I found myself between the sword and the wall. Should I be brave or wise?

There’s this interesting phrase that goes “I found myself between the sword and the wall” that I heard many times in my childhood in cartoons and comics.

As a kid I had a wild imagination, as most kids do, and my mind could only create this scenario of myself being literally in between a sword (that happened to be named Excalibur, quite big and silver shiny) and a wall (that happened to be white), and sometimes a big-ass rock.

It’s funny because no kid creates this kind of phrases, they’re all made up by adults in an attempt to explain a feeling or situation, to better induce understanding on their peers through the use of powerful metaphors. We are creatures born of stories and there’s nothing like a story to excite our brains into comprehending.

Now that I’m an adult I understand what being “between a sword and a wall” means.

It’s not about Excalibur threatening with slicing me in half while I retreat into a white wall, lost. It’s about the many decisions we can and have to make throughout our lives in order to become who we want to be.

There’s a beautiful idea about what life is for that I love, it explains that you’re in this world not to experience, not to learn, not to suffer, to wash your soul from sin or to make your God’s wish a reality, but simply to become the best you, to become who you are supposed to be.

There’s who you are now and who you could possibly be. Life’s about becoming who I could possibly be, the best of me, and every time I’m between the sword and the wall there’s a choice to make, it will bring be closer to my higher self or pull me from it.

The hard part is to know which side to run to. Sometimes you have to stand your ground against the sword and sometimes retreating, not as a coward, but as a wise man is the way to go.

And that’s life itself. Be brave or be wise.

So far I’m neither brave nor wise, but I’m getting there.