Sometimes, we don’t get what we want because we are meant fo..

Sometimes, we don’t get what we want because we are meant for things far greater than we’d ever let ourselves believe. Sometimes, we fail not because we are lost or inept or in some other way lacking, but because some deeper knowing inside of us is beginning to take hold, and some greater vision is beginning to take shape, and instead of a life we can tolerate, we begin moving toward one we can’t get enough of. Instead of a consolation prize, we start preparing for the victory lap. Instead of believing that we are not enough because we could not thrive within what was not meant for us, we begin to realize that we are not meant to excel at a life that is not designed to make the most of who we most essentially are, what we most fundamentally love, what we are most inherently born to be. You are not behind for the ways in which life did not turn out the way you once wanted it to. The gap between where you are and where you most want to be will be filled by the person you become — and that is why we have dreams in the first place. Not so that we might arrive somewhere that is perfect, but that we will press up against the bounds that we think limit us and move beyond them. To see with crystalline clarity that we are limitless beyond even our own comprehension. That we are designed with the potential to fulfill what quietly inspires us, what motivates us, what interests us, what enlivens us, what awakens us in every sense. We don’t only have to grow, we also have to learn. We have to confront our shadows and our demons. We have to know the ways in which we are inclined to self-destruct. We have to understand what we do not want life to be before we can grasp what we do. Becoming the whole of who we are is not a matter of solely embodying the beautiful things in our hearts, but also befriending the hard ones. We reside, always, at the edge of everything — all of the past behind us, and all of the potential in front, and all of the doorways around. The humbling, the losing, the stopping, the releasing, the slowing and the stillness is just trying to give us the eyes to see. -Brianna Wiest