The Blooming Maasai

Have you ever felt a yearning so deep it becomes a part of you?

It’s more than a thought. It’s something you breathe in and out. You feel it on your skin like a change in the weather. You see it everywhere; in a stranger’s smile, on a billboard, in the quiet of your own room. It follows you, this hunger for more.

Maybe for you, “more” is a career that sets your soul on fire. Maybe it’s academic honors, a business you built from scratch, a passport filled with stamps, a love that feels like home, or simply a healthier, happier you. Whatever its name, this yearning is a signal. It’s your energy, your very life force, beginning to flow toward a destination.

And where our energy flows, something must grow.

The Seed of Your Intention

But I’ve learned that what grows depends entirely on the seed of our intentions. If the seed is pure, planted in a desire to create, to contribute, to become, the journey itself will lift you. But if it’s planted in a need to prove, to outrun, or to claim worth from the outside, the harvest will be costly. The price isn’t in money, but in peace. In pieces of yourself you might not have meant to give.

It always starts softly. Just an idea. A whisper. Then the whisper becomes a yearning, a constant hum in your chest. And from that hum, you begin to pour your energy, your days, your midnights, into making it real.

And this, is where the path gets quiet.

The Lonely Path of the Exceptions

There will be a stage where you are the only one in the auditorium of your dream. No applause. Maybe just the sound of your own hands clapping, faint and lonely.

And that has to be okay. No one owes you their belief. You have to be your own first, and loudest, cheerleader. This act of self-belief, of walking alone, is what places you among the rare. So many people never start because they can’t bear the silence of the solitary road.

This lonely path? It’s the path of the exceptions.

It’s for those of us willing to feel a certain kind of pain, the self-inflicted pain of a dream too big to contain. The kind of ambition that keeps you awake not with worry, but with a fire that feels like life itself. The thought of not achieving it feels like a small death.

Heavy is the head that wears the crown.

Heavy is the head that wears the crown whether it is forged of gold or woven from beads. History shows us this truth through figures like Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great. But this weight is not just a relic of empires; it is the quiet burden of every queen who stands on her own cliff, gazing at a horizon she is determined to reach. Greatness has always carried a cost.

Greatness has always demanded a toll.

Most of the world chooses safety. The safe job. The safe partner. The safe life. And there is no shame in that. Safe can be peaceful. But safe and average only ever created an average life. If you are the one who feels that ache for more, that divine discontent, then settling will become a slow ache that never fades. You will always wonder, “What if I had been braver?”

That’s why we have to move quickly from the dream to the doing. Don’t let fear talk you out of your idea. Don’t let the silence convince you to turn back.

It reminds me of Robert Frost’s words:

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

A Phoenix Reborn in the Fire

The road less traveled will ask everything of you. It will bring stress, self-doubt, loneliness. It will ask you to shed friends, habits, and old versions of yourself that don’t fit the person you are becoming.

But please hear me: a phoenix is being reborn in this fire.

I hold onto the verse from Romans 8:18: “The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed.”

So let it go. Let it all burn down, you great Phoenix.

The things you lose, the relationships that fade, they are making space. Let the ashes become the rich soil from which you will rise.

It is okay if nobody gets it right now. It is okay to feel lost, because you are finding a stronger version of yourself in the dark.

Just don’t you dare let the flame of your dream go out. Nurture it. Protect it.

Root for yourself.

And refuse to give up until you WIN.

A Note on the Art: The image in this article is AI-generated.