As I started the day, I’d been thinking about how there’s more to us than we know and what this means for the future in way of new possibilities before us:

‘When you are too familiar with who you are, you
have become, in fact, a stranger to your self.’*

I took notice of this because I realise I’m being challenged to step out of the familiarity of me.  There is a fear in this.  I see this fear in others too – a fear towards …

I couldn’t complete this sentence.

What is it we fear?  Change?

Even when there’s a possibility of moving away from dissatisfaction or frustration or hurt or loneliness we can find it hard to move.

We probably feel more uncomfortable about change rather than fear it.

So, is it the unknown that we fear – the unknown we find in ourselves and the unknown we may find if we leave the predictable road?

John O’Donohue describes the unknown as our closest companion.  Interesting.  If he means I walk each day inhabited and surrounded by so many things I don’t know, he’s right.  My future Self calls to me through the unknown; I moved towards it when I live in awareness and innovation and love and courage

‘Wisdom is the way you learn to decipher the unknown,
and the unknown is our closest companion.  So wisdom
is the art of being courageous and generous with the
unknown, of being able to decipher and recognise its treasures.’

More than theory, this is a path I find myself on.  Seth Godin has got it right:

The question isn’t, Is it possible for me to do that?  
Now the question is, Will I choose to do it?

Encounters with the new and the unknown allow us to see more of who we are.

Over to you.

(*From John O’Donohue’s Anam Cara.)
(Cartoon: In his blog, Seth Godin writes, ‘Perhaps the only truly authentic version of you is just a few days old, lying in a crib, pooping in your pants.’  After that it’s all change, by choice.)