aggressively.stagnant.

If I knew the world was going to end tomorrow, and were asked to briefly describe Cicero, I would be forced to admit that I’m the very thing I always faulted my parent’s for being – a dreamer. A person with boundless potential unfulfilled, and so much talent wasted by inaction. I suppose this may be true for many people, but I honestly didn’t foresee this being my story. I have vivid memories of me growing up, paper thin and awkward within my skin, proclaiming to my peers that someday they would see my name written in lights. I was so unsure about many things, but I never faltered in my belief that my name would be widely known from a successful career in entertainment. After all, my mother was breathtakingly beautiful, and had the ability to paint and draw circles around anyone I’ve ever known. And my father was a devilishly handsome man, whose beautiful voice and self-taught guitar skills were the envy of every man he jammed with. And that goes without mentioning the countless other talents my parents possessed. But neither of them dreamed big. They didn’t aspire to the heights of commercial successes and nationwide popularity. They were content using their talents like an afternoon hobby, never on display for the entertainment of others. I assumed that was the key difference between them and me, and that a life of mediocrity wasn’t something I needed to worry about. I expected my dreams would fall into place as I rolled with the punches of day-to-day life. I knew life would present challenges along the way, and that sometimes I’d have to make decisions that may affect the direction of my life, but I wasn’t prepared to construct the road for myself. I was naïve. I was ignorant to almost everything. As I got older, the realities of the world started coming into focus slowly. But I always felt assured that I’d have time – that, without question, I’d do what was necessary to build the life I deserved tomorrow. But tomorrow kept coming, and I’ve continued to age, all while remaining aggressively stagnant. I’ve observed so many of my peers have achieve success. Hell, I’ve observed so many from the next generation of youth achieve success. This life of observing other people’s successes makes me bitter and resentful, as though I’ve been unfairly overlooked. But it’s at that boiling point of contempt that I stop to analyze the facts, to discern where I might’ve taken a wrong turn, and arrive at the conclusion that I’ve only ever had myself to blame.