What's Your Pledge?

Do you ever think about what your life would be like as a movie? Would it be an action film or a drama, a chick-flick or a comedy, or maybe a combination? Which Hollywood star would play your role? I imagine mine would be some sort of slow paced, dark humored film with some random up-beat moments to keep it going.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about those movies that have an inspirational part where the protagonist goes through some sort of harrowing but positive life change while an uplifting, fun-spirited song that makes you want to get up and dance plays in the background. Just like that, by the time the song is over, the changes have been made and a stunning, newly polished character emerges ready to take on life with metaphorical boxing gloves.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot this past week. I wish I could have that scene in my life’s film right now. I wish the harrowing changes in life could be positively made within the short time of a song and that that song could be playing to cheer me on as I painstakingly step over the finish line and cross each challenge off of the list of life’s cruel but necessary lessons, never to look back. How’s that for a run-on sentence depiction?

Recently I feel I’ve made great strides in personal goals. I will shamelessly admit that I have sometimes hummed my own personal inspirational “Rocky theme song” to myself as I’ve pushed through some challenges. But, alas, as human as I am, I do occasionally falter backwards and have to repeat some footsteps forward. Having currently found myself repeating some of those footsteps, I wonder if I will be back here again soon and I end up stressing myself out with thoughts of inadequacy and weakness, eventually succumbing to the disheartening confidence in the inevitability of walking the same path again, shortly. 

Satan knows this about me and jumps at every opportunity to remind me of it. 

One of my current goals is to work on self-image and insecurities. I want to bring back a certain gumption I feel I used to have. But it’s hard, it’s so hard. And dating life (or lack thereof) makes it even more so. Intense, raw feelings of not being good enough, wanted, or even desirable deepen the loneliness. The world has become exceptionally harsh, tremendously unfeeling and consequently unsympathetic. We all feel it and lately I’m feeling it rather powerfully. I keep hitting the “play” button for my inspirational song to pump me up, but there’s only static silence. 

So what do I do? I escape.

I escape by playing mindless Sudoku. I escape by immersing myself into the fictional and drama-filled lives of TV show characters. I escape by happily throwing myself headfirst into my favorites: the fantastical, magical world of a boy with a lightening shaped scar or the passion filled love stories of tenacious women like Elizabeth Bennett or Jane Eyre who end up with the love of their life for a happily-ever-after. 

But this is only for a short time and then I emerge and find myself shocked back to reality like being shaken awake from a pleasant dream. And I hate it. I hate escaping and being forced awake day after day and I don’t want to do it anymore. 

So, this is my pledge: I am going to hum to myself my very own inspirational score, take one painful step at a time, and stare forward with all the focus of mind I can muster until I no longer have to hum the song because it plays within my soul. From this moment forward, I want to make every day be one single second of that inspirational score so when I finally reach the end credits of my short life-movie, I’ll have struggled, clawed, and fought, bruised and dripping with sweat and probably blood, but I’ll have stepped over that final finish line with no intent of ever looking back. 

What's your pledge?