Thursday, January 1, 2015

Away We Go

You know those specific points in life that alter your life forever? There are two kinds. The first is accidental. In the moment, you are completely oblivious to how dramatically a specific act ends up altering your life. It is only upon looking back on your life and examining it that you become aware. For example, as a result of some purposeful decision, like starting a blog, you unexpectedly meet your future lover. Or, a dark example is the day you decide to go for a jog to a specific place at a specific time and it happens to put you in the path of a drunk driver. The fact that we can’t know how even the smallest of decisions might change our life in a big way is a bit terrifying.

The second kind are those that you know will change your life in significant ways. Like the moment you decided what college to go to or the decision to marry someone. It’s as if you take an eraser to the line ahead of you (the one you have been walking along) and draw a new line in a completely different direction. Despite these purposeful decisions, they are also almost always at least a little terrifying because, while the decision is intentional, the aftershocks of these decisions are often highly unpredictable. The lack of control can be paralyzing. 

I think this must be one reason why so many people are perfectly content to have someone else make decisions for them, or at least stay on the line they are familiar with. Despite that uneasy, undeniable feeling that things just aren’t right, people stay in jobs they hate, relationships that aren’t fulfilling, and retain religious beliefs that don’t add anything to their spiritual health. Tradition is comfortable. Routine is predictable. There is security there, even if it isn’t the existence you might hope for. I used to be one of those people. Lack of control and unpredictability was too uncomfortable- too hard to deal with. 

But I am not one of those people anymore and I find myself at one of those terrifying points in life where I’ve reached the edge of my known universe and must step into the dark unknown if I wish to live a life not managed by fear. 2,000 miles of unfamiliar road ahead of me, one car-full of belongings, no one but Taylor Swift to keep me company, everything I have known fading into obscurity in the rear-view mirror, and away we go.

3 comments:

  1. You gotta take that leap of faith! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFntFdEGgws

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  2. Paraphrasing what I hear between the lines: You have an existence you hope for and what you were experiencing was not it. You feel a sense of finality and irrevocability with taking the decisions you recently have. You feel completely and entirely vulnerable to the unknown. Comfort is a paradoxical reality. Where one man's comfort is in a routine or staying put, anxiety remains on several levels. Another man's comfort is in the anxiety of breaking the routine to make another one and going somewhere else. When that man makes a new routine he may observe that it is more or less or the same level of comfort than before and breaks it again and this repeats. More life experience will achieve character, regardless of personal achievement. Whether a man stays in the routine he's had for 20 years, or travels as much as Hillary Clinton did as secretary of state, both are gaining more life experience. Both are comfortable either in their comfort or in their attempts to find comfort. Both grow, both feel alive, both remain vulnerable. To live is to be vulnerable. What brings you peace may not bring others peace. Do what you have to do to be at peace with vulnerability. Break off the rear view mirror if necessary. Be fully present and fully alive in the here and now wherever you are. You'll be human there too. Everything changes. Nothing changes. Today is always a new gift for us. Today will never be yesterday or tomorrow. Pulling for you and your peace.

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  3. Safe travels.. life is a jouney

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