Swings

Vines, Annette. Plans for Swing a Frame. Digital image. Pinterest. Pinterest, n.d. Web. 23 Jan. 2015.

Max, my six year old son, is swinging on the swing set in the park. My boss just informed me with a surprise phone call that because the company is having some budget cuts, I can no longer work there. My boss is the kind of person that no one likes. He is mean to everyone around him and loves making his employees stressed. All of the happiness I was feeling before that phone call is suddenly replaced by depression. I have no idea what to do, I have never been fired before.

As I am lying in bed after a very silent diner with my wife and son, I suddenly realize something that could change my life completely. It’s a bit cheesy but it’s also true. My life is just like that swing set that my son was on in the park. Life is a swing. No matter how good you are doing or how happy you are, something big or small will take you back down, but you just have to push to go back up again. The harder you push, the higher you will go, and you will stay up there longer.

The next morning, I eat my breakfast, kiss my wife and son, and go back to that swing set. I look at the sad, motionless swings for a while and I start thinking about my life in comparison to them. I understand that if I don’t start pushing myself now, I will end up looking just like those swings, sad and motionless. So I call up my colleagues who also got fired and together we decide to start our own investment company.

We start working harder than we ever have. We start investing in small startups, and slowly rise in the world. Just like swinging, we sometimes make bad investments, which bring us down, but we keep pushing and rise again. We start investing in bigger companies and really start rising in the world. This is when I realize that if we want to be able to swing even higher, we will have to go back down at some point.

Fast forward a few years, I am now the happiest I have ever been, even happier than that time Max was on the swings. I pushed myself so hard that I feel like I have swung to the point that I will never go back down. That swingset was the best thing that had ever happened to me. Without it, I would have never been as successful as I am today. My family is as happy as can be, and I have a daughter on the way. Now I just look at life with a big smile and just swing away like there is no tomorrow. 

That was until one of the companies I invested in was caught for cheating everyone who was involved with them with a big ponzi scheme. I lost almost everything; my wife left me and I haven’t seen my son in a year. I never even got to see my daughter taking her first steps. I am writing to you from my run down apartment, and although my life is in ruins, I still believe I will rise. I will keep swinging. There is still hope. There is still light.