There’s something I want to talk about that feels pretty relevant for me right now. It’s a topic that, if you asked me 5 years ago, I would have known very little about.
You see, up until that time, I had life pretty much mapped out (haha, or at least I thought I did). I was running a business that I assumed was going to be a lifelong career, I was in a relationship that I assumed was going to last forever and I had a neat little plan of how everything would unfold for me.
And when it all fell apart (in a pretty spectacular fashion) I was left dealing with 2 things. The pain caused by all the chaos, and the bonus pain caused by the complete void left in my life where all my well-laid plans used to be.
Suddenly it felt like I was peering into a big black hole of nothingness.
Here’s the interesting thing that happens at this point. Society steps in and tells us how exciting the unknown is. We’re bombarded with Pinterest worthy pics & Insta feeds covered with inspiring quotes about courage & freedom. The fascinating part of living a slightly nonconformist lifestyle is the constant narrative about your journey that everyone else seems to partake in. Friends get super excited and enthusiastic about the awesome adventures coming your way. People at dinner parties gasp at your travel plans and tell you how jealous they are and how lucky you should feel (whilst you look at the same scenario in your regular non-rose-tinted glasses thinking it looks like an absolute shit storm). Somehow, everyone else seems to think that the unknown is this magnificent place to hang out.
Except … it turns out it’s quite easy to say that from the comfort of their secure job, stable marriage & nice house. I get it, the unknown, to those folk, is kinda sexy.
But in reality. The unknown, for those of us entrenched in it, is anything but. It’s scary as hell. And for those of us who are recovering control freaks, it’s life-altering.
I had a minor meltdown on my flight out to LA. In hindsight, I can see that it was fuelled by a crazy few weeks of work & minimal sleep (tired thoughts are bad thoughts remember ?!). But it was a freak out nonetheless. There I was gazing out the window, listening to the couple next to me bang on about their holiday plans, thinking to myself .. What the hell am I doing? I’m on my way to the US to work for a month with a bunch of people I’ve never met before, to stay solo in an Airbnb that may or may not be in a good part of town, to work on a project that could be incredible but could crash and burn, to try and juggle my crazy workload whilst simultaneously growing a new startup. Oh, and all the while, leaving home a day after the building work has started on my new place.
So many unknowns. Unknowns piled on top of unknowns. It’s enough to make a girl want to race back home and hide under the covers.
But it turns out that wasn’t an option. And so my only solution was to acknowledge how I was feeling. To lean into the unknown … not in a woo wooyay-let’s-embrace-this-moment way, but more like a grounded deep breath, a gulp and a f&*k it attitude.
I got off the flight, still feeling the weight of all that fear on my shoulders, and went into auto-pilot traveller mode. Bag pickup, buying a SIM card, shuttle to the hire car place, checking emails on the way. And before I knew it I was stuck in LA rush hour traffic feeling a little surreal.
As the traffic eased, and I made my way up the coast, I relaxed a little. I cranked up the tunes, wound down the window and just breathed it all in. At one point the highway made its way through the hills and I found myself following the coast up to Santa Barbara as the sun was setting on the horizon.
And then it hit me. The unknown can be all those things everyone made it out to be. It can be exciting and magnetic and energising. It can infuse a certain feeling into every cell of your body that leaves you immensely grateful for each and every experience you have. But all those things come with a price. A price that many don’t see. The fear and the anxiety is real. The self-doubt is loud (deafening at times).
So I guess I wrote this for my fellow non-conformists … Those of you who are building businesses, who are blazing a new path….to say, hey, I’m with you on this. I know how scary this shit can be. I know how infuriating it can be to have people tell you how lucky you are and how exciting your life is.
But I guess we have to remember that this is a classic case of no rain, no rainbows. You’ve got to get comfortable with this crazy thing called the unknown, otherwise, it’s likely to tear you apart.
Oh, and I also know how it feels to get a sneak peek as to what’s on the other side of the unknown (even if it’s something as simple as an epic sunset on the California State Route 1)…. and it’s pretty rad.
Be brave. Keep on keepin’ on. You’ve got this.