Not all that long ago I found myself staring into the bathroom mirror like I did pretty much every day, but this time something was different. I no longer recognized the person staring back at me, and it was terrifying.

Up until this point, every day was the same, and my life had become a stagnant lifeless mess. I worked a job that I hated, was in a relationship I should have never been in to begin with, drank myself to sleep nightly, was in a financial hole with no way out and was a father when I didn’t know how to be one. Every single person involved in the situation deserved better. They say everything happens for a reason, and though I don’t entirely buy into that, I do believe the mirror looked different on this particular day, and that difference would be the catalyst for pushing my life in a direction I could have never predicted.

It took some time to take action, but I simply could not get that unrecognizable image that appeared in the mirror that morning out of my head, and one day I decided I was finally done. I was done with the job, done with the relationship, done drowning myself in alcohol and debt, but most importantly I was done with this person I had become. This all happened well before 40, but it got me thinking about those that face self realization at later ages. This was scary as hell for me at like 33, so I can only imagine the further along you go, the more terrifying it gets. They don’t call it a mid-life crisis for no reason.

I guess my point here is that you can change anything or even everything about yourself at any time. The way you dress, the things you like, the music you listen to, literally anything. You’re an ever evolving water filled meat sack and you don’t have to conform to some sort of idea or label if you don’t want to. We all reach our breaking point which will force this change to happen whether we like it or not, and that is what I believe happened when I looked into the mirror that day.

For some a breaking point is having a problem with alcohol and losing everything because of it, for others it’s having their dream job ripped out from beneath them due to “budget cuts”, and for some it might be getting cut off in traffic for the final time, and doing something they’ll regret for the rest of their lives. For you it’s probably something entirely different.

As humans we seek comfort at every turn, and that is often why we stay in those unhealthy toxic waste based situations because even though it’s bad, it’s comfortable, and it’s become all we’re used to, and more often than not, all we have left.
However, I can wholeheartedly say that in order to get to the next step in my life, whatever that step has been at the time, it’s involved getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. Literally every time. I have to psych myself out, give myself a pep talk, and say this is going to fucking suck, but it’ll all be worth it.

Spoiler, it’s always been worth it.

Unfortunately, it never seems to get easier because at the end of the day our complex hard-wired monkey brains think we’re still running for our lives seeking shelter after fending off some predator that would like nothing more than to call us dinner. When in reality more often than not, the only thing we’re running from, is ourselves.

Seek truth. Seek change. But most importantly seek discomfort.