We find our way through our life,
trudging through marshes of depression, storms of regret and earthquakes that shatter who we believe ourselves to be.

While we’re searching, our lives become something other than who we are, what we wanted out of life and whether we choose to live a life we’ll be happy with when we close our eyes for the last time.

The life we view through our lives is something different from what we’d dreamed of as kids.

The day I realized I was no longer following my way, I discovered my life was full of plot holes and in those holes I’d put things, hate, regret, rage, pain and loss.

These things led me to a life of bitterness, which, throughout my life caused me to do things against my beliefs, which have changed as I’ve grown older.

I’m still a believer in who I am and who I want to be, but sometimes the plot of the story has gone missing.

For my next life I believe that I want to be judged not by my earlier failures, but by my later triumphs.

Within my soul I’ve discovered a writer, husband and father I believe I’d never be. I have no idea why I believed these things, only that I have.

As a species humans are told to believe who they are, what they believe and are taught we shouldn’t question these things for fear of reprisals.

What this does is take away our ability to choose and to be the person we’re supposed to be rather than the one society prefers.

This societal preference stops our feelings of ownership over our lives from a young age.

Our lives seem to be phantoms searching the world, wanting things, but never able to have them.

Our having of the things we want..e.g. family, love, career or finding meaning in our lives which corresponds to our childhood wish of wanting to be a superhero, police officer, soldier,  nurse or doctor.

The difference is in the desire and ability to attain what we want.

As a child our desire is irrelevant, because as children most of us are taught we should desire to be things. It’s imperative at a young age that we desire things.

But, as children our ability to achieve what we want is controlled by parents and their belief that we are unable to make our decisions, and that we’re too immature and because of our immaturity we must be guided by our parents, sometimes to the detriment of our abilities.

As we grow older our ability to attain our childhood dreams grows with the acquisition of the monetary means to chase those dreams.

But also as adults we’re led to believe (by society) that chasing our dreams isn’t what we should be doing, and that childhood dreams are a falsehood and must be squashed with whatever means necessary.

There are those who go against the belief we’re to give up our dreams, they are the artists, scientists and dreamers who truly create society.

The rest of society is built for those who give in to the belief you can’t follow your dreams. They do this because they’re told enough times, “It can’t be done!”, what this says about society as a whole is that dreams are only good for a certain group of people and those people have the drive, ability or are given a break by some divine power, or that they know someone, which is hardly ever true.

As we become adults, not always at age 18, we find that there are things we could do to influence life in our favor. This includes writing even when we’ve been told we won’t be published, following our heart into a profession we’ve always wanted to do or trying something we’ve always been curious about.

We discover with age that our lives are our own and we must control them and not let those who’ve told us things, “Can’t be done!”, in the dust and do the things we’ve always dreamed of.

Our way through life has its perils, but in the end we’re controlling the helm through the storm, we’re the one writing the book, creating the plot lines and delivering the life we wanted when we close our eyes for the last time.