One of the most enlightening moments of my life started in a Puerto Rican restaurant. Café del Angel to be exact (which, by the way, had amazing food)! I quickly scan the menu before the waiter arrives because I have to make sure I can order like I was born and raised in Puerto Rico and not just some tourist who pulled out an app on her phone for help (ok, so maybe I did a few times). The waiter arrives…. “Churrasco, arroz con gandules, y platanos maduros.” The Puerto Rican gods just busted out in a salsa move because my skills were ON POINT! The waiter smiles… “can you say that in English please. I don’t speak Spanish. I’m from S. Carolina.”
The moral of the story
It could’ve easily been, “don’t waste good Spanish.” Because, if I tell it, my accent was rockin’! But that wasn’t the moral. What this guy shared was that he picked up and left S. Carolina…just like that. There weren’t any extenuating circumstances, he wasn’t running from anything, this wasn’t his life goal… he just decided that Puerto Rico would be a nice place to start his life. And thus…life began.
Being stuck is pretty sticky
It got me to thinking about how we hold ourselves back from amazing opportunities because of FEAR. We start to calculate, try to figure out in advance how it’s going to turn out, think of the million and one things that could go wrong (but never about the many things that could go right). And then we’re paralyzed. Paralyzed by all of the scenarios that we conjured up in our minds. Not ever really knowing what the outcome could’ve been. We remain stuck. And being stuck is far worse than any other choice that you could make.
Letting Go…
You can’t swing forward in life if you’re still holding onto the same trapeze. Sooner or later you’re going to lose momentum. In order to move forward, you MUST let go and grab hold of what’s ahead.
What are you willing to let go of in order to move forward?