A Butterfly by Choice

The journey toward self-discovery is not exactly the bed of roses one would think it is. Sometimes, you realize things about yourself which are not what you expected- and you find yourself lost, uncertain and vulnerable. Other times you feel like a monster stares you back in the face in the mirror, and you want to break the mirror into small pieces. After such ordeal, you feel exhausted, as if you've aged a thousand years. You feel weary as you recall things that were said and particularly you cringe at the things you know were true.

It is impossible to look forward without taking into consideration what happened in the past. To become a new person or to improve an existing personality, one must always have an understanding about who he or she was in the past. It is the only way one can right the wrongs of the past- by setting an internal alarm clock everytime one feels that the past is about to unravel itself again.

Yet, is this even possible? People say that you are what you are, that if you are born with a tail behind your legs, cutting it off will not entirely remove the tail. We cannot remove ourselves from what we are born to be and what we have grown to be, I agree.

Let me digress for a moment and talk about one of my all time favorite stories- Hope for the Flowers by Trina Paulus. This is a story that talks about two caterpillars Stripe and Yellow and their life as caterpillars. To them, life is all about climbing the "caterpillar pillar" along with other caterpillars in the quest of getting on top. Since all caterpillars make that journey, you can imagine how the caterpillars fight one another to get to the top- only to attain nothing. But true caterpillars must surrender to the cocoon in order to really fly. Thus, Stripe and Yellow made the choice to be cocooned, in which after a period of time, they emerged from the cocoon as beautiful butterflies.

I believe we are all born to be caterpillars- but not for us to remain caterpillars forever. The time must eventually come for us to choose whether we are content to be mere caterpillars forever or decide to surrender into the cocoon where we will undergo a transformation into being butterflies for the rest of our lives.

I choose to be a butterfly, like Stripe and Yellow.

This is why right now, at this very moment, I just need to pause, get my bearings together, close my eyes, take a deep breath, pray for a moment-

and surrender myself to the cocoon.