Change

“Change is rarely easy, but being stuck in a state of inertia is far worse for the soul.”

I don’t know who thought of this quote but it particularly hit home this week. How often do we hold onto what is familiar in lieu of forcing ourselves to move out in a different direction? Why is it we cling to what we know while the universe is trying to share with us new adventures and new possibilities?

Why? Because it is terrifying. Rather than the unknown being a place of excitement, we see change as something to dread. We view it as somehow frightening simply because of it’s newness and the fact that change usually involves something we have never done before.

It could be something simple like making a move, or deciding what college to attend or what class to take. It could be attending a get together for the first time, by yourself. It could be eating alone in a resturant. It could be meeting a new person and deciding to go to lunch and get to know one another.

Whatever it is, why do we suffer the consequences of our choices long before we even take that first step. Don’t you sometimes imagine the outcome of a new behavior by thinking you will automatically fail? How often in your life did castrophe happen by taking a new route to work? Never?

New adventures can certainly try our faith in ways we can never imagine. “Faith is the assurance of things unseen.”, KJV. But the opposite of faith is fear and fear will destroy anything and everything in its path. It grips us tightly in it’s fist and paralyzes us from the get go. It’s goal to totally destroy us.

I’m still not sure why we dread new and different ways of doing things but a different approach is sometimes exactly what we need.

Four years ago, we bought a second home in southeastern Colorado. We bought it sight unseen. It was close to where our youngest child had moved and it was a terrific investment, so we took a leap of faith. As soon as we closed, I loaded up the car and took off into the wild blue yonder. It is a long drive from Dallas/Fort Worth to Colorado and I had no idea what to expect, but I was excited. I was looking forward to exploring a new place.

Little did I know how much I would enjoy the mountains. My heart and my soul immediately became entwined with the grandeur of this magnificent place!

What if we had hesitated. Just that momentary pause where you decide to “sleep on it” and the moment itself would have passed. Gone forever. I know well what adventures I would have missed and the friends and memories I would have made along the way.

I see this a lot in my real estate career. People may find the perfect home, yet they become so trepidatious about pulling the trigger. They get frozen in doubt, and often times miss out on their dream. When that happens my job becomes harder because what they will do going forward is compare every single house they look at to the one they lost. Impossible task finding two identical homes in the same identical spot. Adventures cannot be cloned and experiences cannot be duplicated. How you live your life and the decisions you make are solely yours. Unique as you are.

So what I’m saying is, stop sitting back and waiting for life to come to you. Get out there, take a risk, however small at first. That one step will lead to another and another. Soon you be on your way to living your best life and doing it in a way that is totally and uniquely yours!

We are our experiences in life. We are the people we meet. We are the adventures we live.

Change can be your friend, if you just give it a chance!