The world demands one thing of us, and our hearts demand another.

Reconciling the two is the trick of it all—a trick that many people never learn.

So many of us abandon ourselves—our dreams and our hopes, overwhelmed by the slowly building drone of expectation and demand.

That familiar greyness sets in around the corners of our eyes as the humdrum of daily routine takes its grip. The sparkle of far off dreams disappears as a realistic life sets in.

Realistic: the most dangerous word in the English language.

A word, which masquerades as a friend, whilst slowly poisoning our soul. It is the drainer of dreams, the murderer of ambition, the jackal that swarms the wavering spirit, smiling as it meditates on its inevitable meal.

I wrote Is It Too Late For Us? because I see these jackals in broad daylight. I have heard their laughter, built my defences, and I want others to climb in. I see so much talent, innocence and beauty giving way to hardness and cynicism every day. We created and defined our world such as it is. We made the rules and these rules are breakable.

There is no single path that we all must follow, and yet we don’t see that. We see the guiding lights winding around the endless spiralling mountainside, as we march upwards, hands on the shoulder of the fool in front. The journey seems inevitable.

Unavoidable.

But it’s not.

We must give ourselves to our whims, and indulge our youthful aspirations. We must remember the world as we saw it before the drudgery of life ruined it and painted it in monochrome. We must fly that plane, paint that picture, love that person, sing that song and start that business.

The trajectory of our own life is ours to control, and no one else’s.

Tune the drone out, and hear the wind. It sounds poetic and far-off, but it isn’t. It all starts in these moments, right now. The whole of your future is right now, waiting to be seized.

You just need to want to do it.

Relephant:

5 Steps: How to Really Make Our Lives our Own.

Author/Artist: Antix

Editor: Khara-Jade Warren

Image: Video still, courtesy of the artist