My Journey: The Step Forward

[mrnutty]

The Step Forward

The path that I have taken in life seems to be the path that many follow. Although weird at first, this path seems to lead to the same end goal for each and every one of us, which is to find happiness, whatever that may be. Let’s call this path, The Step Forward. In this writing, I want to share you my personal journey I underwent while exploring The Step Forward.

Before exploring The Step Forward, I had to first come to the realization that the current path I am walking on now did not provide the satisfaction that I wanted and needed. Although, that thought may not be concrete in detail, it was an instinctual feeling that I had felt. The current path that I was walking on now, made me sad. It made me depressed. It made me nervous. It made me anxious. It made me feel alone. Now you might wonder why I took that path in the first place then. Well, the reason why I was in that path was because it was the only path I knew how to walk on. It was the only path I felt comfortable with. There was no disruption in that path. Occasionally there would be a few colorless objects I see come and go but for the most case, it was a long and bland path. I would occasionally see other, more promising paths, but I would never have enough courage to jump onto that path. I would doubt my strength and ability to make it in that new path. I would be scared of failing when trying to walk on that new path. So I kept on walking the same old what seemed to be deserted and disappointing path, until one day I stumbled across something I haven't seen before. It was a small and shiny key. It had some color to it. A little red, a little blue, some black, and a whole bunch of other colors. It was nothing like I've ever seen. Instinctively, it felt like it was a key to something very important. So I kept the key in my pockets, occasionally taking it back out looking at it, observing a new detail about it and continued walking on the same path. After walking more and more, I realized that I began to see more colorful objects around me. Sometimes it was a toy, other times it was a cool rock, and on occasions, I found a heart necklace. As the days went by, I kept observing the vibrant yet mysterious key. I started to notice even more details about the vibrant yet mysterious key. Details to which seemed like relied on my previous observations of the key. I put the key back, being tired of looking at it and kept walking. As I started to walk, I noticed that suddenly, there seemed to be an abundance of colorful objects in my path. They seem to be popping out left and right. Each had their unique and really interesting feature about them. Each object seemed to provide me with a sense of happiness. I started playing with one object and noticed that it fits well with another object that I had recently interacted with. So I fitted those two objects and made a wonderful piece. I tried this with more and numerous objects. I eventually had groups of groups of objects that seemed to provide me use and comfort in some way. So I carried them along this, what once was an empty path, now seemed to be filled with colorful objects. The more I walked and ventured into this path with my new found objects, the more and more colorful, bright and interesting things started to find. As I kept with my journey in this path, years felt like months, months felt like weeks, weeks felt like days, and days felt like minutes. I started to lose sense of time more and more by simply enjoying the things around me and the things I seen coming. After a while, I felt as if I couldn't walk anymore. My body didn't seem to physically handle walking much more. It was then I had seen this colorful door. To which I promptly thought looked like a perfect fit to the colorful keys I found long, long time ago. I calmly, took out the key, and used it to open the mysterious door. As soon as I opened the door, I noticed that the trail had ended. The only thing visible on the other side of the door was bright blue and white light. Being curious, I took a step inside the opened door. As soon as I took my first step inside, I felt a sudden white flash. This flash, although lasted a second, made me realize everything about the path that I had been walking on. It made me realize that although the path seemed long, it was in fact, just a few steps. It made me realize that although it looked empty at first, I was always surrounded by colorful and live objects. I just couldn't see it during the first few steps. It made me realize that the other path that I had seen but were hesitant to jump onto, were really just a glimpse of my path in the future. More importantly, it made me realize that the path I had been taking was the path The Step Forward all along.

Now here I lie, about to take my second step towards the light, only wondering what other realization that I will attain; what other knowledge will I be enlightened with. Welp, only one way to find out. Wish me good luck :)

P.S: Excuse any grammatical errors above. It was my first and final draft that I just wrote.

[mrnutty]

A more sub-blocked version.

The Step Forward

The path that I have taken in life seems to be the path that many follow. Although weird at first, this path seems to lead to the same end goal for each and every one of us, which is to find happiness, whatever that may be. Let’s call this path, The Step Forward. In this writing, I want to share you my personal journey I underwent while exploring The Step Forward.

Before exploring The Step Forward, I had to first come to the realization that the current path I am walking on now did not provide the satisfaction that I wanted and needed. Although, that thought may not be concrete in detail, it was an instinctual feeling that I had felt.The current path that I was walking on now, made me sad. It made me depressed. It made me nervous. It made me anxious. It made me feel alone. Now you might wonder why I took that path in the first place then. Well, the reason why I was in that path was because it was the only path I knew how to walk on. It was the only path I felt comfortable with. There was no disruption in that path.

Occasionally there would be few colorless objects I see come and go, but for the most case, it was a long and bland path. I would occasionally see other, more promising paths, but I would never have enough courage to jump onto that path. I would doubt my strength and abilities to make it in that new path. At that time I was scared of failing when trying to walk onto the new path. So I kept on walking the same old what seemed to be deserted and disappointing path, until one day I stumbled across something I haven't seen before.

