Written By Jesse Silva- Leadership Coach
Let these words echo in your mind, each day in as many moments as you can bear, until the day that they could be your life’s last thoughts. On that day you will be faced with a personal reckoning if you are fortunate enough to lie with your conscious mind. In those moments you will seek your regrets, your joyous memories or a buffet of them both.
Are you a disruptor? Do you seek the new, the unique or the novel in an attempt to create art born of emotional labor? Do you struggle against the tide of tedium, the onslaught of what’s always been or even cringe at the status quo? Do you ignore the Jones’ for the trendsetters that they are, wishing and plotting to avoid their home, their cars and possessions and irritated that they even exists?
If not then welcome to the pasture of life and enjoy your time with the sheep or your peers. The only expectation in this comfortable, easy and carefree life is that you’ll pay attention to the average, the merely normal and unambiguous detail of who you are supposed to be, act, think and feel. There’s no need in this place to figure anything out as the map of your path as been drawn, tested and forged in mediocrity. Such mediocrity is your reward and while tasteless, dull and lacking in surprise it is plentiful and easily served as often as you would like.
If that string of thoughts however, nauseates and churns your stomach, then it is not for you. And while you may not know what your life is supposed to be, what to be passionate about or who you want to become, being caught between the mundane and the unknown is an exciting place to be, if you have the right attitude. Be careful that your attitude doesn’t take on frustration in this special place. Be even more leery of complacency as that too will land you dizzily in the pasture amongst the other sheep. Instead, make the choice to get excited. Be “cheerleader, lottery winner, and college frat party” excited. For the place between being lost and repulsed by the norm lies the radically unaccepting. In this very place you are surrounded by disruption, chaos and sparkling innovation of ideas, thoughts and successes which cannot be defined ahead of time. It is the starting block of a race that has no lanes, no competition breathing and sweating next to you, nor a crowed shouting either for or against you. In this place all is possible and nothing ends in failure. It is optimism in its purest form because no action results in loss unless; you quit.
This is the hard path though. It is forged by your own steps and stepping just behind you is the Resistance. The Resistance will beg you to turn around; it will entice you with comfort and support to join it. Remember that if you do, you will simply return to its pasture. To stay true to the new path seek novelty, question everything and accept only that which is a challenge to you. If it is an easy choice between two options; you should feel no other choice, but to seek a third option.
Let these words echo in your mind, each day in as many moments as you can bear, until the day that they could be your life’s last thoughts. On that day you will be faced with a personal reckoning if you are fortunate enough to lie with your conscious mind. In those moments you will seek your regrets, your joyous memories or a buffet of them both.
Are you a disruptor? Do you seek the new, the unique or the novel in an attempt to create art born of emotional labor? Do you struggle against the tide of tedium, the onslaught of what’s always been or even cringe at the status quo? Do you ignore the Jones’ for the trendsetters that they are, wishing and plotting to avoid their home, their cars and possessions and irritated that they even exists?
If not then welcome to the pasture of life and enjoy your time with the sheep or your peers. The only expectation in this comfortable, easy and carefree life is that you’ll pay attention to the average, the merely normal and unambiguous detail of who you are supposed to be, act, think and feel. There’s no need in this place to figure anything out as the map of your path as been drawn, tested and forged in mediocrity. Such mediocrity is your reward and while tasteless, dull and lacking in surprise it is plentiful and easily served as often as you would like.
If that string of thoughts however, nauseates and churns your stomach, then it is not for you. And while you may not know what your life is supposed to be, what to be passionate about or who you want to become, being caught between the mundane and the unknown is an exciting place to be, if you have the right attitude. Be careful that your attitude doesn’t take on frustration in this special place. Be even more leery of complacency as that too will land you dizzily in the pasture amongst the other sheep. Instead, make the choice to get excited. Be “cheerleader, lottery winner, and college frat party” excited. For the place between being lost and repulsed by the norm lies the radically unaccepting. In this very place you are surrounded by disruption, chaos and sparkling innovation of ideas, thoughts and successes which cannot be defined ahead of time. It is the starting block of a race that has no lanes, no competition breathing and sweating next to you, nor a crowed shouting either for or against you. In this place all is possible and nothing ends in failure. It is optimism in its purest form because no action results in loss unless; you quit.
This is the hard path though. It is forged by your own steps and stepping just behind you is the Resistance. The Resistance will beg you to turn around; it will entice you with comfort and support to join it. Remember that if you do, you will simply return to its pasture. To stay true to the new path seek novelty, question everything and accept only that which is a challenge to you. If it is an easy choice between two options; you should feel no other choice, but to seek a third option.
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