Years ago, at university, I met an incredible friend. At a time when we were both trying to find our respective paths, our lives converged by chance when we happened to sit next to each other in a paper. At the time, my friend was in a very dark place - despite overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds to attend our university, he was failing his papers due to his inherent learning disability. He was spiralling quickly - you could see that he was starting to live in his head more than in his body. His internal ramblings had grown so loud that he could no longer hear his intuition.
He was often misunderstood - his words were forceful, yet his heart was so pure it would put gold to shame. I remember staring right into his soul and telling him that nobody was going to pull him out of this but himself. Then, instead of pressing the point, I pulled out my high school yearbook and started listing sports to him. I noticed a flicker in his eyes when I mentioned rowing. So, we went to sign him up at a local club. He was perfectly suited for it - his height and long limbs made him a natural. From then on, he had a community of young men who surrounded him at morning training four days a week, refusing to take no for an answer. Over the span of a few months, I could see his soul reawakening, reconnecting with his body. He was the type to sink his teeth into anything that truly inspired him.
One afternoon, we caught up. With a pencil wedged behind his ear, he was in the middle of renovating a property for an elderly neighbour. I watched him move with an almost fluid-like ease, effortlessly fixing a panel with precision. He had always been a natural. He paused for a second, as if a thought had half-escaped him, before swearing under his breath and admitting he didn't think university was for him - and that he didn't know what he wanted to do. I almost chuckled as I asked him, semi-sarcastically, what he thought he was good at. He hesitated, and my suggestive glances between the panel and his gaze almost sawed through the fabric of time itself.
"Building", I blurted out.
He pondered for a split second before agreeing with a cheesy grin. What followed was a mix of roasting and brainstorming as we half-jokingly, half-seriously crafted a business plan of sorts.
He now owns an extraordinarily successful property development business - one of the top five in his city.
Sometimes, our talents are so innate, so effortless, that following them feels too easy. And so, we take a detour, role-playing as something else, only to boomerang back to what our soul always knew.