Recently, you have discovered a sense of loneliness beneath your choices to disconnect. Gratefully, your vision is expanding in wanting to reconnect with others and live life more fully. You’ve even made comments about wanting to experience all the high school moments depicted in movies. This means you’re interested in going back to school.
Your education may be your first experience of not being able to get exactly what you want in the exact moment that you want it. A collection of short-term decisions teetering precariously on the edge of long-term consequences.
Admittedly, your dad and I have a firm stance on physically attending school. At a time in your life when we feel you would thrive surrounded by people, ideas, and physical activities, you are living a very isolated life.
When I think back to my own junior high experience, this firm stance softens – “Would my life have turned out better if I had the opportunity to skip the whole ‘insecure-mean-girl’ stage?” Which makes me wonder –
Are we able to skip difficult growth experiences?
Avoid, maybe. But now I’m thinking that in delaying, we actually magnify the discomfort we all naturally experience while exploring and growing into the people we want to become. Transformation isn’t an easy-breezy experience of nothing but joy and happiness. Personal growth naturally includes the falling away of our old parts to make room for our ever-improving selves. It’s messy, emotional, and (at times) can be quite painful becoming the person we want to become.
That’s the thing about desiring something new – We don’t really consider what needs to fall apart to make room for this new experience we want. Compound that fact with the idea that we are constantly becoming anew – Which means we need to get comfortable with shifting and letting go as equally as we open ourselves to experience our new reality.
Your desire for “something different” from the isolation you’ve experienced is worth celebrating. We dearly want you to succeed in your venture to reconnect with the world around you. Just know that moving into the next phase absolutely will include some discomfort and effort on your part.
Everything worth striving for includes stepping out of our comfort zone, stretching past our current abilities, and getting comfortable with the uncertainty of change. For we don’t just make a decision, then step effortlessly into another reality – We have to commit to creating it.
That starts with making good choices and following through on those choices… No matter how uncomfortable that first step is… No matter how much you want to slide back into a comfortable routine.
REMEMBER – Just because something you believe to be true about yourself is familiar, does not make it authentic to who you are. You are so much more than this singular stage you are experiencing right now. You have so much more to live and experience.
- Be brave.
- Bear the initial discomfort in doing something new.
- Step boldly into the person you want to become.
- Fake it ‘til you make it to create momentum.
- Then reinvent yourself over and over again to experience every possible version of “you” that you’ve ever dreamed of becoming.
That is what life is all about – Not getting exactly what you want the moment you want it. But rather –
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