I don’t know if you are like me, but it is easy to get comfortable. You do the same things week in and week out. You watch the same TV shows. You eat the same things. You talk the same talk and dream the same dreams, but do little about it. Does this sound like you? I hope not, but I have a feeling that it probably is. I know I am like that more than I want to be. Isn’t there more to living?
How hard is it to do something new? Go somewhere different? Meet new people? The answer: it can be very hard. It is hard to do all of these things when we are stuck in a rut and when you only have one viewpoint on life. It is hard to look at any options outside of what is normal. It is hard to be anything, but what we have been. You may not want it to be that way, but it is easy. It is routine.
There is a line from the movie The Matrix that sums this up:
You have been down there. You have been down that road. You know exactly where it ends. I know that its not where you want to be. – Trinity speaking to Neo.
When the opportunity to do something new or something that might impact your life arises it is easy to bypass it and go down a road you have already traveled. That is not where I want to be though. I have walked all those paths before. I have seen what they have to offer. The only hope for growing beyond where I am must be on the path I haven’t taken. This is true for my writing, my reading, my faith, and other aspects of my life as well.
I have friends that experienced this first hand. They made a decision to do something radically different with their lives. They uprooted their suburban way of doing things and moved to a different country to do work that has immediate and lasting value. When the opportunity arose they could have picked the way of comfort and politely declined, but they didn’t. They embarked on a journey like they had never experienced. I am happy for them. They stepped out of the comfortable into the significant.
I strive to do the same with my daily choices. I choose the path of significance over the path of comfort. I choose to work out to make my body healthy. I choose to eat good for the same reason. I choose to fill my mind with knowledge. I choose to spend my money wisely and invest in the future. I choose to be the husband and dad I need to be for my family. If I see I am headed down a wrong path I choose to turn around.
I don’t want to go down the roads I have been down over and over. I know what is down there and I know it isn’t where I want to be.
Which path are you choosing?
David Willis 