Kelfis Holohan

Why did I take this path?

It's a question everyone asks themselves. Most don't have any reason to ask it but to try and come up with a profound response to justify their actions moving forward. The truth is that they know deep down they couldn't imagine themselves having taken a different path. They don't have a deeper choice to make than just following the most reasonable road they see.

I used to be the same way. Where I'm from there's a saying that goes as follows:

"Do you climb a mountain for the world to see you? Or for you to see the world?"

I haven't always been a man who looked out for others. I used to be very selfish with a guise of selfishness. That's how many live. Only when I broadened my horizons did I try and help everyone I came across. My answer to the saying was:

"I climb a mountain so others see that they can too."

That was the truth I lived by for a long while. Helping anyone and everyone was my calling. A happy world would be made by me.

I know now that I was naive. Nobody can ever create a perfect world or even a happy one. All attempts at "heroism" and "selflessness" are adding to the cycle of fortune and misfortune the world has always experienced and always will. There's nothing wrong with it, though. That's just how things are. People get lucky, people die, people live and people suffer. There's a certain inevitability hanging over all of us.

I've lived selfishly and I've lived selflessly. Neither are the right answer. One shouldn't live only for themselves or only for others. The only way to have any say in the way fate unfolds is to live for yourself and those close to you. Become strong so you can protect your friends, family and loved ones, and inspire strength in them too. Strength is what allows someone to decide how they live. I want myself and those around me to have that choice.

That strength can be made meaningless if you don't make a wise decision with it. How will you live from now on? The whole world is waiting for you, what will you do with it?

Most wielding that kind of strength choose humility. They settle down, teaching others how to be like them and refusing to use that strength unless it's absolutely necessary. They have no obligation to change the world for better or for worse, but they leave themselves unfulfilled. They've cast away "childish" and "impossible" dreams that they couldn't ever imagine bringing into reality, even with the strength they now have. This way of thinking is the world's greatest weakness.

My knights and I believe in our dreams wholeheartedly. We live and die by them. If we aren't following them we might as well not be living. We all strive for different goals and yet we know they will all be reached. It boils down to something way simpler than changing the world or some other profound justification.

We follow our dreams relentlessly because we desire to. That fire in our hearts for happiness, for satisfaction, for living the way we want to burns brighter than any and all other reason. We understand that is how life should be lived. If you and those you care about aren't chasing those dreams, why are you alive? No matter what answer you come up with to that question, it will never excuse the refusal to satisfy oneself.

As for the question I must ask myself-

"Why did I take this path?"

It isn't because I had to. It's because I wanted to.

The Knights of Aznimier were founded for one reason. Everything we do will lead us down this path. The fire within us will light the way. Our strength, our hearts and our bonds will guide us.

Together we will reach self-actualization.