I don’t know when I decided that being in your 30’s was considered “old”. Maybe because I had kids earlier than everyone around me or felt like every 30 year old was ancient when I was younger but that kind of mindset created an uninspired overweight person who lacked motivation for growth or possibility. Sometimes it feels like I’ve already arrived at everything I will become and have reached my max potential. I used to be so carefree in my dreaming and plans. I liked stability but craved new and exploratory. 

Now I bathe in a bland routine and never waver. 

I am not fun.

Neither am I new or seasoned.

I just am, most days. Existing but not pushing my limits or breaking off in spaces I’ve never been before. My mind is bored. My body is stagnant. I’m not happy but I’m not unhappy. 

I crave who I once was, but want to explore the parts of me I’ve never met before. I am so many things. So much untapped potential that will die with me at an early age if I don’t get my shit together. I am disgusted with myself for giving up on my mind and my body out of fear of what the next chapter of my life would look like. 

New territory is scary and it’s easy to tread lightly to keep yourself safe. But I don’t want to be safe. I want to do all the things I am here to do. I want to meet the people I’m meant to meet, change the lives I’m meant to change, and visit the spaces of my soul I’m not familiar with yet on my way to becoming. 

I want to live fully.

Not half tapped.

Not partly.

Not in the shadow of others.

I want to become who I am meant to become through lots of self-discovery. I don’t want to be afraid of what that looks like. I don’t want to fear my potential and suffocate opportunities that bang on my door while I stand frozen looking through the peephole. 

I’m tired of living outside of my life. 

Sometimes it feels like an out-of-body experience, where I know what I need to do to make the change but I can’t bring myself to do it. Every day is a new day, a new opportunity, and I always make the plan to get it right tomorrow. But tomorrow comes and I’m still the same person, making the same decisions, planning for tomorrow. 

I’ve read the self-help books, started therapy, and done all the things I feel like they tell you that you need to do to get yourself out of a rut, but I still feel stuck in my mind. It feels like a tangled mess of inconsistencies and uncertainty and getting started on even one thing feels impossibly gigantic. 

Why does everything feel so fucking huge?

My demons linger, haunting me and trying to pull me back down. Creating a block in my flow and keeping me in the same place but every day I’m a little bit worse instead of a little bit better. 

A while back I read a book called The Compound Effect and it’s all about the power of ridiculously small changes and how if applied consistently they can have huge effects over time. It was motivating to me because most advice demands you to make massive changes immediately to see the fruits of your labor as fast as possible. But that shit burns me out and doesn’t motivate me to change at all. When your mind is full, big changes feel impossible and you give up before even getting started.

I don’t want to be underwater trying to breathe forever. I know I need to keep putting one foot in front of the other, but sometimes even that feels like too much.

“In this life, we’re either getting better or we’re getting worse. If we’re not growing, we’re diminishing… The good should always give way to the better. Otherwise, it will at some point inevitably dissipate into the worse.”

– Tom Morris