If adulthood has taught us anything, it’s that we cannot predict who will be there for a lifetime. The very person we trust will be there forever, becomes nothing but a memory Facebook won’t let us forget.
Deep down, I always knew I would live in America. As a three year-old, I was strikingly drawn to the brownstone row-homes and strange accents in Sesame Street. In my childhood play, I would create a world in which many of the characters had Southern drawls. The earliest vacation I remember was a family road trip across the States in 1992. It was an incredible time of laughter and discovery. I had traveled elsewhere before, but it was the first time I would truly take in the environment around me. Everything seemed so big in comparison to London. Big roads, big trucks, big houses, big portions. We would cite moments from that trip for the rest of our lives. From then the seed was sown. There was a big America, with big opportunity and I felt I belonged there.
Recently I was told that someone close to me had given birth to her firstborn. In many African cultures, there is a delay between the birth of a child and the announcement of its name. Often during the period, grandparents, siblings, aunties and uncles (even long lost family members) weigh in on the name of a child. It is then shared to extended family, and friends by way of a naming ceremony, celebrating the arrival of the newborn.
My parents were very intentional with naming me, and I have found that names are either prescriptive or descriptive. I have certainly had enough experiences that require faith, and my name reminds me to look beyond my circumstances and hope in things I cannot see. One of my middle names is “Ayodele”. In Yoruba, this means “joy has come home”, and in my late twenties and early thirties, “joy” has been something that I have found myself craving more than anything.
We all have a unique personal relationship with the word “weight.” For some, it may cast a memory of the stubborn fat around one’s midsection that never disappeared after 27. For others, it may relate to the training, resistance, and conditioning of your physical body - that desire to handle more, lift more and push more. The word “weight” may also represent the heavy load that is felt emotionally, spiritually, or mentally, and walks with us in our daily lives. Regardless of how we frame weight, there is always something we are trying to do with it, knowing full well that it is not sustainable to leave it exactly the way it is.
You have come to understand that plans are mere well wishes. It is always better to make one, but it is likely that it will not come to past. You wish anyway. You map out your path knowing His scheme is grander. You have experienced disappointments, and you’ve been shocked by your blessings. You know His time is perfect, even if it does not feel perfect at the time. You must fight to remember when things don’t go to plan, they go to purpose.
Whether we appreciate the shifts or not, we are constantly evolving into something new. Our experiences, our interactions and our personal revelations color the way we view and engage with the world. Daily, we become updated versions of ourselves, and the happenings that we experience now serve as our reference point for tomorrow.
When situations seem stagnant, it is hard to believe that we are becoming something new. Yet at the most elementary level, we are at least a little older, perhaps a little wiser and often a little less nimble.
Even when we’re convinced we’ve considered every scenario and every possibility, we still manage to miss at least one detail in our imagined futures. The unknown is the bittersweet beauty of life. No matter how much we plan today, tomorrow remains unpredictable. Many of us fear the unknown, despite not knowing exactly what it is we fear. In truth, all that we actually know is that the unknown subjects us to change. A change that shakes us more violently the more we plan for what we believe is coming. It is a change that we have no control over. It is a change that we can only begin to understand when it is here, when it has arrived, when it has been confronted.
It is human nature to want to belong. Our very existence has always involved another. We recognize that creation requires connection, and that our expected end involves separation. We crave community, we seek solidarity and we enjoy moments of connectedness that remind us we are not alone. It is therefore no surprise that one of our greatest fears can be rejection.
When considering our fears, we rarely deem ourselves afraid to be successful. After all, isn’t success the aim? We set goals, create visions, and map out plans to realize our dreams, yet sometimes the thought of actually achieving them scares us.
Arguably, the fear of success is much more deadly than the fear of failure. It is a silent killer that lies hidden behind reels of excuses and justifications. This form of self-sabotage is unexpected, yet more common than we’d probably like to imagine.
At some point, you are going to fail. It may be messy, it may be painful, and it may be one of the best things that ever happened to you.
The commonality between failure and success is that both require an attempt on our part. Failure indicates a challenge addressed, a dream chased, or an idea executed. Failure signals past hope, and although the outcome was less than desired, at some point we believed enough to try.
Many of us are so afraid of failing that we miss the key step of starting. We abandon our boldest, wildest and most extraordinary dreams for scenarios that are never guaranteed and situations that have not even happened yet. We trade courage for safety and suffer deeply for it.
As the year matures and the excitement of 2016 begins to fade, how is your hope holding up?
Quite often after some time has passed, our hope is attacked by our fears. We may convince ourselves that it’s just another year of disappointments, unrealistic dreams and unachieved goals. The weight has not been lost, the job has not been found, and the relationship is still the same.
