Tag: familiar

I Guess It Depends On How Far You Want To Go

I Guess It Depends On How Far You Want To Go

Maybe the special sauce wasn’t that special after all?   

With traffic, Google Maps said I’d finally be back home in about six hours. Feeling hungry, I evaluated a good selection of bad food in the highway rest stop. My decision was made, and with the food in hand I headed back to my car to continue my east bound track back home.

It had been quite a while since my last Big Mac. After a couple of bites I remembered why they considered it a comfort food. Those two all-beef patties with the special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, and onions on a sesame seed bun felt a little bit like home. I knew it wasn’t a healthy choice, but sometimes familiar overrides logic. 

Even if we know it’s detrimental to our well being.

There is a perceived safety in the familiar, even when what’s familiar doesn’t actually serve us. Sometimes we grow quite comfortable accepting less than healthy options available to us because we’ve grown accustomed to doing so. Even though we know such acceptance can be detrimental to our emotional well being. 

Yet we choose them anyway.

The same people. The same career path. The same relationships. The same habits.

The same results.

Creating more of the life I’ve wanted to live has been driven by my willingness to embrace the unfamiliar. Of finding comfort in the discomfort of growth and expansion. Of finding safety in the process of my own unpredictable unfolding.

Because the familiar only gets you so far.

I guess it depends on how far you want to go.

Photo by Florian Steciuk on Unsplash

 

The Color Of Courageous Authenticity

The Color Of Courageous Authenticity

Fourteen.

That’s our personal record. That’s the number of paint samples we evaluated as we looked to refresh the family room. The first five samples weren’t very exciting, neither were the next five, and the last four were one final attempt to find that one elusive color we’d been hoping to find to bring the room alive.

Ultimately we selected one of the first five we looked at.

With infinite color choices readily available, we ended up with more of what we already had. At the sample stage we were bold and adventurous, inspired to create and take chances. But when it came time to commit to something outside of our ordinary we instead chose more of our ordinary. Bold and adventurous gave way to the familiar and safe.

What could have been had we been willing to actually create it.

Life sometimes feels like a room that could use a little refreshing. A chance to recolor our world to better reflect who we really are and who we know we were created to become. To no longer accept the narrow color palate of a life that was expected of us and to instead embrace our own bold and adventurous colors, colors only we can bring into this world.

There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with familiar and safe. Unless familiar and safe serve as limiting parameters preventing us from growing, evolving, and expressing our truest colors.

In a world where we can be anything, may we find the courage to express our most authentic self.

Photo by russn_fckr on Unsplash