Play the part of the role you want. Act as if the self you are becoming already exists and let your decisions catch up to that truth. Those same old habits will exist, they will always fight for a chance to make an appearance, and they will always reason why they are the best choice. Comfort is persuasive and familiarity knows exactly which buttons to press to restart the cycle. But ease is not evidence of correctness and repetition does not equal truth.
There comes a moment when comfort must be interrogated. Sever the dependence you tolerate on the lifestyle that’s brought you the greatest comfort. We are only meant to sit still sub six-feet, not when we are still witness to the morning sun each day. As long as that light continues to find you, there is movement and some form of participation that is required to continue the journey, not to maintain the course of complacency.
Allow the reason of a new sun to influence you towards better decisions because each morning is permission to recalibrate and choose differently, even if differently feels unfamiliar, for growth rarely feels graceful in its early stages.
The truth is, I’m never going to stop imagining what was and what could be until what is is a dream that never could have been. To me, memory and imagination are not enemies of presence, but tools of orientation. They remind us of where we have been and hint at where we are meant to go, and I don’t believe that’s a flaw, but a compass pointing me toward a life that listens and looks for not just words, but to everything that lives between them.
Change is not always dramatic. Sometimes it’s quiet and imperceptible. It’s a shift in tolerance, a refusal to keep misunderstanding yourself for the sake of familiarity, or a newfound urge to honor what you’ve been quietly outgrowing.
These moments feel accidental, but more often than not they are invitations. They arrive only when you’re paying enough attention to receive them. Happenstance favors the open, not the rigid.
Curiosity pulls us into complexity. It feels that society often encourages us to flatten ourselves for comprehension or to simplify ourselves in order to be digestible. But nothing that is truly alive is simple. Complexity is not a flaw, it is evidence of depth. When we deny complexity, we deny ourselves.
To live fully is to resist that flattening, remain curious and attentive, and to be brave enough to follow the quiet signals of change whenever they appear.