I lived firmly ensconced in my comfort zone.
A nice little life.
Family, kids, a house, a job.
Somewhere along the line,
The niceness got . . . boring.
Days running one into another,
Undistinguished, predictable, confining,
Too bloody endless to contemplate continuing.
First there’s a funk and a desire for more.
Then a wishful thought.
When wishful thinking fails,
I screw up my courage
Grow a backbone to replace the wishbone,
Take a risk
Dance on the edge of my comfort zone.
I’ve stumbled and failed
More than once, more than twice,
More than many times.
The thing too scary to contemplate?
Folding back in on myself,
Crawling beaten back to my comfort zone,
Settling.
Sooo not going to happen!
The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word, because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Emerson says: “Always do what you are afraid to do.” What is ‘too scary’ to write about? Try doing it now.
(Author: Mary Jaksch)
I very much like the part “grow a backbone to replace the wishbone”. That is such a wonderful metaphor! I enjoyed reading this…thank you.
Peace, Nico
Thanks Nico, but I can’t claim it as original. A far more illustrious writer than I beat me to it.
“Stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone ought to be.”
— Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia)