“All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it’s impossible), but calculating risk and acting decisively. Make mistakes of ambitionand not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer.”
– Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince
You don’t need to keep doing this!
How many times do you have to do it before it’s enough to prove you are not afraid?
How long after you do it does it no longer matter and any feelings of being good enough have worn off?
Will you keep having to do it until you break something, (mentally or physically)which just confirms what you believed all along and that you are in fact a pathetic excuse for a human being?
These are the questions I ask myself every time I encounter this particular jump along the rocks at one of my favourite beaches in Pembrokeshire.
(Water bottle is the top rock to jump from)
I have done it several times and the landing has always worked out and not to painful. But each time I do, it doesn’t make it easier the next time I visit because I’m usually blissfully unaware that I’m approaching it until it blocks my path and its to late to pretend its not there!
(From the water bottle to this rock in the forefront)
And the other truth is that for a brief moment I know that, for me, the leap into the abyss – the moment of decision when I move off the ledge makes me feel alive! Its exhilarating
But even when I know this, it’s a battle every time.
For me it’s scary to jump. To some it may seem easy. To some it looks like madness!
(Landed!! – Water bottle was where the jump starts))
The problem with this jump, as with so many things we want to do that scare us, is that it offers potential elation, but also potentially, long term disappointment or damage.
Not doing what we fear keeps us safe.
But in staying safe, a little bit of us dies each time we walk away.
And there’s no telling when it’s right to jump and when its best to turn back, until you jump. And then its to late either way. It’s all on red or black.
And when it goes tits up, you realise that sometimes it’s best to walk away – until the next time, where we have to go through the whole process again.
When its goes well, we embrace risk as our saviour – until the next time.
It’s this internal battle of knowing neither one is right and both can make you feel good or bad depending on what the outcome is, that creates huge uncertainty and indecision.
Making the right decision is tough.
No matter what antidotes I hear, whether it’s something philosophical or a General Patton ‘just fucking do it’ type war cry, choosing to jump, literally or metaphorically, is always hard, because however we land, we are the ones who have to live with the consequences.
And prior to tough decisions we are often left asking WHY?
Why do I need to do this?
What am I lacking that keeps driving me to do more?
Why does it even matter?
Who really cares?
And if it’s us that cares, again why?
Is it a healthy drive or one that will eventually only ends in a self-destructive way? Can we ever win? Are we ever content?
It sounds negative and certainly not motivational.
But I’m not interested in that.
Much of what sounds right or makes us feel good in the moment, is predominately only useful because it allows us to continue doing what we are doing, but under the illusion that we’re somehow enlightened towards our behaviour and will sometime, but never really change in reality.
I’m interested in why we do what we do and why we feel the need to – especially when it feels as though we need to force ourselves to do something. Something which may give us some redemption from a feeling of not being enough, or because we believe we are lacking some sort if characteristic of the person we wish we were. And why despite doing all this, does so much of what we believe will make us feel happy, never last.
Because despite what we are told in the infomercials and self-development industry regarding change, on the journey of who we want to be, or how we would like to feel is in constant oscillation.
It feels to me that we are always going to be attempting to align ourselves with an ideal, even when we know its photo shopped idea of reality.
Even as we progress in our desire to change, to grow and to improve, we still make it feel as though we are always negotiating with ourselves, doubting ourselves, berating ourselves, forcing ourselves to get up and keep moving.
If we do change, it can often just seem like we have just stepped up a level, that may on the outside look better, but internally still carries with it the same challenges and beliefs about who we think we are.
I’m not going to wrap this in a solution. I don’t have one.
It’s an observation taken from real life. My life.
Sometimes enquiry will set me free from indecision and sometimes it won’t.
Sometimes I will take a leap of faith and feel amazing and reflect on it for the next time.
Sometimes I’ll have to walk away and feel crappy and I’ll reflect on that.
And where it feels that right now there are no answers, I’ll use those moments to keep me hungry and searching for the way out.
There will be days that I want to give it all up and accept ‘this is the way it is’ but once I’ve rested, I know I’ll be back.
I wish I had the same desire for something less impossible and that at the same time would make me super wealthy to pursue all the things I’d love to do, but it seems this is the thing that keeps that bit in my teeth that I can’t leave alone.
That bit of bacon that gets stuck in between your teeth that your tongue won’t bow down to and keeps searching for, even though it gives you a head ache because of its relentlessness!
And just like the affliction of ‘bacon tooth’ and the elation from the eventual dislodging of the porky morsel, the quest to discover how to align ourselves to get the most out of our lives is what keeps me getting up and saying ‘There is always a way! There has to be!’
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