Metaphorical Elevator

I'm a pretty quick study, I can catch a clue like a major league outfielder, but sometimes... sometimes I'm a little slow on the uptake. Every so often it takes me a little while. Like maybe a few months. Let me 'splain.
   Regular readers my know the elevator in my building is broken. Has been for months, and it's been so long I don' t think the landlady has any plans to get it fixed. As a matter of fact, the elevator stopped working when I went back to Texas for my father's funeral, that same weekend, and I've been trudging up the stairs ever since I got back.

   It didn't strike me until yesterday that this is one big metaphor. Lugging my groceries, my fencing gear and everything else up the stairs day after day, week after week, month after month, it's the Universe letting me know how things are going to be from now on. If I want to achieve something, if I want to make my mark, I'm going to have to struggle one step at a time. No more easy ride, no more lift to the top.
   Not that I was at the top, mind you, but I was far from the bottom. I had it pretty good, a corporate job, cable TV, more than enough to eat. Waaaay more than enough. Comfortable. Too comfortable. I was on the elevator.
   But now that I've been 'between assignments' for a while - forced to use the stairs - I kind of like it. Sure, there's less security, but I've traded real achievement for security for far too long. Traded giddy risk for dull certainty. But you know what dull certainty gets you at the end of it all? Same thing giddy risk does, a one-way ticket to the other side. And I think I'd prefer my life's journey electrifying rather than stultifying, thank you very much. It's time to make my own way, time to forge my own path. Create jobs for others instead of begging for one myself. 'Cause that really sucks, let me tell you.
   Like playing the craps table in Vegas, the only way to win big is to bet big. Fortuna audaces iuvat, as the Romans said. 'Fortune favors the brave.'

After all, with my father gone, I am the man of the house now. Better start acting like it.