Making up your mind

There are two kinds of choice you can make:

1. Choices that lead you to achieve what you want to achieve

2. Choices that help you avoid leaving your comfort zone

If you wish to achieve or realize something, you will also have to make some sacrifices. If you want to become a top athlete, you will not always be comfortable. You will have to experience and handle feelings of discomfort. On the other hand, choosing to avoid discomfort means that, in the short term, you will not have to handle these unwelcome issues and emotions. At the same time, you will not realize your aims.

Avoiding discomfort is, to a large extent, about avoiding various kinds of fears. We all have fears. Some people are afraid of public speaking. Others are afraid of intimacy and human contact. Some are afraid of numbers and mathematics. Others are afraid of emotions. And some are afraid of achieving and accomplishing things. The deepest fear in all of us is the fear of not being able to handle a situation. What kind of situation that would be, varies from person to person.

It is an open question as to when in life the choice between the necessary and the possible will catch up with us. If you are governed by your fear and always make choices where you don’t have to experience and handle discomfort – where do you end up? Will you reach your full potential? Will you achieve the extraordinary? Will you be full of life? No, you will not. On the contrary, you will limit yourself, your life, and your achievements.

Do you remember going to the swimming pool when you were at school? Did you climb to the 10 meter diving board? Did you jump into the water or not? Did it become more difficult the longer you waited? Did your fears take command? Are you still wondering what it would be like to let go and feel the rush when gravity takes over, pulling you toward the water? You know, of course, that the board is still there?

Many stay stuck on the diving board and watch life pass by down below. It will not become easier with time to step out into the unknown and the uncertain. With each passing year, more is at stake. Have you ever wondered, “Should I or should I not?” Next time the question arises in your mind, it is likely that you should step out into the unknown.

Where will they take us, these choices that help us realize our aims? Well, they will take us on a lifelong journey – a journey that is about chaos and hard work, and about encountering fears and discomfort. But the explorative journey is also driven by joy and desire. The desire for life and realization, and for discovering yourself and what you are capable of under the conditions that you have. It is about exploring your surroundings with an open and curious mind. Doing the possible does not mean draining your system completely in the short term, but rather exploring the possible over time in a balanced way and achieving the extraordinary. These are choices that will lead to something quite different compared to when you let your fears run your life.

Many who are great achievers in the outer world are driven by fear – not by joy or desire. They can be driven by the fear of failure, of not being good enough or of being excluded. Thus, you should not be misled into believing that those who are great external achievers are always driven by joy or that they are on a journey towards the possible.

When do you choose the possible, then? When do you take a personal stand? Often it is not until you are ‘stuck’ and have no other way of going forward. Or when you have been running your old system for too long and the costs are starting to become obvious. Or when the great outer career is hiding an inner, human Hiroshima where you simply become burnt out. In some cases the process sneaks up on you slowly; in other cases it can be a particular event that triggers it. It can also be a ‘sheer necessity’. Some of you may have had that feeling in your whole body that, “If I don’t do this, I’ll die.” en there is no longer a choice. And perhaps some of you are already on a lifelong journey where you are exploring your full potential and where each turn brings its challenges.