8:2

Gareth had worked for along time towards this moment. He’d suffered remorse and feeling of rejection, he’d argued with himself and with those that he loved and risked the relationships that his life was founded upon.

And so he sat in a pleasant cafe, drinking in the cool breeze and warm sunshine. He at with a friend that he was begin to care for very much and knowledge that in the end his parents had done the right thing. He sat having accomplished a goal that had haunted and driven him for many months yet had somehow failed to consume him. He sat triumphant.

And so Gareth learned the lesson that we all must learn again and again. To win is not in itself a source of satisfaction. To win is only a fleeting state of being that brings nothing. The triumph, the joy, the exhilaration are not inherent in the win. To feel those, you must have chosen correctly before the success, because if the choices are wrong, if the choices are merely consequences themselves, then the ending, win or lose, will teach us the flavour of ash. A pyrrhic victory can lead to only one, inevitable result.

And staring down at the package, on that beautiful day, surrounded by hope and joy and love, Gareth tasted the dry cold coals of a victory ill conceived.