Reynaldo Gunawan
2024-12-01T18:59:27.000Z
Life is a messy thing. Screwing up an exam, trying to find a job, looking for a new home, or just tripping and planting the face in the mud. Big or small, bad things happen all the time and many of us, myself included, often lose sight of what we love and what we wanted to do. Some are even unfortunate enough to never learn what they really want to do. On the worst days, we hope that someone or something will pull us out of this muddy pit. Maybe tomorrow, a great realization will hit us, and our lives will change forever from that moment on. Then tomorrow comes, and nothing happens. Eventually, we get tired of even getting tired, and just let things be. 'It is what it is,' we tell ourselves.
It was a rather recent event that I participated in Aldo's sessions. He's been my friend for a long time, but I had no idea what he was working on, nor what I was getting myself into. Part of me even believed that this was one of those friendly pep talk things; nice and heartwarming, but ultimately nothing that would change my fate. Another part of me desperately believed that this might be the one moment of great realization that will change everything.
It was neither of those. What it did was something a lot smaller, but something that still echoes to this day and will continue to do so.
Aldo isn't someone who's looking down on us from the height of success, telling us to 'shape our future,' that 'we can do it.' He's one of us, still in the middle of his own endeavors, running on the same track as most of us are. But he knows something special: the future isn't something we shape. The future is as real as we want it to be, and all we need to do is shape the present. And all he did was share this with me and chip away a tiny piece of my tired self: to doubt my doubting self. But just as a tiny crack grows into a bigger fracture, every new day, I've been able to push myself further and further.
We've all faced walls in our lives, forced to a stop. And many of us have been forced into believing that the wall cannot be overcome. But every single one of us is capable of so much more than we think. We don't need life-changing events or near-death experiences to realize that. All we need is the first step, and he can help with it.