Image from Pinterest
Imagine for a moment that it stopped. The merry-go-round of opinion and judgment that you ride on just quit. Lost all its steam and gave out.
You would stand there, looking around for a second, not quite ready to hop off and see where in the world your feet want to take you, yet, because you are convinced that in another minute or two, it will start back up. It will take you on another ride. Because that’s what it has been doing for the last (insert your age here) years.
But it doesn’t. This time it didn’t just temporarily stop because that boy or girl that makes you swoon said something great about you. And it didn’t just stop because you got a new outfit or a promotion or a new haircut or whatever. It stopped because it just decided to let you off the hook. It decided to free you, to let you off this ride so you could go see the world and let it see you—the true you, the you that you had to hide on that ride because you didn’t want to offset your balance anymore by letting the TRUE you, in all its glory, out.
The roller coaster ride that has been your sense of self is stabilized. It believes in you which means, more importantly, that you believe in you. And so you step off the ride, and you head in the direction of your dreams.
Where are you going? Which way is that? Today, realize that all it takes to get off that ride is a choice. A powerful, self-propelled choice that says no more to the self-defeating racket and yes to all that follows. And it is the good stuff that follows.
You don’t quite know where you are going, because you have never seen this topography before but with each step, you know you were meant to see this topography that, in fact, you have something to offer it. And so you begin, stringing together steps, plans, dreams, and possibilities. Unlike the merry-go-round, it is unknown, it is malleable, it is infinite, but it is also, ultimately, the most satisfying place you can land.
