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book: making it
Making It
Nine - Shifting Gears - 211
Are You Where You Want to Be?
All my life I’ve seen people shrug off their chances for success and happiness by living their life in the condition “if only”: “If only I were in her shoes;“ “If only I was thinner;” “If only I wasn't stuck here;” “If only my parents had treated me differently.” Every time I hear those laments I want to shake the person and ask “If you know that’s not where you want to be, why do you stay there?”
There are enough people locked into this attitude populate the moon! I know people who can’t make up their minds in Baskin-Robbins; those thirty-one flavors give them an anxiety attack! I know others who can’t change their clothes or their hairdressers without calling their therapists! I have argued with women who admit they are miserable in their present relationship but won’t change it. “Oh Micki, I couldn’t bear the upheaval.”
But there comes a point when we have to shift gears if we’re going to grow up and get where we want to go. Despite promising circumstances, hard work, good intentions, maybe things are getting flat. Perhaps time is running out for this job, this relationship, this lifestyle. As disrupting and painful as it will be, as open to criticism as it will leave you, as frightening and draining pursuing a new path may be, it is time to shift.
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