Brace yourself for a deeply profound blog on this beautiful summer day.

It’s about change and taking new roads.

Change is hard.

Did you catch that deeply profound, entirely original statement of truth? 

Here it is again in case you need a minute to process it:

Change. Is. Hard.

We think we want change.

We want things to be better, different, more exciting, less routine.

We think we are ready for a new path.

Bring it on, we say, mustering all of our courage.

And, then when it comes, we suddenly want to stop it from happening. The new path frightens us.

Whoa. 

Rewind. 

Undo. 

Back up. 

Just kidding.

This “under contract” sign is on our front lawn.

This moving thing is happening, my friends.

Since there is no backpedalling allowed at this point, I’m tweaking my thinking.

(Now, there’s a cute little rhyme.)

Instead of saying, “I have to” I’m trying to say, “I get to.”

For example, instead of: 

• I have to say goodbye to friends,
• I have to sell my excess stuff and pack up an entire household of goods and furniture,
• I have to leave a home and community I love,
• I have to leave the beautiful wooded trails behind our house

I am saying:

• I get to make new friends,
• I get to purge, simplify, dejunk, and declutter,
• I get a new home and community,
• I get to discover new mountain trails

This little mental shift from “I have to” to “I get to” makes all the difference.

It makes change a little less hard.

When I focus on what I’m getting instead of what I’m losing, I’m a lot less apprehensive.

A quote on Pinterest says it beautifully, “Change is hard at first, messy in the first middle, and gorgeous at the end.”

Here’s to finding the gorgeous at the end.