The remark  “All we have to fear is fear itself,” with which a guy grows up in the patriarchy, has always been one of my favorites by. Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Growing up aggressively teaches a guy to confront challenges head-on without flinching or displaying any signs of despair. But sometimes fate has its own ambitions; I suppose I might compare it to the gloomy cellar in which a fine wine spends years fermenting and settling before being presented to the connoisseurs as a delicacy. My tryst with destiny left a lengthy scar on me, but like a great wine, the scar matured and softened with time.

I waited alone for my tears to come through the worst setbacks and the hardest failures because I had always been taught that tears aren’t for you and that no matter what, you aren’t meant to shred them.

I had no idea what to do when I encountered emotional setbacks and disappointments; holding on was simple when the water cascaded down the torrent of physical agony or the roughest brainstorming sessions.
When you fail to fulfill your own expectations, the bars of failure established by society rise considerably, as I found out the hard way, and I still remember that feeling.

I was devastated. Overnight, I went from being the most upbeat person to the most depressed. I wasn’t the most depressed person in the world, but I did think I had accidentally extinguished a beacon of hope. Those suicidal ideas still haunt me. I used to blame fate, and all the justifications I had for not dealing with my emotions poisoned me for a whole year.

I chose to be the real me, and immediately my suicidal thoughts stopped. I was filled with the will to make a difference, I worked tirelessly to become the greatest version of myself, and I kept my fingers crossed that I wouldn’t have another tryst with destiny.

When I was surrounded by the most destructive thoughts, the idea of connecting the dots is what kept the real me alive. I moved on from the things, I moved on from that phase of my life, and I had to swim out of that still water.

After years of hard work were reduced to ashes in a matter of time, my maturity allowed me to open my arms and meet my destiny with open arms as I floated through the narrow stream, completely unknown. I had believed myself to be strong enough, but destiny was more prepared than I. Time the destroyer, time the perceiver: who knew my fate would return me to the same thoughts?

I fought hard not to lose hope and forced myself to take another step every day, but I have no idea what went wrong, and it has taken me days to find it out.

This time taught me the countless lessons that I was holding back in the form of tears; looking back in time and connecting the dots, I can say those were the greatest lessons of my life.
 
 
More than anything else, the lessons I learned from my unfulfilled tryst with destiny helped me understand the importance of emotions and how to shape myself into someone worthy of acclaim.