Why do I wait to hit rock bottom before I change?

Why do I wait to hit rock bottom before I change?

Photo by Nik on Unsplash

I might be overly ambitious, maybe that’s my biggest flaw,

Always wanting mastery before I’ve learned the basics of it all.

Wanting speed before precision, wanting results before the climb,

Wanting years of steady progress in just a fraction of the time.

And every time I do this, I already know the end,

I push too hard, I burn myself, then start all over again.

I give up on it and just sit,

Picturing the level I thought I would’ve reached,

I crash into a wall, the same way that I do,

Then spend a day convinced that maybe I am finally through.

But something strange always happens whenever I hit the ground,

Something subtle shifts inside me when there’s nowhere else around.

Not some grand revelation, not a voice from up above,

Just a quiet understanding of the thing I should’ve done.

And suddenly the answer feels embarrassingly clear,

Like it was standing right beside me every moment of the year.

Then I start again tomorrow, but this time something’s changed,

Not the goal I’m working towards, but how my thoughts are arranged.

I move slower, I move calmer, I stop trying to skip ahead,

I focus on the thing I’m doing rather than the dream instead.

And that works better than the rushing ever did,

The progress starts returning when I stop acting like a kid.

The accuracy comes first now, then the speed begins to grow,

Instead of forcing both together before I even know.

And that’s the part that bothers me, the question I can’t dodge,

Why do I need to hit rock bottom before I change my course?

Why do I need the failure before I see what’s going wrong?

Why does the lesson only click when I’ve ignored it for so long?

Sometimes I even know the answer long before I make the fall,

But impatience starts convincing me the rules don’t matter at all.

I tell myself I’ll be different, that I’ll somehow find a way,

To reach the final destination without walking day by day.

Then I crash the same as always, and I’m forced to sit and think,

Watching every shortcut vanish faster than it took to blink.

And I’ve noticed this in everything, no matter what I pursue,

The details may be different but the pattern still comes through.

A different skill, a different dream, a different mountain face,

Yet somehow I keep finding the exact same resting place.

The place where all my confidence gets humbled for a while,

The place where every rushed attempt collapses in a pile.

And somehow every rock bottom feels completely fresh and new,

Even though I’ve stood there often enough to recognize the view.

You’d think I’d learn to spot it from a thousand miles away,

Yet every time it catches me like it arrived today.

And now another thought appears that’s honestly absurd,

But after all these years it’s still a question I’ve not heard.

Am I beginning to expect it whenever things go wrong?

Am I waiting for the crash to come and teach me what belongs?

Sometimes I find myself asking, “Is this rock bottom yet?”

As if I’m waiting for the lesson that I haven’t learned just yet.

As if some quiet motivation is preparing to arrive,

The same one that appears each time I think I won’t survive.

And maybe that’s the strangest thing I’ve realized through it all,

Not that I keep getting back up every time I take a fall.

But that each time I hit the bottom, the message stays the same,

Even though I keep returning and forgetting it again.

“Slow down”, that’s always been the answer whether small or whether great,

The path I keep abandoning because I cannot wait.

Stop chasing mastery faster than it can be earned,

Stop trying to reach the ending before the pages have been turned.

Maybe rock bottom was never there to punish me at all,

Maybe it simply forced me to notice what I chose to stall.

And maybe one day I’ll learn the lesson without needing the pain,

Without having to lose myself before I find myself again.

But until then I keep walking, keep growing, keep becoming,

Knowing every crash I’ve had was pointing toward something.

Not greatness, not perfection, not some legendary name,

Just patience, the lesson hidden underneath every failure all the same.

Garima Sharma