The obligatory birthday post will come at some point this weekend, or maybe this week (since Jeff Putz week does, in fact, last a week), but an unexpected phone call this morning put me in a bit of a reflective mood that really framed the rest of the day.
A friend is about to embark on what is arguably the biggest change of his life professionally, and perhaps personally as well. You know, I have a little experience with this recently, so he wanted to pick my brain about a couple of things. The read that I got from him was that the change was reasonably sudden, fairly drastic, and frankly a bit scary. I have a little experience with that recently.
While this quite naturally made me think a great deal about the last 15 months or so of my own life, I think what brought me around to my own though process was watching Kissing Jessica Stein tonight. One of the themes of the film is that you can't truly know what's possible if you shut down the possibilities, both in terms of your personal life (not dating around a bit, and settling for crap relationships) and your professional life (never actually attempting to do things you're passionate about). I'm not sure what causes us to avoid those possibilities.
One could theorize it's fear of failure. Or fear of the unfamiliar. Or more than likely, fear of dramatic change. I think that's the big show stopper.
A great many friends are not as happy as they could be, because they fear change. They settle for jobs and relationships and even locales because the mediocrity or suboptimal scenario beats the fear caused by trying to change those things. As much as I sound like I might be criticizing people for that, I'm certainly no better. Half of my big life changes were induced by someone else (namely my divorce and an impossible employment scene in Cleveland). I'm not one to talk, but now that I've seen that light, I'm not one who can ever allow myself to be that complacent. Ever.
So don't wait for a birthday, new year, anniversary or whatever to be reflective and ask yourself if your fear of change is keeping you comfortable in something less than you're capable of. Fucking do it now. When you can beat the fear, you're no longer a spectator in your own life.
No comments yet.