Taking The Leap Is Scary, But Not As Scary As Never Jumping

Have you ever had something so coincidental happen to you, it sort of gives you goose bumps? The kind of thing that makes you seriously wonder what the odds of something like that happening could be. These sorts of situations can make your head spin and make you question a lot. Is it fate? Is it a weird twist of luck? Is it bad timing? I recently had something like this happen to me, and being left with no answers, it led me back to my belief that things truly do happen for a reason. A cliche thing to say, I know, but the truth behind that statement is accurate.

Every little moment in your life up until this very second has led you to where you are right now. The big things, the small things, everything. Every relationship you’ve had and every decision that you’ve made. They have all led you to this exact moment that we currently reside in. To be sitting or standing wherever it is that you are right now. Maybe this is exactly where you’re supposed to be at this exact moment.

The universe, much like a best friend that we can’t see, will always have our backs. It is constantly conspiring ways to bring us what it is that we need, at the very moment that we need it. I used to struggle with the thought of this; the universe always having our best interest at the forefront, yet bad things still seem to happen to us. Why is that? Why would we encounter the bad and the ugly if the universe has our back?

Forrest Gump told us that life is like a box of chocolates, but really, I think it’s more like a bunch of diving boards. Diving boards that lined around a pool of really awesome synchronized swimmers. With every struggle that I face, it’s sort of like I’m climbing the ladder up to my diving board. As things get harder, I’m almost to the top. The top of freeing myself from a hard situation. And when I’m finally ready to let go, I jump off, and enjoy the swim. I’ve started using this mental scenario in my head for almost everything, but one of the best examples that I can give you is about relationships.

We meet people for a reason. Every person that enters our life is equipped with life tools that we’ll take on forever. For better or for worse. The shit heads and the genuinely good people. We might not realize it at first, in fact, most of the time we don’t realize it until long after they’re gone. Being in a toxic relationship might feel like the worst situation to be in, but really, it’s the universe showing you exactly what it is that you don’t want. What you can now look out for in future relationships, and what from now on you’ll downright not accept.

Just how the toxic people are brought into our lives to teach us a lesson, we’re brought into theirs to teach them the same. This person can be your diving board that you jump off of to jumpstart your life, and you, theirs, to jumpstart their own. You can be the person that makes them realize they don’t want to be a malicious person anymore. It’s you that can change someone’s life without you even realizing it. You can be the person they’ll always remember as the woman (or man) who made them open up their eyes.

And while it doesn’t always end with the result that we want, it’s the result that we need in order to start climbing up our next ladder.

I just came back from a solo trip to Italy, which was the result of a diving board that I recently jumped off of. It was life-changing and life-altering, and I had I not finally jumped off that diving board level in my life, I probably would have never experienced any of it.

I guess what I’m trying to say is: I hope that, today, you find the courage that you need to make your first jump.