Steel Yourself

Take a breath, relax, enjoy the moment, and contemplate if you are ready for the next leap.

If you want more than incremental moves to add to the heap of accumulated stuff, it will cost you.  If you want to dive into something big, the outcome can’t be predicted.  You will put an end to boredom, listlessness and slough; but you will also put an end to the illusion of security, and the feeling that you are slowly scraping together more things to add to your pile of comforts.  That pile will no longer be yours.  It’s in the past.  All you’ll have is the unknown future and the knowledge that you’re going after something big, and something that is fully you.

If the cost is just too high, let it go.  Enjoy your present and the more bounded expectations of the future you will methodically build.  Let life move and come to you bit by bit, and be at peace.  Don’t regret your choice.

If the potential payout and the effort itself are powerful enough for you to accept the costs, then steel yourself.  The costs will come.  It will be the hardest, most uncertain and wild ride you’ve ever been on.  You can’t know how or in what way ahead of time, but you can know for certain it will be difficult, and many people will not understand.  They will feel you are throwing away all you’ve built, and all you could build if you continued stacking brick on brick.  You must be prepared for their offense and confusion.  Few will see that you want more than a pile of bricks or even a cathedral when all’s said and done; that you would rather have nothing and have tried something other than stacking.

Neither path is right or wrong, but whatever you choose, be of one mind about it.  To choose one and wish you’d chosen the other is to tear yourself in two, diffuse your energy, and diminish your quality of life and creativity.