Get Busy Living

I heard from a friend who’s in the middle, as she called it, of blowing up some big, established facts of her life.  Maybe it’s a marriage that’s ending, a career that’s turned soured, a living situation that you just can’t tolerate anymore, or people who are literally sucking the life out of your life.  It’s never easy, but sometimes I think you just gotta blow that shit up.  (Sorry for the cursing, it seemed to fit my rhetorical needs but that’s the only one for this post).  When I hear of someone making a big, bold, messy change in life, I feel inspired, a little envious, and even more hopeful.  Most of my posts are about how to make small, incremental changes that yield big results because big changes are, well, big…and hard.

In fact, the vast majority of folks will stick in a bad situation long, long, long after they should have exited.  I have.  So have you.  Why?  Habit, security, fear, family obligations, societal pressure, sheer laziness and enetia?  Or a combination of all of those.

Making a big life change is hard, very hard.  As anyone who’s done it knows. I’ve taken a few jumps off the high dive– moving to new cities or leaving good, safe, lucrative jobs because I felt that my ride there had ended.  For me, a leap of faith is never me standing boldly on the edge and then joyously plunging over.  Never.  It more often looks (and feels) like Cathy wielding a death grip on what is, very reluctantly extending my leg over the edge of the abyss to gather evidence that there is something on the other side.  Jump off the cliff and build your wings on the way down.  No thanks, Ray Bradbury.

But on the other hand, this is my life.  The only one I get, as far as I know.

“Get busy living or get busy dying.”  That’s one of my favorite lines from Shawshank Redemption, when Tim Robbin’s character has utterly lost his willingness to stay in prison for a murder he didn’t commit and just before he executes his heroic escape through 500 yards of you know what.  That line really says it all.  There are two choices and we each have to decide.

Get busy living or get busy dying.  Change can be crushing, freeing, depleting, or energizing.  A different life may be scary, uncertain, exhilarating, unnerving, rewarding and challenging, but at least I’ll be living it.  Isn’t is scarier not to?