I remember standing in the middle of a life that I wasn’t enjoying. It was my life, but it was not the life I wanted. I wasn’t feeling the way I wanted to feel, in my own life. I was frozen for a long time, too afraid to make the call that I knew would make my life better. So I stayed. I hated most moments of it, but I continued clinging to the familiar because the alternative was facing the unknown. I wish I could say that this was a one time event for me. It wasn’t. It takes courage to make a change. And sometimes courage takes time.
I eventually made all the changes to improve my quality of life. But I waited until things got unbearable to move. Somehow the sheer frustration of living an unbearable life outweighed the fear of the unknown and I made the moves I needed to make. Maybe that’s the way courage works. Some catalyst propels you forward and even though you’re scared, you move, because not moving is no longer an option, but that is an unstable way for me to live.
I learned from living through those experiences. I learned that everything has a cost – material, spiritual, social, emotional. I also learned the costs I was willing to pay to get the life I wanted. It took me a couple of tries. Eventually I learned to move before things got unbearable and saved myself a lot of pain. Lately this has been coming up for me again because I am trying to make a change in one area of my life and I have to be courageous to make it. Although intellectually, I know I don’t need hero sized courage to make this change, fear makes everything feel like I need hero sized courage. So I am at the stage where I am psyching myself up, reminding myself that I deserve to live the life I want, and planning my path to that life. I am not yet ready to move.
Wish me courage to make this change and I wish you courage for your journey too. People always make it seem like courage is some magical thing that happens in a dynamic moment. A flash of courage has been known to happen, but in most of those situations there is an urgent situation that calls for that type of courage. I call that adrenaline courage. But there is also courage that is built methodically over time. I personally think the slower build is better. I think of this approach like digging a well of courage that you can always draw on when you need it. The situation I am facing calls for me to go to the well of courage. But I won’t sit in a miserable life anymore.
