What Moves You To Take Risks?

I recently decided to leave everything familiar in my life to start fresh in New York City. I knew that I was being rash, and I wasn’t under any impression that it would be easy, but I figured that no matter how challenging the transition was, it wasn’t going to kill me so why not go for it? I ended up losing about 10 pounds in roughly two weeks because my body literally refused anything I put into it, which was something I had never experienced before—the completely uncontrollable reaction my body had to my emotions about all of this change. Regardless of how strong I was trying to be mentally, my body essentially was saying, “Nope, you’re gonna FEEL this whether you want to or not.” And for about three weeks, my body was right. Although the experience was difficult, to say the least, I knew my state wasn’t permanent and that once I healed and started to feel normal again, moving to New York would be the best thing I ever did for myself.

I don’t want to go too much into the reason for my move but I will just say that I felt like I wasn’t practicing what I preached anymore. I felt like a hypocrite and I felt weak. I felt like all the advice I gave to people when they needed me was shot to hell because I should have been saying it all to myself in the mirror. I couldn’t change my reality at home, no matter how hard I tried I continued to fail and would find myself deeper into that from which I was trying to escape. The only thing left for me to do was to just leave and start over somewhere new, where there would be no memories of what was to pull me back into my sadness, where everything would be unfamiliar and unknown and I could start to form new memories, happy memories. I don’t feel like I ran away from my problems. Instead, I feel I made a conscious decision to remove myself from an unhealthy situation because we only have this one life and I want mine to be as happy as possible. If something isn’t contributing to my happiness, then either it has to go or I have to go.

Going from the familiar to the unknown can be terrifying, no matter how dire the familiar is. Fear of the unknown is arguably one of the reasons battered women stay with their abusive husbands, for example. Dealing with the physical pain of abuse is far easier than dealing with the emotional pain surrounding leaving someone you love. Thankfully, I have never been in a physically abusive relationship but I definitely understand how hurtful it can be to detach yourself from the person you love. Its kind of like damned if you do, damned if you don’t. But the way I saw it, I could stay and be unhappy forever or I could leave and be unhappy for a little bit, but then heal. I sat there looking at door number one and door number two for about a year until I finally got up and literally pushed myself through door number two, which was a free fall into dark, nothingness. But I have finally landed on my feet, like I knew that I would.

My question to you is this: What moves you to take risks?