Step by Step

I was stuck in the middle of another monotonous 9-to-5 at the corporation, a place where I’d spent six long years crunching numbers and watching my soul slowly dissolve into spreadsheets. My body was present, but my mind was elsewhere, trapped in the pages of that journal. It lurked in the back of my thoughts like a ghost, whispering, urging me to open it again. Even as I sat through endless meetings filled with buzzwords that meant nothing and nodded along to yet another PowerPoint, the journal’s pull was undeniable. It was almost as if it knew I needed it, waiting patiently for me to break free, to make room in my life for something more meaningful.

After work, I forced myself to hit the gym. Not because I particularly enjoyed it, but because I feared that if I skipped too many sessions, my body would stage a rebellion. My mind, however, was already in full mutiny. I had plans to revisit the journal that night, but as usual, exhaustion won. Instead, I numbed myself with video games until ungodly hours, postponing sleep as if the next day wouldn’t come knocking anyway. It was the same routine, night after night, grind through the workday, survive the gym, and distract myself until I could no longer stay awake. Rinse. Repeat.

Then, one evening, something shifted. I finally cracked open the journal, its pages heavier than I remembered. Maybe I’d avoided it because some of its words cut too deep, an eerie mirror reflecting my own silent struggles. I had been running from those emotions for so long. But now, they seemed to be pulling me in.

As I flipped through its worn pages, my eyes caught something unusual: coordinates scrawled in the margins. I jotted them down, though I had no idea where they led or why they mattered. Further down, an entry stood out, a passage drenched in doubt. The writer agonized over whether he had the strength to climb a mountain, both literal and metaphorical. The next page chronicled a failed attempt, followed by another. Then, in big, bold letters, a frustrated scream:

I AM A FAILUREEEEEEE!

Below it, in almost sarcastic contrast, was a hastily scribbled quote: “Take it easy, one step at a time.” The irony was not lost on me.

The next day at work, I found myself mumbling that phrase like a prayer. If people could trust in ancient scripture, surely I could put my faith in a stranger’s journal musings. After all, both were written by men trying to make sense of their struggles, looking for a glimmer of understanding in a world that often felt indifferent.

After another mind-numbing shift, I went to the gym, then collapsed at home, utterly drained. Yet, I kept reading. Another passage described an actual climb vivid, poetic descriptions of mountains, winds that carried whispers of forgotten gods, and sunsets that bled into the sky like ink spilled over parchment. The writer spoke of nature’s ability to erase hatred, if only for a moment.

I paused. What kind of hatred? His own? That of others? Perhaps both. Hatred festers in the void left by dreams deferred, after all. It made me think of my own dreams. Had I given up on them? Or was I simply too scared to take that first step?

I kept reading, my eyelids growing heavier with each line, until I finally succumbed to sleep. The journal slipped from my grasp, landing with a soft thud on the floor. The TV buzzed softly in the background, its light flickering against the walls, the sound just audible enough to catch the news. A story about a hiker was playing how, despite inspiring some, there were others who hated him, even celebrating his disappearance.

But I was already gone, deep in a dreamless sleep. Whatever news played next, whether it was a missing hiker or some other story of consequence, I never heard it. The world continued on without me, lost to the haze of exhaustion. 

Morning came too soon. My alarm yanked me back to reality with all the grace of a hammer to the skull. Another day, another existential crisis. Had I owned a journal of my own, I might have written the same words Tanaka once did:

I AM A FAILUREEEEEEE!

Instead, I settled for the next best thing: a burnt cup of instant coffee and a resigned sigh. Because if Jesus could turn water into wine, the least the universe could do was turn my caffeine into motivation. But no miracles came, just another workday, another step, and another unanswered question waiting in the journal’s pages.