A Walking Pace

Competition should create this urge for me to get better

It should breed a hunger in me to work harder

This is suppose to be the time for me to “hustle” and “grind”

But I can’t

I don’t

I’m at a moment in my life where I feel paralyzed by decisions and surpassed by any human imaginable

I feel people zooming past me

Their images turn into blurs as they fly past me

I see the blurs of people I’m close to

Blurs of people I haven’t seen in years

The blurs of celebrities

The blurs of influencers

Blurs of people younger than me

People older than me

People that are doing what I want to do

People that are doing things I’ve never thought of before

I feel the wind of them passing me

And I wonder why I’m not catching up

With each excuse I give myself I feel myself slowing down

I’m tired

So then I do the worst thing possible

I stop

I don’t see the point of going on any further

I mean, I was already lagging behind

The blurs don’t stop. They keep passing me

No one stops when I do

They keep going on

And though it’s not how I thought of getting there

I decided in that moment: I would continue

But this time

At a walking pace

Raniah Jeanlys is a proud Haitian-American woman that was born in Pétion-Ville, Haiti and then grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina. She recently graduated from North Carolina State University majoring in Business Administration with a concentration in Finance and a minor in Law and Justice. She enjoys being an active student and participating in activities outside of school like dancing and volunteering at animal shelters.