The Sound of Settling

Dear You,

You say you want one thing. You describe it in detail and argue your case so well that it baffles me when you choose to remain, or go back to the very thing you said you didn't want? Hmm...

But alas everything makes sense now.

It's not baffling. It's back to comfort. Back to starry-eyed naivety and no pressure. Safe, uncomplicated, unchallenging child's play.

It's like milk and cookies. You dunk the cookie in milk, with concentration and skill until you have created the perfect mix of soft, creamy and melt-in-your-mouth sweet. But leave your cookie in the milk for too long and it falls apart. You're left to go on an underwater scuba search with your spoon to find those bits settled at the bottom. You barely remember the crisp wholeness it used to be, yet you eat the squishy bits anyways.

Those bits are your unexamined life. Relationships, careers and health are among the most common things that people settle for. It's the mentality that what's out there (loneliness, hard work and a challenge) is way more frightening than mediocrity.

The main thing that kicks me into high gear is thinking of a future where I'm in a career that doesn't stimulate me, a relationship/marriage that was just "convenient" and a blurry image of a girl who used to have all this ambition and hope.

So my pitch is this: if you know in your heart of hearts that there is a better career, person, or version of yourself out there- be brave and make the change.

Sure you'll have critics saying you're crazy, or that you'll never find a better [job, person, house, life] than you have right now. But those people are just scared to make the moves themselves. The journey may be tough, but at least you'll have your integrity along the way.

If my "life is a cookie" isn't doing it for you, I'll leave you with a quote from inspirational author Alan Cohen:

"It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power."