I was standing in front of an open prison gate. I could walk out and away from everything that I’d loathed right that moment and yet, I didn’t take that step. I was instead standing still gazing at nothingness, staring at the void, motionless. I didn’t know what was awaiting me on the other side of that gate and my prison felt more familiar. I might as well get used to it, accept it and, if I’m lucky, learn to love it. Maybe I stayed in my stagnating, unsatisfying life out of apathy and lethargy but mostly out of fear of failure.
I knew I could step out of an unwanted life with a word, a decision, a choice and yet, what was to be encountered after that was a mystery, an unknown territory the thought of which paralyzed me and left me numb. Who wants to take that risk for the sake of complete happiness? You might even argue that there is no such thing as complete happiness. You will never know, if you don’t step out to the other side of the gate. It is easier to have a dream than to live one. Life is easier when you can anticipate the end. But it would be cowardice to abandon what you love for the sake of an easier ending. The end is never easy.