“Jump off the cliff and build your wings on the way down”
I’ve always loved this quote from Ray Bradbury, and I find it particularly poignant when thinking about midlife transitions and endings.
True endings require a conscious completion of what has gone before, a sort of grieving or acceptance and a trust in what is to come. And then you jump.
But in my experience, that jump is never as clean as the quote implies.
There’s always a sticking-out branch, not far from the cliff edge, that we grab onto to catch a breath.
A branch.
This branch represents the things that hold us back from making the full transition. The four idols we worship in different ways. Status. Money. Power. Pleasure. For me, it was definitely status… how could I lose who I was… the successful ad exec flying business class everywhere (and that bloody Cathay Pacific Gold card 😅 ).
So we grab on to something that keeps us safe. A new job opportunity, maybe a part time consultancy role…anything that offers the thing we are afraid to lose.
For a short while.
But it’s not enough.
We know that in our heart. That’s why we jumped in the first place..
Then gravity takes over.
The branch snaps.
Or our arms start to ache and we let go.
And we fall.
It’s exhilarating.
It’s scary.
It’s unknown.
And then we start to really build our wings.
A new version of us comes into being.
We can fly, we can experiment with new ideas. We can play again.
And new possibilities aligned to who we truly are begin to emerge 😇
Photo by Woody Kelly on Unsplash
