an uphill battle

someone once told me that the harder the road that you walk, the greater the rewards. But how do we know which road to take? How do we know for sure that we are doing what is right, what we are destined to do?



"flickr.com"


"what had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?-
If design govern a thing so small."
-Robert Frost

Are we travelling on a road that we didn't choose but one that was chosen for us? I wonder if we have a map laid out for us and we are just living it. The world doesn't seem quite so fair if that's the case. Why can't we choose to be a doctor or a lawyer or a check-out chick. Did we choose to be cast to the side of the road without a home, without family, friends.... without a life? I wonder if some where in the beginings of our existence we signed a contract as to our life's pathway. A contrary argument is that some people strive harder, work harder, struggle up hill to get what they want. The harder the battle, the greater the rewards.

But not everyone can be a doctor. For starters, not eveyone has the ability mentally to study, understand concepts and things. Not everyone had a photographic memory, or ability with numbers, just to get through the course, let alone get grades good enough to land a fantastic internship, for example. The same goes for a lawyer. Not everyone is talented with words or have the confidence to argue something infront of men draped in black gowns perched like crows on wooden balconeys.

True, some things you can learn, some things can be taught and tutors exist. But we are given varying abilities and interests, and some jobs just aren't suited to some people.

I wonder what decides that in life. I wonder what decides who gets the brains, who gets the happy family life, and who gets the random opportunities that turn out to be a great success. Like poker, we are handed a set of cards, seemingly randomly. But i ask, is it all that random?

I belive that everyone has to trudge an uphill battle. But all battles aren't the same. Some may be born into poverty, but they find riches in things that those born into more monetary wealth don't. its a different battle. Some struggle to pass school and have a fine life elsewhere, while others gifted at the acadeamic struggle with finding decent people who care about them. Some have both, but I am sure that they struggle elsewhere.

I ask myself if that saying, the harder the battle, the greater the reward, is true. Are we actually meant to battle life to get great rewards? Or is the difficulty of the path a clear indication that we are not meant to be travelling along it? This brings me back to my first pattern of thought. How do we know that we are doing what we are meant to, what we are destined to. IS there a destiny that we are set out to follow? Do we have a choice and can we make the wrong choice?


one of my images