This poem by Khalil Gibran flowed into my river of social media feeds the other day and I want to save it here for posterity.
If you’ve been following this blog, you will know that I recently made a major career decision to leave the (relative) security of a university job for private practice. So far, things are going well alhamdulillah but I’d be lying if I said I’m not apprehensive about what the future may bring.
It’s good, therefore, to put things into perspective when dealing with situations like these. So, here it is, the poem ‘Fear’ by Khalil Gibran:
It is said that before entering the sea
A river trembles with fear.
She looks back at the path she has traveled,
from the peaks of the mountains,
the long winding road crossing forests and villages.
And in front of her,
she sees an ocean so vast,
that to enter
there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.
But there is no other way.
The river cannot go back.
Nobody can go back.
To go back is impossible in existence.
The river needs to take the risk
of entering the ocean
because only then will fear disappear
because that’s where the river will know
it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.
Imran Idris 