path too. Whether you like it or not, that person would also want to drag you into his/her path. But if the person understands why you’re in your path, he’d respect you and help you reach your destination. And the joy that comes from that lovely support would keep you motivated until you get to your destination.

What happens when that person doesn’t support you? What happens when that person thinks you’re just wasting your time? What happens when that person thinks you’re not meant for that path?

Answer: You’re doomed to stall or take another path consciously or unconsciously.

A relationship is a two-sided thing. Support your partner if he/she is in the right path. Don’t be too selfish with being in your track. Create time for yourself as well as for your partner. It also makes sense to walk in your path like a professional. A relationship is about giving and receiving. You shouldn’t expect to receive much from your partner. But when your partner looks at your work and says, ‘Your Chapter one is good, although it needs a little brushing. Keep it up’, I bet you that statement is going to lighten you. And you’d prefer he/she gives more sincere statements like that than the little gifts he/she buys you.

NB. If your partner doesn’t support you or doesn’t like you’re a writer or an aspiring musician or a painter, you might as well walk or drive past him/her. Please do not look back or you’d stall again. Or maybe you’d crash. And don’t forget to put on your seatbelt. 
   

As writers, artists, musicians and poets, we all have a destination to reach. Our perseverance and optimism matters most. Our talents and creativity does matter too. Thanks…

Next Saturday, we’d continue with WALKING DOWN YOUR PATH: PART TWO

Quote of the Day:

Making art is like making other things in life, it depends on your mood, your state of mind. You make good things and everything in between.

Dieter Roth (1930 - )

German multimedia artist.

Quote of the Day runs daily in this blog. Stay tuned. Remain blessed and have a nice weekend.