By Heather Bonynge
A friend of mine posted this quote on her Facebook page recently, and once I read it, I was not able to stop thinking about it for days afterwards.
Last year was a year of growth for me. So far, 2015 is starting out to be a year of letting go and making big changes. In one version of the presentations I give at schools (I am constantly rewriting, revamping, and rediscovering), I encourage students to not be afraid to change the things that make them unhappy. I am now trying to put into practice what I preach.
I was offered a new job five days into the new year. For those of you who have spoken to me in the last two years, you know that this has been oncoming for a long time. I have been very unhappy in what I do for so long, so I took the step, accepted the offer, and made the change.
The end of December also marked another instance of change and letting go. Fertility. I wrote in my last blog about the struggle my husband and I have had with the question of fertility since my cancer diagnosis in December 2008, and how we finally started treatments to help it in April 2014. We attempted insemination three times, and each time it came with negative results. These were difficult to deal with, and drove me further and further into a depression. I did not know how to let go of this, and by doing so I felt it was keeping me in limbo from ever really celebrating moving beyond cancer; it was the one thing, I felt, that was holding me back. So with a lot of decision and indecision, in December I made the choice with my husband to let it go.
Last week, I took one more step towards letting go by replying to an email I’ve been keeping in my inbox for months, but have avoided posting any sort of response. This was an email regarding the process my husband and I had started over three years ago looking into adoption. Their message had asked me whether or not we wanted to continue keeping our file open, or should they remove our names from their records. I wrestled with this all week, but finally on Friday I sent my decision to take our names off the list, and to please close our file. We will not be pursuing adoption any further.
Any time you experience change, you also experience the fears that goes along with it. What if I made the wrong choice? Am I giving up? Could I have tried harder? Perhaps. This is where I look to that quote for guidance: “…take chances and never have regrets because at one point everything you did was exactly what you wanted.”
These decisions are what I want. I don’t know if in the long run these decisions will be the right ones. For right now though, these decisions are what I choose. They continue to push me forward on a new path, which may or may not turn out to be the right one, but you never discover what is the right path unless you take chances. There is a sense of freedom in being honest with myself, and from that I continue to grow.
So I am changing my statement about 2015 being a year of letting go. It is a year of taking risks, and discovering the great achievements that can come from those chances I take. Everything that is great in my life has only come from driving myself into things I did not know: travel, love, motherhood, YACC, friendship. I can wonder if I am making the wrong decisions, but I think I will wonder more about the opportunities I never took and how they would have turned out. What did I give up? I’ll never know unless I try.
I want to know:
- What are some risks you have taken that have resulted in great achievement?
- Are there changes you have been hesitant in making in your life because you are unsure of what the outcome may be and the risks involved?
- If you could do one thing in your life right now, make one change, take one risk, what would it be?
Be honest with yourself.
Live life on purpose.
