New Directions…
Greeting dear friends & fellow navigators, & welcome to my world today. Over the last week I have been thinking of how letting some changes in life can effect both our career & ultimately the direction we were heading, or did / did not in fact go.
Do you ever have those moments when you decide it is time for a big change in your life? I used to, several times a year sometimes. But invariably I did a few times to the extent of shifting towns & then one day the company I had been with 32 years. Not just a fresh haircut or a new morning routine, but the kind of change of your life in a way you will not recognize yourself in a year.
Interestingly, I still keep having those urges.
When the feeling came, I would go to my whiteboard & draft a plan for myself. Sometimes, I might even stick to it. Change is hard, & most of the time I found myself slipping back into my old habits. But on the rare occasions when I did follow through, I then looked back & realized the person who made those plans is long gone.
Real change does not just add something new… it erases what was before. You might think you can hold onto certain parts of yourself, but when the shift happens, you realize how much your old life gets left behind. Pieces of yourself you thought were permanent no longer fit into this new version of you.
Friends who you thought would stay forever are no longer beside you. They remain unchanged, exactly as you left them. It is not their fault, or yours. They are simply continuing on their own paths, & you will outgrow some of them, not because they are slow or stagnant, but because what you now seek does not lie with them. They may try to tether you to who you were because it is what they know. Letting go is not easy, but sometimes, it is necessary.
Creating a new life means stepping away from what once was. You have to let the comfort & familiarity disappear. What was once certain may no longer be so. The identity you built, the way you were perceived & the life you thought you were meant to have ~ it all fades; & in its place, something new takes root.
The moment you truly decide to change, you have already set yourself on a new path. Your old life was leading you somewhere, & this new life will lead you somewhere else. The only thing to matter is knowing you are changing for your own progress. When you do this, no change will ever feel small.
But sacrifice is a big part of building a new life. If you are unwilling to let go, you will not be able to change. You have to release everything you thought you knew about yourself to recreate your entire image. You do not just lose old habits; you lose parts of your identity. It is a death & rebirth, all at once.
I have done it several times, when I felt the urge to do it again, even if the life I currently had was once a dream. I did not want to feel ungrateful, but the same restlessness pushing me to evolve never let me stay in one place for too long.
So I continued to sacrifice my life for a new one, over & over again, until I no longer had the strength to do so. When this day comes, as I now feel it has over the last weekend especially, I will I think finally settle into the one life born from the deaths of a numerous old ones.
Maybe not all of us have these urges, but I know, from experience, every now & then we all feel the need to change. It does not have to be today. But one day, it will have to happen. Because staying the same is never truly an option.
And when the moment comes, when you stand at the station of your old life, looking ahead, you think: Will I take the bus? Will I trust the calling, even if it costs me everything I have ever known? Because the hardest path of change is not stepping onto the bus. It is the moment you realize, there is no going back.
Just few observations again dear friends, & provide an opinion in my world. Thank you for stopping by, I appreciate your being here. If my journey encourages you also, all is well with my soul.
Looking forward to next week; this is Kenn Butler in Paradise, Nelson with best wishes.
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