Holding Patterns

Source: Faith.Home.Love.

Source: Faith.Home.Love.

A comment reader Jen left about holding patterns (Jen’s comment) made me pause. I wonder if it had the same impact on you?

When I look back on my life what I see is a series of enormous leaps followed by long phases of what I can only describe as holding patterns. It is almost as if after landing from the gigantic leap of faith I’ve taken, I’m crouched on the ground warily waiting for something to land on me, grab me or present some other danger to me. I’m not sure if I’m fearing punishment for my risk, or if the surroundings post-leap are so alien that I’m unable to immediately respond.

Change a job– freeze in place (for 12 years).

End a relationship (romantic or otherwise)– freeze in place (so very many years).

Reach out for advice– freeze in place (1 year and counting).

Start a new relationship? Well, that’s a relatively new concept for me, so I guess we’ll see.

We seem to have proven (on this blog, at least) that if you have all the choices in the world, you make none (or make one and constantly change your mind). Perhaps it is that seemingly endless new set of possibilities presented me post-leap that stymies me?

I’m not sure the answer is to increase the frequency of leaps until I’m nearly a constant blur of motion because then I would also be committing to nothing, but I can’t believe that this recurring holding pattern choice does me any good either.

So, short of another drastic change, how does one break this inertia? How do you keep your forward momentum?

1 comment on “Holding Patterns”

  1. Carey

    But holding patterns — or inertia — can be so valuable (says the slacker). When I broke my &^%$ foot, I had to take a fairly large amount of time off any kind of exercise, and I found that it had hidden benefits: my knee pain vanished, and my plantar fasciitis disappeared. I also found, that once my “time out” was over, I had a newfound appreciation for things (jogging and other mundane exercises) that I had really started to take for granted.
    Our culture is so “progress”-oriented, but often this “progress” results in so many losses: habitat loss for animals/wildlife, pollution, overcrowding, overpopulation, and all that. I think forward momentum is sort of overrated. But I always liked being a couch potato. In fact, I _lived_ on your couch!!! Way to go, inertia!!!

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