Let me start with the most common beginnings...
Once upon a time, there was a man who had a gaping hole in his chest.
When he was just a boy, he lived with his family.
His mother adored him and his siblings too. He was a boy with so much potential, talented in almost all aspects.
His father was a chemical engineer, his hero, and the one he looked up to. He idolized him completely. He wanted to be just like him when he grows up.
Now, this is a common story where a boy hero-worships his father. (I'm a woman and I'm guilty of this)
He studied hard, played the right sports, and excelled academically. He can feel that his father is happy for him and thought to himself that his father must be proud of his accomplishments too.
One day, he had a karate tournament. His father was in the crowd, watching. He lost this fight and saw his father shake his head looking disappointed. This troubled him so much because he doesn't want to disappoint his hero. Unfortunately, failure upon failure struck him successively.
Slowly he saw his father's interest waned.
The gaping hole in his chest started to appear.
The gaping hole grew and grew. It grew so large that you can visibly see it even from afar.
He went through adolescence and early adulthood with this deep wound in his chest.
The last straw was when he heard his father talking to a colleague that he was disappointed in him.
He cried in secret, thinking he must be a total failure and will never be anything good ever. His family was out of the picture, tearing at his emotions and messing with his head.
Now, God has a plan for him. A plan to prosper him and not to harm him. It's true.
For little did he know that a woman will enter his life.
He was coasting through life, drinking his sorrows away when one day he saw this woman whom he remembered was an old university classmate.
She never mentioned the gaping hole in his chest but instead befriended him. She acknowledged his greatness and told him how amazing he was.
They became friends and slowly he regained his confidence.
He remembered how he was and his aspirations in life. Little by little he took the path to an admission of the cause of the hole in his chest.
He acknowledged that he can't please his family every day and that he can't be at all times winning every single battle he faces. He also realized that this woman inspired him and that the hole in his chest is slowly closing.
He can never be his father nor can he be anything close to him, that's for sure. He is his own man and has his dreams to follow.
He worked day and night, rebuilding his lost personality, and lo and behold he became someone whom he can consider a success. Not in the perfection his family wants him to project but successful in a way that his true personality and his joy are evident in his actions kind of way.
He gained the courage to face his family's disappointments and showed them that he can be successful in his way and by God's grace he is.
He married this woman who was and is his friend, his best friend. And they began to teach each other to love themselves and restore their self-esteem.
The end.
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I pray you'll believe that everything can be restored and can be achieved eventually.
And now I leave you with these famous quotes.
"Behind every man's success, there's a woman behind"
and
"Behind every man's failure, there's God's intervention"
This man's hole in the chest is now but tiny and is almost healed to the fullest.
Blessings and more blessings to you all!
(just a work of fiction but had some reality to it, just a slight one)
