Maybe

I think maybe is the most evil word in the english language.

Maybe means uncertainty. When you're uncertain, you start to use humanity's greatest blessing and worst curse - imagination.

Imagination leads you to the many things that might, maybe, happen. But only one of them will. There is only one future you will experiance, just as there is only one past.

Maybe it is different for other people.

Maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe I'm insane.

Maybe I'm just too tired.

But maybe we get closer to ourselves when we're tired. Not "a long day" tired. Not running a marathon tired. When we're worn down by weeks and months and years of maybes.

Do or do not, there is no try. I've never liked that phrase, but now I do see its appeal - it takes a way the may be. It WILL be or WILL NOT be, but not MAY be.

Whatever will be, will be. Whether it is what we want or not, whether it is what we need or not.

So it is time for certainty. It is time for forward motion, even if leaving the past is painful.

This I will say - thank you for not saying maybe. Thank you for making me say what I needed to say to you, what I should have said to you a long time ago, and not saying "maybe it will happen."

I jammed myself up in the maybes, but I will move on.

Maybes are freedom, and too much freedom too quickly is dangerous. We need to be eased into it, or we spend ten years as wanderers, jacks of all trades, never really finishing anything.

Some people thrive in the chaos, even love it. I am not one of them. It is not my nature. I am not a fan of maybes. They are seductive, but they're just... not real. They're at best there to cushion your fall.

I am a creature of law. Of duty. Of responsibility. It is dangerous to give us freedom - we don't know how to use it safely. We will, in the end, tie ourselves back down safely, and get to work, but on the way we can hurt a lot of people.

Maybe more than we help in the long run.

I hope not. As engineers, we kill people too. We tell ourselves we help more than we hurt.

I hope to everything in the universe that's true.

Maybe it is.