I know how it Feels.
The Pain that Screams from the Bottom of Your Soul.
The Tearing Apart that Your Heart Experiences.
The Tears that Form in Your Eyes.
The Shadows that Form around You and Grasp at You.
Pulling.
Dragging.
Whispering.
The Sensation of Sinking into an Abyss that You May Never be able to Escape.
You Tell Yourself You Do Not Want to Quit.
What You're Doing is Important.
There is an Impact that Only You can Make.
But the Weight is Heavy.
Massive.
Overbearing.
The thought begins to Occur to You...
If I just Quit...
Maybe I would be Released.
Perhaps that Freedom My Soul Seeks Exists by Putting an End to the Journey.
Stopping.
Abandoning it All.
Wouldn't that be So Much Simpler?
Just to Quit.
Then the Guilt Occurs.
How could I even Think about that?
Does that Mean I'm Not Cut Out for This?
Am I Doomed to Let Those Around Me Down?
Am I Hopeless?
Your Brain begins to Remind You...
All the Times You've Failed.
The Time You Failed Last Week.
When You Failed Last Year.
The Largest Failure of Your Life.
They All Begin to Spin through Your Mind.
A Whirlpool.
It Grows and Grows.
They begin to Drown You in Sorrow.
It Expands to become a Maelstrom that Goes beyond Your Vision.
You are Consumed with the Shame of Your Past and Your Desire to Quit.
You begin to Fear what this All Means.
Fear that Others will See the Mess that You Are.
They will see the Marks of Failure Upon Your Chest.
A Brand.
Unremovable.
A Testament to Your Disgrace.
The Little Light You Hoped to See becomes Weaker and Weaker.
Hope Diminishes like the Setting of the Sun.
Your Faith in Yourself begins to Vanish.
Then...
When You Hit the Bottom...
The Boulders of Pressure Keeping You Submerged...
You begin to Wonder...
If This...
Is It.
The End.
I Know how it Feels because I have Been Here.
Without Hope.
Without Belief.
Lost.
Abandoned.
Ready for the Darkness to Take Me.
Watching the Last of the Sun's Light Disappear.
Hanging On by a Fraying Strand.
The Breath of Life Escaping My Lungs.
Ash to Ash.
Dust to Dust.
Even the Emotions were Gone.
Not Peace, but Absence.
An Eerie Silence which would even Terrify the Dead.
But I am Still Here.
Still Fighting.
Returning to the Surface.
Breaking Down the Barriers and Finding Progress.
Breathing New Air into My Life.
And So Should You.
Yes, when you are that Close to the End, I Know How Difficult It Is to Lift Yourself.
To Take a Step.
To Reach for Help.
It can go Against Everything We Have Been Taught.
It May Feel Unnatural and Even Painful.
Yet, this is How Growth Begins.
For the Seed to become a Tree, it must be Buried Under Dirt.
Pressure Must Be Applied.
Without Sight of the Light.
Tiny.
Insignificant.
The Seed Must Go Lower Still as Their Roots Continue Downward.
The Further Down the Roots Go, the Higher the Tree Can Rise.
The Pressure...
Diving Lower and Lower...
These are Needed for the Greatest Growth to Occur.
Though a Tree is Amazing...
You are More Magnificent.
More Sublime.
More Glorious.
To be Human is to have the Ability to Hit the Lowest of these Extreme Lows...
Yet Rise Beyond Anything the World Has Ever Seen.
We have Gone Further than Any Other Living Creature.
Expand Farther.
Gone Where We Have Never Been Designed to Live.
Into the Depths of the Ocean.
Into the Expanses of the Sky.
Into the Hostility of Space.
Yes, this May be Hard to See or Understand when you Strike the Bottom.
You may Read the Words...
Hear them in Your Own Voice...
And Doubt Them Completely...
Yet...
There is a Part of Your Soul...
Perhaps Tiny...
Even Miniscule...
That Knows This...
Listen...
Find It...
It can Hear the Truth.
It will Seek the Truth.
Follow that Voice Back to the Surface and Out of the Depths.
It will Show You What You Truly Are.
The Spectacular Human You Have Always Been.
The Great Masterpiece You Are Becoming.
Now Reach Up Toward The Potential Within You.
Are You Ready to Go Beyond Leadership?
Tired of Broken Algorithms and AI Slop?
Excited to Dive Deeper into Psychophysiological Mastery?
Want to Change The World?