Tastes, Experiences, and the Power of Newness
Tastes, experiences, music, culture, interactions, activities, and thoughts; the importance of trying new things is often overlooked. We live and interact with a sensory world, and our growth depends on how we engage with it.
If we want to expand our life experience or break free from the status quo, there is a everlasting invitation to step outside the boundaries of comfort we’ve drawn around ourselves. It is never too early, or too late. The timing is always perfect.
Often times, our intentions for ourselves are strongly rooted in progress. We make changes to elevate our lives. We explore healthier habits, try new activities, or disrupt old routines. At first we may feel great. Happy and proud. Like we are more vibrant and moving in a better direction. Then, overtime these new changes become less exciting and they make their way back into our routine, our “status quo.”
A deeper look into this pattern may show that the once “new” activity had simply become incorporated into our familiar and it stagnated. A healthier lifestyle was cultivated, yet the evolution of the decision to “create change” had stopped. It was not nurtured. The momentum died, and the change became habit.
I noticed this in my own life. I was exploring new experiences that truly elevated me, but before I realized it, I had folded them into my routine. They became familiar, habitual. They became comfortable. Growth had happened – but only partially.
Why Comfort Can Hold Us Back
Most of us live within familiarity, carefully crafted to feel safe and predictable. When we desire change, we try something new. Not too new…just new enough. It lifts us temporarily, but oftentimes, the pattern resumes.
If we remain consistent with this process of expanding our lives and adding excitement and joy, our elevated state of being and the healthy choices we make will improve everything, and everyone around us.
Have you ever asked, Why? I am referring to the big, “Why are we here?” What if it is as simple as, we are here to live optimally. We are here to prosper, flourish, laugh, love, find what makes us happy…and do it.
Please reflect. If you are not feeling, at minimum, content… then move. What do I mean by move? Move in another direction. Move toward change. Move out of stagnancy.
We can be both busy and stagnant at the same time. Filling our days with tasks, responsibilities and routines, may still be stasis.
Even when we’ve achieved healthier lifestyles, there can still be that quiet whisper: there’s more, there’s something deeper, there’s something missing.
True growth happens when we continue forward beyond that initial elevated state, and continue forward passed the doubt and fear that usually looms just after.
The Two Choices We All Face
When you recognize this quiet restlessness, it usually comes down to two fundamental choices.
The first is familiar: Stay on the current path. You know it well. You know what it feels like, how it looks, and you can predict, with reasonable certainty, what the outcome may be. It’s “safe” and comfortable. Yet, it may leave a lingering heaviness, or a sense that this life isn’t your story.
The second appears more challenging: To move in a new direction. It can be uncertain. Scary. Exhausting at times. But also alive with possibility. This is the choice made with courage to step beyond routine, to choose action even when the outcome is unknown. To explore and expand the boundaries of your life.
Making the choice for change can be difficult, but we usually know when we’ve arrived at that moment. Some are able to respond when the urge first appears. Others need to reach a breaking point more than once before becoming willing to do whatever it takes to break the cycle.
Fear in this moment is natural. The type of fear we experience in these, and most, situations…leaves. Once you walk through it, it no longer exists. It is only a mental barrier we create to avoid the potential for pain, struggle, or hardship.
When it comes to making the choice to change, the fear we feel is often directed toward things that haven’t even happened…and probably won’t. We simply don’t want them to.
Consider the possibility that we instinctively raise fear as a form of protection. Protection from what? From the lie our mind just told us.
It is temporary. And most of it is imaginary; a protective mechanism created by the mind to avoid potential discomfort. Once you step forward, the fear dissolves. What remains is clarity, freedom, and a sense of progress.
The Value of Choosing Change
Is it worth continuing down a familiar path that may extend indefinitely? You already understand how it feels, and if heaviness grows over time, it quietly reveals what the future may look like.
Or is it worth stepping into temporary discomfort to create forward movement and realignment? This path asks more of us initially, which is why many hesitate. Yet, it is also the path that leads toward the life and state of being we desire.
Start Small, Keep Moving
Everyone has the courage to break free from the status quo and live an optimal life. Making the choice for change is the most important step.
Start small, keep moving, and look back only with healthy pride to recognize progress.
No one is truly alone in this journey. Stepping out of established “lines” opens the door to new experiences, connections, and growth.
I invite you to begin, and see the potential that exists for your life. It is possible and it begins at the moment you choose…
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