2 life-changing questions.
Most people are stuck. Every day, they wake up in the same frame of mind they were in the week, month, year, or decade before. And this goes on and on, over and over, with no end in sight. Complacency has set in, and no matter how unhappy they are, they just stay there, wallowing in the shit, settling into mediocrity and despair, thinking things can never change, thinking they can never change.
There is usually an event, or an unfortunate sequence of events, that propel a person into feeling and being stuck, and those moments snowball into notions that most people don’t know how to control or rectify. The fact of the matter is that everything we feel is based on a choice we’ve made, an internal dialogue we’ve produced, and keep repeating. But just as someone has the power to make themselves feel cruddy, they also have the power to make themselves feel, do, and be better. Here’s a hard fact: you’re going to die. You are going to die, and it might be today, it might be tomorrow, next year, ten years, or sixty years from now, but no doubt about it, the end is on its way.
That’s the thing about death — most people never know when it’s going to happen, and when it happens, it’s too late to go back and fix things. It’s too late to go back and choose to be happy, to be free, and to shift. So, as you’re reading this, take a moment to let that sink in. You could walk out of your house or workplace and never make it back. It happens every day.
So, maybe you’ve been living in the “stuck-ness” of it all, and you’ve chosen to stay this way. Maybe you’ve given up on living a better quality of life, being healthy, happy, and whole. Maybe you have resigned to staying at that job you hate, never opening the business you’ve always dreamed of, staying in your relationship, even though it’s been killing you for years, and never leaving that town you outgrew decades ago.
These two simple questions are the ones most people run from for the majority of their adult lives. They force us to take a closer look at the choices we’ve made and where they’ve led us. These questions beg us to be honest about our truest feelings about the path we have chosen, and the path many of us would have never chosen if we hadn’t settled on conformity.
These two seemingly simple questions may cause you discomfort, but that discomfort is good. Comfort and conformity are where passions, purposes, and soul-pleasuring achievements go to die. It’s where you realize you married the wrong person, or got the degree your father insisted upon instead of following your dreams and talents, and now, you’re working in a field that brings you no joy. In between comfort and conformity is where you’ve gained all that weight, started feeling depressed, stopped seeking opportunities and growth, and really started doubting yourself.
It’s a horrible place, but it’s a human place. We’ve all felt stuck at some time or another, so never feel bad about that. Still, ask yourself the questions, give yourself real answers, and make a list of three to five things you need to change, get unstuck, and be happy. Once you’ve made that list, start making plans. Write them down. See them through. Even the slightest shift will prompt the universe to move with you!
