Go ahead and jump.
Sometimes the decision to take a leap of faith gets made for you by circumstances out of your control. Life rears it's ugly head and you're left standing in a spot you never had any intention of being in.
And you have to go ahead and jump.
Not like a ski accident that broke your ankle and forced you to take an unpaid leave of absence from work after you decided to go sailing down the slopes with your buddies like an Olympic gold medalist when you were actually a bunny hill novice and had to get yourself pinned back together. That you did to yourself.
What I'm talking about is when lightening strikes and burns your house down and all you escape with is the shirt on your back and you never even knew there was rain in the forecast. Being blind-sided. And your only option is to put one foot in front of the other and keep going. No matter how fearful the future looks, it's the only option you have and so you go ahead and jump. Not out of courage, but out of necessity.
You do something outrageously brave that you would've never had the courage to do ordinarily. Like start a business. Or be vulnerable to someone else. Or spend your last dollar when you don't know where the next one is coming from.
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People say, "Oh, how unfortunate for him or her to have that happen." True enough. But when it happens often enough, it starts to give you the kind of strength that supersedes circumstance. Being forced to push through unfortunate situations time and time again eventually grows your resilience to a point where you know who you are and life becomes a lot less scary. Which really isn't unfortunate at all. It's your blessing.
Enduring hardship when there is no other option, figuring out that you do eventually always figure it out, makes you exceptionally comfortable in your own skin. If you've ever lost everything, you find out you still have yourself and you make it be enough. And that is where real strength manifests. When that shirt on your back that you wore out of the fire starts to feel like abundance, you've made it.
So go ahead and jump. Because somehow you're going to land it.