Imagine this… It is 1968 and Martin Luther King Jr has been assassinated, the Kray twins are being arrested and the Zodiac killer has started his rampage. Civil rights within America is starting to advance more than previous, the third ever heart transplant was completed, France have held the Winter Olympics and the first ever Big Mac has gone on sale. The Boeing 747 is finally launched and the Vietnam War is raging on. Yet amongst all this success, victory, defeat and chaos you were born. Somewhere in Illinois where the weather was hot and your family all gazed upon you as you finally entered the world. Your older brother finally had someone to play with and you had no idea where life was going to take you. On this day the world was changed for you had started a journey which would be one hell of a ride. It is now fifty years later and you have lived a life that was definitely worth living. You have travelled the world, from your home in America, to England where you created a family, to South Korea where you went for important business meetings and experienced a whole new culture. You learnt how to drive and smashed your first car Betty into the back of a lorry; you also owned a lime green motorbike which had seen better days by the time you were done with it. Since then you’ve had more cars than you can count but there are two which will always stand out, your first ever white Porsche and your now current red Porsche. I remember the day you brought both of them home, the look on your face when you looked at one of your dream cars and realised all your hard work had paid off. I still laugh when I look back and see the pictures of you and me and remember you were a body builder, your muscles bigger than my head. Watching Toy Story together was our thing; we would cuddle and watch that all day if we had to because I couldn’t get enough of it.
Now although this makes your life look very extravagant and easy, makes it appear as if everything went smooth sailing and hardship never entered your life I know that is not true. You are one of the most emotionally strong people I know, you are resilient, and you fight harder than anyone else. You push yourself further than you should yet you always succeed. This is why you are an inspiration to me. They say age is a state of mind and that has never been truer when it comes to you, everything you do is not what is ‘typical’ for a man of your age and that makes you doing it even better. You’re my Dad and I am so lucky that you are. I hope your life is everything you’ve wanted it to be so far and I cannot wait to see what adventures you go on next. Thank you for everything. I will love you always.
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They say humans are born with only two fears, falling and loud noises. As many people overcome these due to the love of concerts and the adrenaline that comes from going over the top of a roller coaster, most of us still acquire other fears in our lifetime. We are often told that our fear is ‘silly’ or that it is ‘irrational’ but the issue with fear is that it is one of the most certain emotions we have in life.
When you feel fear you are certain of it, it feels so real and controlling, like a force pushing on you that you cannot escape. Irrational fears are not something that I take lightly because they can completely change a person. In reality should I have the fears that I do? No I shouldn’t but just because I shouldn’t fear them doesn’t mean that I do. I always use to say that my three greatest fears were moths, falling and death. They are my big three, the three that terrify me, the three that I know I will never get over. Yet recently I feel as if I have started to notice a fear I have always had but have never realised. Myself. I know it sounds odd to say that I fear myself but I do, I fear the power that my mind has over me. When I lie there at night unable to sleep because my mind is working 110% producing thoughts I didn’t even think I could have, or when my mind manipulates me into thinking I am nothing more than 3 inches tall and can be pushed around by the wind, it scares me. My mind is so complex and amazing; nothing will ever be able to be as complex as my mind, which is the essence of who I am. But I, just an average person cannot even begin to comprehend how to deal with how complex it is. So yes I fear my mind, I fear myself and as stupid as it sounds I know that I do, because I can feel that fear. So what am I to do next? Knowing that I fear myself gives me power to try and reclaim my own mind. It allows me that when I am in the middle of an anxiety attack to know it is nothing more than my mind manipulating me into feeling things that are not true. It is difficult, it is complicated and will I ever be able to stop fearing myself? Most likely not but even if I can for just a little while feel like I am able to think what I want and not what my subconscious is making me, then that is good enough for me. As far as change goes in life I admit I have never experienced that dramatic shift through which everything that was normal suddenly feels unfamiliar. I have experienced that subtle change, the daily changes that we all regard as fairly mundane and nothing to worry about. Not that change is something that I regard as being something that should be worried about. I welcome change and the opportunity to grow and develop from the sheltered life I have come accustomed to, yet despite welcoming this into my life I have never found that big change to happen.
Until now. Life has been fairly regular, the same day in and day out. But now I am faced with the unknown and this sense of being lost in a world full of order. This change does not fill me with fear but fills me with so many questions of how I ought to be feeling and how I ought to be coping with this change. As someone who has never been through the ending of one chapter and the beginning of another I find myself struggling to work out what normal is for me now. I think the thing about new chapters is that they appear daunting; they appear like something I am not prepared for or something that I should be intimidated by. Yet this is all false, I know deep down that I would not be heading for this new chapter if my previous one had not fully prepared me for what is next. But then who is to say you have to be prepared, life is about learning and growing and these new chapters and beginnings are all about allowing for you to become the best version of yourself that you can be. New beginnings are not about who you were or what the world was like or what it even may appear as right now. They are about change and self-growth. The world is always going to keep spinning and that means that with every spin change will be produced. Politics, religion and social class the fundamentals that everyone believes society is based upon will all change. Change is inevitable and everything will change whether it be gradually or all at once, but all that matters amongst all this change is that we stay true to who we are. We are the only people who are present every day of our entire lives, we are more sure about who we are even when we are in doubt about the choices we make. Change will affect you and your personality however the most important thing to remember is you can make a difference to this change. You can either let the unknown consume you and alter the person you have come to be completely, or you can embrace the change, welcome it with open arms. The thing about change is that you have a choice; change is brought about by amazing individuals doing exceptional things that make the ordinary become unordinary. So who is to say that you in your everyday life cannot take control of the change and become your own version of extraordinary? So now whilst I am faced with this feeling of the unknown and sense of being lost in this world of order I have come to realise that I am not alone, this whole world we have become accustomed to is also in a state of unknown and change. I am not fearful of what is to come but I am fearful of losing myself. Change is not something I want to rule my life and dictate who I am but what I want is to dictate how I let the change affect me. I want to be that extraordinary person who makes the ordinary become unordinary, even if I am only extraordinary to myself. |