This is the story of a young man who thought he had everything. At least everything he wanted, but it was all too much. Unfortunately reaching your goals brings with it a certain amount of responsibilty to stay there and perhaps that was the problem after all.. You see he had attained a successful job, marriage even leadership position in his church, but then like all successful people he looked around and said “ This is it??” He had always believed in setting realistic goals, but he never dreamed he would , for all intents and purposes, be done at the age of 27. There were no more goals left to conquer, he didn’t want children , didn’t want to own a house, and yet these seemed like the only challenges left to explore. So the question began to tug away at his soul. “ What else is there to life?”.

It’s probably a question all of us have asked at one time or another , yet maybe it is the question we continuly put off answering. Mike needed an answer though, and not having one began to creep into his everyday life until it was too much. The human psyche is so fragile, we pretend not to realize this but everytime we hear another story of someone slipping off the edge of reality we are forced to think about it. Most of us shrug it off and say it won’t happen to us , we’re too stable.. How little we really know ourselves. All of Mike’s friends were amazed when it happened to him, afterall he was supposed to BE the stable one of the group, and yet he had slipped more dramatically than anyone they had ever heard of. It seemed the laid-back, dow-to-earth guy they knew was never the real Mike.

Perhaps the abuse he had suffered as a child was really a timebomb just waiting to explode, he seemed to be "over" it, he had discussed it with friends, came to terms that he was a victim of abuse but, in retrospect, that was just the surface of the issues, this had scarred him more deeply than he would ever know, and one day, when the stress of life had gotten to him, the ticking would stop. That bomb would explode, and his life would never be the same.

How many of us can say we truly know our family, friends?? How many of them are just one ounce away from the breaking point and yet we never take the time to care? Until it’s too late, that is. Oh sure, after the fall everyone is quick to sympathize, but we all know that Mike’s life can never be the same again. He will always be haunted by the “breakdown” , always fearful of losing control again, always knowing that his family, and friends never will look at him exactly the same. Take it from me...you never know who or when something like this will happen. Take the time to lighten the load .