Change – a risky business

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Anaïs Nin

Do you ever feel it’s just plain easier to leave things as they are? To tell the world, ‘I’m too old to change’, ‘that’s just me’, ‘you can’t teach an old dog new tricks’ and plod on. With a feeling of regret in your guts, perhaps a rueful smile and a slightly brittle chuckle. ‘Hey ho, plus ça change!’

After all, change is risky, isn’t it?

Or is it?

Or is it in fact a damn sight riskier to stay put, all your potential stuffed away inside, unable to see the light of day, unable to blossom?

It’s that old comfort zone thing again. We all know people who are stuck in bad jobs, situations, relationships, stuck in a way that is risking their well-being, yet still making that move away feels impossible.

And it was a risk for me, when I decided to bring all my stuff together, my four website and four blogs and gather them up in a new and spacious place.

After all to change means ploughing my own furrow, moving away from the model of how to present my selfs on line, a model which I’d believed in up to now. I have to take responsibility, I have to speak out, interact, engage with a community of peers in other disciplines. I have to manage my time differently in order to do this. I have to change habits.

So, why did I take that risk?

Because to stay like I was had become riskier by far. Feeling that I wasn’t doing what I’m here for, not living in my true colours - that felt like a risk.

It was time to uncurl; I’d remained foetal for way too long.

And so I’ve done it.  I’ve uncurled. 

Opening out has increased my surface area, opened me up to more scrutiny. That’s why it felt – feels – risky as hell.   But it’s also extended me.  It’s opened things up. That’s why I knew it was a risk worth taking, the only path I could take. 

I knew the day, the life-changing, habit-shattering, time-altering, risk-taking, light-letting-in, Jan-blossoming day, had come.

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