When I was I was younger, before I had commitments and responsibilities, I could not imagine doing what didn’t interest me for very long. However, as an ‘adult’ it is so easy to fall into the trap a twenty-year-old looks on with disdain. It seems so easy from a young person’s perspective; you simply leave when things start being less than great. It seems so easy, but conformity breeds fear.
The longer I stay where I am, the harder it is to leave. The unknown is scarier when you are 40 than 20: What will I do? Where will I go? Will I be able to pay the bills? That must be why things are easier to learn at an earlier age. When we’re young it’s all possibilities. Learning new things is building up experiences. We’ve fallen and gotten up when we learned to walk, bike, and skate. Those are our reference points when we’re young. When we’re older, we’ve seen broken people. We’ve suffered heart ache. New is still exiting, but it’s also unknown and loaded with unknown possibilities for pain, including failure, heartache, or shame.
I wish leaving this comfortable position didn’t leave me feeling like I’m flying through the air frantically looking for a place to perch before gravity pulls me into a broken lump on the ground. There must be something in between a comfortable perch and free fall.
