What matters

They say what matters is not how good we are in keeping ourselves out of trouble but how well we get out of trouble after we have unwittingly gotten into it. I agree. After all, there can’t possibly be any one who can manage not to ever get into trouble. I believe that at some points in our lives, we find ourselves in situations we never dreamed of ever going into — situations which we’d rather watch from a safe distance than be involved in.

Indeed, at one point or another, we succumb to temptations, commit mistakes, make wrong moves, and yes — fail. And very soon we find ourselves caught in a tangled web whose ending and beginning we can no longer pinpoint, and from which liberating ourselves seems impossible.

Then we realize that getting out of our predicaments can be very difficult, and that not all of us have the courage, the determination and the will to get out of sorrow’s clasps. More over, it seems that not everyone of those who might have them (courage, determination and will) can actually make it — some do succeed, often after having been badly scathed with all their struggles; but some would fail and succumb to destruction.

What’s worse is that, even those who might manage to escape from the abyss they’ve been thrown into might, in their struggles, lose something of themselves, so that, although they would still be the same persons who have gotten into and out of the maze, they would no longer be their old selves. Somehow, they would be changed.

So while our ability to get out of the trouble we have gotten ourselves into matters more than our ability to keep out of it, far more important is the person we may become after everything we go through — if, after all that we put up with, we will still have our conscience to help us discern what is right and what is wrong, and the willingness and ability to heed the dictates of that conscience.