A Season of Change

It’s a surreal feeling to want something for so long and then to finally get it. It feels like you’re living in a dream. A fantasy world where everything you’ve been thinking and dreaming about appears to you one night in a deep sleep.

Isn’t that the feeling we all should be living for? To experience something so unbelievably good that we can’t even fathom it’s real.

Maybe that too much for others, but it’s not too much for me. I’m never content in the common. I don’t want to live in the comfortable. When things get too comfortable, you get complacent. Bored. Lazy. You take the easy way out.

I had a track coach in high school that would always tell us to get better, we needed to get out of our comfort zone. No, he wouldn’t tell us. He’d push us. Push us into the uncomfortable. We’d complain, and we’d resist. But once we got there--once we got into the better place he trusted we could get to, it was magic.

There’s always more than comfortable. More than content.

I don’t settle. Some see it as stubborn or stupid. They don’t understand my decisions. My actions. And they never will. They’re content in the ordinary. The normal. The life that they should lead. The life they’ve been told that should have. The things society tells them they need.

Not me. I understand my life is not for everyone. It won’t make sense to everyone. Hell, it doesn’t make sense to me half of the time. But it’s mine. I’m uncomfortable. I’m overwhelmed. I’m anxious. But I’m challenged. I’m growing. I’m happy.

Change is scary. But to me, living in a state of contentment your entire life is even scarier. What is life if not to take risks? Make the changes. Make the move. Take the job.

If we all stayed the same for the rest of our lives, how boring would that be? We’re meant to learn and grow and change and get better. Be better.

Soon I’m starting a new job. I made the decision to leave my comfortable corporate job for work I’m passionate about and, more importantly, interested in.

For years, there’s been a nagging voice in my head saying that there’s more out there. You’re meant for more. You can do more. The voice would creep into my head even when I would put it in a box and shove it in a dark corner of my brain. The voice wouldn’t stop talking even when I tried my hardest to mute it. It’d been there all along, and finally, it was so loud that I couldn’t ignore it anymore.

So one day, instead of mindlessly continuing through my comfortable routine. I listened. I sat down and opened my ears and my mind and listened. And knowing this voice would never go away, I leaned into it.

I decided to make an uncomfortable change. A change into the unknown.

I’m terrified. I have no idea what to expect. I very well may be making a huge mistake. Or it may be the very moment that defines my career.

We never know what is going to happen when we make the leap. When we trudge into uncharted territory. But we do know what happens if we stay right where we are. We remain the same. We become stagnant. We become stale. That is certain.

Change is uncertain. The only certainty about change is growth. Uncomfortable, challenging, beautiful growth.

That’s the kind of life I want to live. A life of beautiful growth. Because when we make a decision to change, we make a decision to grow, and we make a decision to be better. Better versions of ourselves. Versions of ourselves that we would have never unearthed if we stayed comfortable.

And so, without the comfort of knowing what’s ahead of me and without being about to see the road ahead, I step blindly into the darkness with unwavering hope, ready to meet a better version of me.