I’m not a determinist exactly, but it’s pretty clear just from living, that most people cannot avoid what we might call their destiny.
I used to be much more at peace with this in my youth.
There were people I knew I didn’t belong with, for example, and no matter how attractive they were, I did not venture in their direction. Not out of fear for some other negative emotion. Only out of certitude that we were better off apart.
It always felt right not to fight this and I never understood the push so many others in high school exercised toward people and activities that weren’t for them.
But an erosion took place with me too and I have, since high school, spent time and energy in situations that were not optimal for my development. Coffee dates and other moments that were like places where the power that runs my life was in a different frequency than normal. Times during which I shut my eyes and waited for the end.
Sometimes these were imposed and unavoidable, such as the time we visited some posh older person’s loft, where everything was in white and I felt very uncomfortable pretending to sit or even look around. But most of the time they were self-imposed, a sort of “I think I know what is coming here but it wouldn’t hurt to confirm it” approach.
But it does hurt to confirm it. It wastes time, and we are all much better avoiding the situations and people for whom our initial hunch gives the high-school-clarity information “not for you.”
Ambition and social pressure are players in the tendency to over-test near-certain waters, I’m sure, but if we learn anything from the truly successful, it is that they are never confused about what space is conducive to their wellbeing.
In the end, there is a responsibility you have to the box you were given, the one you’ve been walking around with and cultivating since childhood. It will determine the spaces where you fit and where you don’t fit. It will make you turn off in dormancy when you are slammed in a room that cannot contain it.
Because you know its shape without having to constantly ask for it out loud, what we call your intuition is always sending matching feelers our to the environment.
No matter what you do, the box will fit or not fit in the spaces where you reside and visit, and it is your job to be faithful to its shape.
You may not like your box. It may not be shaded in your favorite color or it may be too large or too pointy. Or bent.
But because it is there it cannot be averted, and carrying it into the wrong places all the time will cause you to live in a near permanent half-sleep, it is important to avoid entering into errors.
It may seem, to those who are very persistent, that, no matter what space they enter, they can turn it into their own by sheer force of will. This seems to work in a delusional sort of way and why the universe allows such mismatch is a mystery perhaps belonging to the magnitudes of scale beyond the quantum. But the space will never feel comfortable and the only solace able to be taken from the experience will be that you had perseverance and you didn’t die.
True but still kind of useless if the point is to find a place to unload your box and get to work with the tools that are in it rather than just barely fitting in and restricting your breathing.
Often, people are too uncomfortable in the wrong situation to stay long or persevere, but it is possible to push against the walls of the wrong café long enough to push through and exit into possibly much friendly waters.
Still, it would be best to have read the signs on the outside before entering. Read and believed them.
The way we did when were were young. When we lived our destiny purely, without angst or ambition. When progress formed its own effortless path.
