Bleeding Roses

School is an environment built on the ideas of advancing in the world.  As the years progress we are slowly pulled out of what we know, into something more intricate and advanced.  Each change is structured to expand our minds and show us one more piece of what we are capable of.

What if I don’t want change?  What if all I want is to stay where I feel safe?  Either way you put it, the world doesn’t grant you those wishes.  For no one has a genie with three wishes.  Instead, we do as we are told.  Be it parents, teachers, or experienced friends.  Obediently, we follow, hoping that they know what is best for us.

Most times, they do.  But even your flesh and blood don’t fully understand you.  They are not mind readers.  They don’t know for sure how you will react to certain changes.  We act based on how we feel.  Even the ones who know you best can’t predict your every move.  You are your own teacher.  You alone understand what works best for you and what doesn’t.  You know your own limits.

So why, are we dragged out of our safety into something we know makes us uncomfortable?  As much as we hate it, every change is there to help us grow.  Each challenge we face is the watering of our blossoming plant.  It’s when we’ve done something too much that we feel drowned in the nourishment we’re given.  Some drops do nothing to further grow the flower.  It’s just there and we’re expected to use it.  Sometimes we can’t because it’s been shown so many times that we become immune.  In becoming immune we know that no matter how often it shows up, we can’t seem to get past our fear.

Yet we’re dragged and expected to smile the entire time, as if it doesn’t bother us that we’re doing something pointless.  The truth is, we can’t.  Smiling would be lying.  But you tell them what they want to hear and hope that it’s enough.  Even if we have to mumble your way through every single word you speak.

When all is said and done, it’s a weight off your shoulders.  Parts of you may think you failed, but a bigger part simply says “It’s over, I’m done, I did my best.”  And when criticism comes at you, just nod in agreement because inside you’ve accomplished something better than what any teacher or parent could tell you.

In having the strength to step out of your bubble, you’ve established that you can do something.  Even if it means pulling teeth with a set of pliers.  You’ll bleed and feel pain at being exposed but overtime it becomes a distant memory.  It’s a part of your past that will never be revisited.  In understanding this, you’ve grown, not by rule of adults, but of your own.

That is the only way we ever fully accomplish something at all.  We have to want it badly enough for ourselves.  If we do it just for the sake of others, we die slowly and painfully, knowing that we were forced against our will just to please them.  We can’t be proud of what we’ve done, because our hearts were never in it.  How can one feel joy when, while working through it, we felt nothing at all?

Feel proud of the roses you’ve picked, because they were your own selection.  The thorns are simply a sign of your struggle.  A struggle pushed through to give you something beautiful.  No task is worth it without the work needed to accomplish it.  The harder you push yourself, the harder the labor, the more you feel it was all worth it.  Because only you know how difficult it was and what you had to put yourself through to get there.  The blood, blisters and tears are there to show how hard you’re willing to work to better yourself.