Fear Of Change
We live in a world that moves faster than ever. Where new technologies release so fast that we don’t even have time to adjust to the previous one. Where we change jobs every two years and we don’t commit with anything and barely with anyone.
We are supposed to be the most adaptable generation our there. With no mortgages, kids before 40 and contracts that can be broken easier than a Christmas Craker, still deep inside we are still afraid of big changes.
We are told that stepping out of the comfort zone is good for our personal development, therefore we draw a life full of apparent changes. In reality, it is nothing else than us being comfortable with changing jobs to almost the same position in a company very similar to the previous one. Or us moving from one rented flat to another one probably as well in the same area.
Bravo. We are invincible.
Unfortunately, when we are presented with a big change in our lives, that really would make us uncomfortable, we feel paralysed, scared of loosing all the comfort around us.
After living in Dublin as an expat for almost 5 years I also felt I was a person in constant change and I was very proud of my acceptance to change. After all, I left Madrid with more than an uncertain destiny: no job, no house, no friends and no family. Ready to start a new life in the unknown.
However, I was also 23, recently graduated, with a little chance to find a job in a deep economical recession, living with my parents. So in the end I had nothing to loose.
This year 2018, my boyfriend and I have decided this will be our last year in Ireland in order to move back to Madrid. In search of a better quality of life, looking to perhaps buy a house and more sun.
When we started thinking about it I was more convinced than him and the idea sounded promising. But exactly in the moment that he became convinced about it I realised: “shit, now this is real” and a wave of anxiety and fear took over.
Even if the change meant coming back to my hometown I thought about everything I built in 5 years in Ireland, the person I became and how much I worked in order to be where I am now. And I was afraid. The difference between 5 years ago when I moved to Dublin and now is that this time I have everything to loose.
I was scared of really stepping out of my comfort zone and of throwing myself into the unknown.
I think that the older you get the more fear you have of change. We are more conscious of time and of our lives. When you are in your early twenties you know you are just developing a life for yourself and in case of a mistake, you can always go back.
But when we are coser to your 30s or in our 30s already, we believe mistakes will pull us apart from society and we will loose that race. The race for growing professionally, for getting promoted, for earning more money.
This is why today, even if I have fear of the change that is approaching, I know I shouldn’t be worried about making a mistake.
That all things in life are reversible except death. That time is too limited to spend our lives happily in the comfort zone wondering about the ‘what if…’.
That we all should live like it is the end of the world and that that includes fear, taking risks and really making changes.
