When Things Happen

Brace yourself.

But that’s not just what it’s all about, right?

You constantly tell yourself to be prepared for whatever is headed toward you. However, every time you breathe and blink, some weird thing comes up and the next thing you know, you haven’t really set your shields up. You try to deal with it anyway because it’s already there so you end up conditioning your mind on what to do if one thing leads to another. You try to manage your expectations and be smart about the choices you make. But, somehow, you turn out doing otherwise. You are the epitome of irony.

You tell yourself to not easily trust people because there will always be an inherent danger in this. You keep your number of friends to a minimum and try to confide your true self and your inner demons to one or two. You want to keep the probability of having your trust betrayed to the lowest level and as much as possible, you want to have easy damage control. “You’re just being practical and smart,” you tell yourself. You contain yourself to this tiny circle… and all of a sudden, boom – you cross paths with someone new.

“No” – it’s the only word you allow yourself to utter. You keep distance because, after all, you don’t need another entity in your life, right? You give out bland responses, as flavorless and cold as frozen tofu. You manage to go through your list of ways of rejection. But circumstances just do not know when to put an end to things and before you know it, you actually already have started a different and unexpected chapter in the book of your existence. You convince yourself that it probably won’t hurt to give it a chance; in fact, you’ve already set up safeguards in case things go wrong. You can’t just get enough of protecting yourself, can you?

Then, little by little, you may not have realized it but you have permitted yourself to be consumed in the situation. You click. You connect. You indulge in deep conversations and talk about dreams and how to achieve them. You talk about worries and skeletons in your closet, the should-haves and the could-haves. You set your arms wide open and embrace whatever is thrown at you, whatever is in front of you. You’ve allowed yourself to awaken in something beautiful.

However, as soon as you think about the beauty, you think about the consequences. Your fears emerge and you let yourself feel pain even if nothing has even started yet. You turn into a frustrated over-thinker. You think about letting go first to lessen impacts of future, unforeseen damages. And for some weird reason you continue taking risks. The best part is that this is where and how you find the ones who become most important to you: love, friendship, success, and family – the finest of all.

When things happen, you just let them. You don’t always have to pre-empt bad things, but you can always mitigate consequences. When things happen, make smart choices. You can’t just make it an excuse to be reckless on purpose. When things happen, wisdom is of the essence, but don’t let it swallow you too much, because when things happen, they happen. Go with the flow and never forget to be responsible in whatever path you decide to walk on or end up taking.