I was moping about thinking about everything I haven't accomplished this last decade -- it's my nature -- when I suddenly thought of something I did in 2010 that I no longer do -- wander into my office alone, open up the laptop, and type the word HELP into the search box.
In August of that year, I was hit by a car and was laid up for a few weeks. Like a lot of people with near-death experiences, I thought about changing my life: because I didn't want the situation I was in to be the only thing I knew until the day when I would know nothing.
Changing it was terrifying, and I was afraid by doing so, I would lose everything. So I put it off for a few years. But things continued to be unbearable, and I decided to take the risk: things were so terrible, how could they get worse? I took a breath and then the plunge.
Things got worse. Much, much worse. Worse in ways I still can't quite believe.
And then, they got better. Or I should say: "things" didn't get better. Those things, they stayed terrible. New things, though, arose. When something is destroyed, space is created for something else, something new to grow.
So this is my New Year's message for those who will be starting this decade the way I started the last one: trapped, unhappy, typing in "HELP" into search bars, terrified that attempting to make a change will bring with it strife and misery and loss.
It probably will.
It probably will.
Do it anyway.
