Exits are the inevitable precursor to change. Change happens, death is inevitable, and if you can foresee both early enough you might be able to succumb to them on your own terms. Isn’t that what we all hope for? To be able to exit stage right when YOU are ready, and not when the shepherds hook is secured around your waist and demanding you do so.
It has been a time of exits for me. Too many friends and colleagues are having to make quick decisions to protect the business they spent a lifetime building and invested everything into. We do it. We get caught up in feeling needed, wanted, and irreplaceable. It is the reward to the sacrifice we don’t want to face. The loss of a life in the creation of an empire. You have to build a life outside of your business or your exit will become an abrupt transition to a life you suddenly have to manifest from the few foreign tangible raw materials left over from your last chapter. Abrupt changes don’t work well. Our bodies, our minds, or being, is about gradation and slow evolution. Waking up in a hospital to be notified that the curtain call is approaching faster than you had anticipated is a stark harsh reality. For some of us it arrives in life changing accidents. For others it is a house of cards under someone else’s hand that collapsed. And for a few others it is the realization that escape is the only way out. To us, the “flee and be free” crowd the collateral damage is not simply protecting a lifetime of efforts, it is about getting out and hoping to still be alive on the other side. (Maybe it is that way for all of us at the threshold of the “emergency exit”?)
I am really (really) hoping that this isn’t all I am meant to be and do. That there is a life on the other side. More concerning, that this life, in whatever form it has, has meaning and purpose? That there isn’t just a shell of stuff with my scent on it. Some piece of detritus I left behind to mark my presence like some ancient hieroglyph to a life left and lost.
At some point we all have to face the fact that life has choices and you’re going to have to accept the consequence of the choices you made and the life you built, (or forgot to make time to build). No one likes change. Especially a forced change. The answer to accepting them is to try to manage them on your own terms with your own fate in your own hands. If you do so quietly I think you torment yourself into fear based options. Fear and doubts are the devils recipe book.
Here are a few quotes I am stuck in between these days;
“Don’t wait to get sick or have some dramatic life-changing event. Build a life, not just a business.” Angela Benton
“When fear isn’t dominating you, there’s very little you can’t accomplish in business or in your personal life.” Tony Robbins.
I am working towards this one;
“I convinced myself that whatever was the worst thing that was going to happen, it wasn’t really that bad.” Sarah Kauss
And here I am, a new year, the same old insecurities, and the same old challenges (only apparently on a larger scale, or I just haven’t slayed the old ones and therefore the festering masses of dismay grew,, like some cancer I didn’t get clear margins on), and I have to get through, get out, or wait for the hook to pull me away on its terms.
Shit, if there’s a legacy here I hope it fits on a headstone and isn’t some snarky remark about the veneer of a girl who just couldn’t make it easier for herself.
It has been a time of exits for me. Too many friends and colleagues are having to make quick decisions to protect the business they spent a lifetime building and invested everything into. We do it. We get caught up in feeling needed, wanted, and irreplaceable. It is the reward to the sacrifice we don’t want to face. The loss of a life in the creation of an empire. You have to build a life outside of your business or your exit will become an abrupt transition to a life you suddenly have to manifest from the few foreign tangible raw materials left over from your last chapter. Abrupt changes don’t work well. Our bodies, our minds, or being, is about gradation and slow evolution. Waking up in a hospital to be notified that the curtain call is approaching faster than you had anticipated is a stark harsh reality. For some of us it arrives in life changing accidents. For others it is a house of cards under someone else’s hand that collapsed. And for a few others it is the realization that escape is the only way out. To us, the “flee and be free” crowd the collateral damage is not simply protecting a lifetime of efforts, it is about getting out and hoping to still be alive on the other side. (Maybe it is that way for all of us at the threshold of the “emergency exit”?)
I am really (really) hoping that this isn’t all I am meant to be and do. That there is a life on the other side. More concerning, that this life, in whatever form it has, has meaning and purpose? That there isn’t just a shell of stuff with my scent on it. Some piece of detritus I left behind to mark my presence like some ancient hieroglyph to a life left and lost.
At some point we all have to face the fact that life has choices and you’re going to have to accept the consequence of the choices you made and the life you built, (or forgot to make time to build). No one likes change. Especially a forced change. The answer to accepting them is to try to manage them on your own terms with your own fate in your own hands. If you do so quietly I think you torment yourself into fear based options. Fear and doubts are the devils recipe book.
Here are a few quotes I am stuck in between these days;
“Don’t wait to get sick or have some dramatic life-changing event. Build a life, not just a business.” Angela Benton
“When fear isn’t dominating you, there’s very little you can’t accomplish in business or in your personal life.” Tony Robbins.
I am working towards this one;
“I convinced myself that whatever was the worst thing that was going to happen, it wasn’t really that bad.” Sarah Kauss
And here I am, a new year, the same old insecurities, and the same old challenges (only apparently on a larger scale, or I just haven’t slayed the old ones and therefore the festering masses of dismay grew,, like some cancer I didn’t get clear margins on), and I have to get through, get out, or wait for the hook to pull me away on its terms.
Shit, if there’s a legacy here I hope it fits on a headstone and isn’t some snarky remark about the veneer of a girl who just couldn’t make it easier for herself.
P.S. This is a blog about a girl who dreams big, falls hard, and tries to coach herself back to the path of being kind and compassionate to the patients of vet med life.
If you are someone who struggles you already know you aren't alone. It is the single best directive for finding humanity and the quest for inner peace.
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Pawbly.com is about saving lives, and providing options with data. Let the data set the standard of care and integrity via transparency be the guide.
Pawbly.com is about saving lives, and providing options with data. Let the data set the standard of care and integrity via transparency be the guide.
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