It was a small and shiny key. It had some color to it. A little red, a little blue, some black, and a whole bunch of other colors. It was nothing like I've ever seen. Instinctively, it felt like it was a key to something very important. So I kept the key in my pockets, thought not much about it and kept walking. From time to time, I would stop to rest and take out the vibrant key and play with it, observing some new details about it every time.

After walking more and more, I realized that I began to see more colorful objects around me. Sometimes it was a toy, other times it was a cool rock, and on occasions, I found a few heart-shaped necklaces. As the days went by, I kept observing the vibrant yet mysterious key. I started to notice even more details about it. Details to which seemed like relied on my previous observations of the key. I put the key back, being tired of looking at it and kept walking.

As I started to walk, I noticed that suddenly, there seemed to be an abundance of colorful objects in my path. They seem to be popping out left and right. Each had their unique and really interesting feature about them. Each object seemed to provide me with a sense of happiness. I started playing with one object and noticed that it fits well with another object that I had recently interacted with. So I fitted those two objects and made a wonderful piece. I tried this with more and numerous objects. I eventually had groups of groups of objects that seemed to provide me use and comfort in some way. So I carried them along my path which once was an empty, now seemed to be filled with colorful objects. The more I walked and ventured into this path with my new found objects, the more and more colorful, bright and interesting things I started to find. As I kept with my journey, years felt like months, months felt like weeks, weeks felt like days, and days felt like minutes. I started to lose sense of time more and more by simply enjoying the things around me and the things I seen coming. After a while, I felt as if I couldn't walk anymore. All those long walks seemed to take a toll on my body. My body didn't seem to physically handle walking much more. It was then I had seen a colorful door blocking my path.

At first, I observed the door wondering and trying to rationalize why it was the way it was. Although I couldn't come to a concrete conclusion just yet, I had this inner feeling in my gut that I need to open it. Because of the colorful nature of the door, I instinctively thought the key I've found a while back looked like a perfect fit. So I calmly yet hesitantly, took out the key, and used it and opened the door.

As soon as I opened the door, I noticed that the trail had ended. The only thing visible on the other side of the door was bright blue and white light. Being curious, I took a step inside the opened door. As soon as I took my first step inside, I felt a sudden white flash. This flash, although lasted a second, made me realize everything about the path that I had been walking on. It made me realize that although the path seemed long, it was in fact, just a few steps. It made me realize that although it looked empty at first, I was always surrounded by colorful and live objects. I just couldn't see it during the first few steps. It made me realize that the other path that I had seen but were hesitant to jump onto, were really just a glimpse of my path in the future. More importantly, it made me realize that the path I had been taking was the path, The Step Forward all along.

Now here I lie, about to take my second step towards the light, only wondering what other realization that I will attain; what other knowledge will I be enlightened with. Welp, only one way to find out. Wish me good luck :)

P.S: Excuse any grammatical errors above. It was my first and final draft that I just wrote.

^^Very good.

I was intrigued how you started, and then segwayed into an allegory. You possess the art of storytelling and you do it well.

Now, let me tell you a little secret about 'Being happy' - although you seem to have a basic grasp of it anyway.

There are a lot of people in this world who associate their happiness on external factors, their wives/husbands, their cars, the money they make... Their are many, many things.

The trouble is all these external factors are out of THAT particular person's control. If you need a hot girlfriend to feel validated how are you going to feel when she leaves you?

If you need money to feel validated how will you feel if you go bankrupt? The trouble is there is no certainty from your environment. And if you rely on this for certainty you're going to feel happy and bouyant one moment then deflated the next. Is this the way to live your life?

In a mindless cycle of up-down...Up-down?

Now if you go one step further... Beyond the mentality of GETTING something to define your happiness you are already on your road to... you guess it... happiness. You start to define your own reality, you start to create and really connect with people rather than to get something from them.

And here's the kicker, when you find yourself giving so freely, others will want to give back to you. Beautiful people will be attracted to you, money and jobs will come your way... This is, afterall, what it's all about.

And the secret? There is none, you actually had all that before you went on this journey. But that process wasn't for nothing, if you hadn't experienced loneliness, heartache and everything else you wouldn't appreciate the things you have now.

[mrnutty]

I was intrigued how you started, and then segwayed into an allegory. You possess the art of storytelling and you do it well.

Hey thank you iamthwee, that means a lot.

So the first point you made about being externally dependent, that is what one might initially get out of the above story, after all I did talk about colorful object giving me some kind of happiness. But the main message hidden was exactly the total oposite of that. The main message was not being externally dependent, but instead become self aware, self reflective and observant. The man observing the 'key' was supposed to be that key-point. In a way, it represented the key to himself. The guy began to observe the key a little by little, noticing different details, some atomic detail others more compound. And as he noticed the details, he became aware of those details, realizing the purpose for each detail. Almost like a self help process. And soon after, good things came his way -- all the colorful objects. You have highlighted the main message towards the end of your post nicely.

Hope you enjoyed it. Writing was never my strong point, so getting complimented on it means that much more to me than getting complimented on something I know I am good at.

[_avishek]

Now, let me tell you a little secret about 'Being happy'

"You are what you think. All that you are arises from your thoughts. With your thoughts you make your world." -- The Dhammapada