A Path of Thorns and Thistles

    I have had a very recent fascination with watches, I have spent months researching everything about what makes a watch "good". From the movement, to the material, to the branding, no aspect went without scrutiny. In a stroke of good luck and God's blessings, I've recently built up a watch collection. It isn't much, but it is mine, and at the end of the day, that's all that matters.

    I tell myself to be patient, to rest assured that one day, I'll have the resources and capital to build a great watch collection and a legacy to leave behind for my family and their families. But the young and hungry boy inside me, addicted to instant gratification and the worldly idolization of money and capital, asks myself... "Why can't that day be today?" I know I am capable of great achievement, self-aggrandizing milestones of wealth, and corporate success. Why shouldn't I go back to school, get my MBA, and train and study to become a CFA? Why shouldn't I take the teaching job that offered me 70k and a sign on bonus? Why shouldn't I forsake everything I loved and everything I value so that I can have more.... be more... be proud of who I am now?

    Wasn't I the one who graduated university early? Wasn't I the epitome of drive and potential? Why did everything I desire fall through the cracks?

Leaving me with only broken pieces and scraps to pick through.

    I tell myself, that it is good that I do not choose wealth and ease over ideals and virtue... but as I struggle to make ends meet, and the gap between my ideal self and my current self widens, I find my resolve slowly withering away.

    Truly this is the curse of Adam: that the ground I till has been cursed to bear only the smallest of fruits, that I have tasted and known the luxury of Eden and now must endure and suffer for the herbs and thickets of the brush. I take comfort only in that the curse has glanced obliquely upon the ground at my feet and the dirt of my path, rather than on me.

    I must remember, though I no longer know the taste of Eden, I will not starve. No matter how meager the field's crop is compared to Eden's fruit, I will not starve. By the sweat of my brow and the blisters of my hands, a way will be carved by me. One day will come... Maybe not as soon... Maybe not as potent with riches.. But I will not always only have scraps.

    The path of thorns and thistles will cut me deeply, but a path is a path, and I will walk it, till the end of its ways.