I have let go of the trapeze swing and wonder when the other one will arrive.  As I wait,  I hang in the air.

At least, this is what it felt like when I woke in the small hours, and found myself wondering whether I had made a good decision to let go of the “swing” I’d held onto for more than thirty years, now looking for the one I believe is somewhere out there.

As I hang in mid-air, I know the world is changing, and the reason I’m here because what I explore and offer is the future and not the past.  The future is about a person’s uniqueness and not their conformity.  So I do  not look towards the swing I have let go of.  I look for the one which is coming from the future.

It may be a while coming, and I must learn how to hang in the air.  I hang longer when:

I create and pursue chance opportunities – which feels like following leads
When I trust and use my intuition to make decisions – trusting the hard and practice from many years
Being positive in my expectations – so as not to give up
Not only being resilient when things go wrong but learning from them and initiating new, improved things*

Evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould has suggested the theory of punctuated equilibrium to explain the less than smooth evolutionary transitions, claiming there must have been great leaps in the forming of creatures.**

Which is a pretty good description for what it feels like to let go of the familiar trapeze swing, finding ourselves in mid-air waiting for the next swing to arrive from the future.  But it seems to be the only way we can move forward as Humans and as individuals.

(*From Seth Godin’s It’s Your Turn.  I am intrigued to find Richard Wiseman had suggested these four things for why some people are luckier than others.  I’ve personalised them as to how they have felt for me.)
(**From Alex McManus’s Makers of Fire.)