Inspiration: Hiking in Santa Cruz with my Teammate, Ivan
Some things are just inevitable. It's only our stubbornness to move on that causes the actual path of our lives to change, but the outcome is inevitable. It's the timing that may be different because we were too naive to recognize when it was time to jump into the next phase of our lives. But the outcome stays the same. There is no way to change what is meant to happen. We may try to prevent something from happening, or we may attempt to take charge and steer into another direction, but it is all of no use. We will be who we will be. What will be, will be--eventually.
Today, I stared up into the trees while I was hiking, and I saw a leaf start to fall. The destiny of that leaf was to end up on the ground; it was no longer meant to soak up sunlight at the top of the tree. I looked at the course the leaf took on its way down. It swayed a little to the right, away from the tree. Then, as if realizing its sudden fate to be departed from its long time home, immediately swayed to the left, back in the direction of the tree. Once in that direction it caught onto the top of a few leafs who were still safely attached to a branch.
For a split second, that leaf felt the relief of knowing that it was back to its original home. But that was not what was meant to happen. The other leaves, as of realizing that supporting this fallen leaf went against nature, quickly buckled under the weight of this rogue leaf. This sent the leaf plummeting off of the tree once more, and it rapidly descended to its inevitable fate, down, down, down until it hit the soft earth that was caked with its forefathers--wrinkly, Kleenex-soft leaves that had fallen long, long ago. Leaves, who just like this one, had probably tried to hold onto their previous position back on the trees. Leaves, who in the panic of change, thought that they were in control of their ultimate destiny to nourish the earth and help nurture the new growth in the forest.
We are all silly leaves. Our destiny is set and as we go through this life, things change suddenly, all the time. In the chaos of these transitional periods of our lives, we tried to hold onto what we know, what is the past, and what feels safe. But the world wants us to end up in a specific place in life, and the multiverses around us will ensure that we end up there. Things will buckle beneath us to make us spiral to our destiny. We are meant to be somewhere else and have to stop being pulled by memories into a life that no longer matters. Once we spiral down and jump into our fears of the future and of the unknown, that's when we are doing greatness in this world. That's when it is our turn to replenish the earth.
