Leap of Faith by Danny Cox

Have you ever sweated over a decision? Brought the stakes to life or death levels and
thought about it day and night, even dreamed about it? Have you ever had to think about
something for weeks on end, until you ultimately you have no time left to decide? Let’s
say you have. Because if you have, you probably look back at that time and wonder: why
was that so hard?

I put off my college decision until literally the last day. It was down to two choices. One
school I liked more in general, but the other school had a slightly better program. One
school was about twice as far away, but aside from that all the other factors were the
same. Months of putting it off lead to hours of pacing, looking over the programs from
both schools, trying to call each one with last minute questions, using my parents as
therapists while I talked it out, and looking at the programs from other schools and asking
myself why I didn’t consider these options more seriously?! Ultimately I went with the
school that had a slightly better program, and everything turned out fine. I don’t look
back and think about what life would have been like going to the other school. Odds are it
also would have been fine. I still would have studied film, and I still would have moved
to California when I graduated. So why so much panic?

It’s easy to be paralyzed with indecision. To get caught between the head and the heart
and not know what the right thing to do is. Whether it comes down to moving far away to
pursue your dreams even though you won’t know anybody there, or quitting a bad job
that you’ve become reliant on but it literally incites your clinical depression, or getting
out of a relationship that isn’t apparently bad but is missing something. You can get stuck
just mulling it over because the right, or “correct,” answer isn’t spelled out.

You become accustomed to the situation, and there’s some security to it so you don’t act.
But then you become stagnate, and everything falls to the wayside. You can’t break past
this one big roadblock so you just focus on the little inconsequential things. You begin
looking more at the day to day and the big picture starts to get blurry. So you tell yourself
that these are that baby steps will get you somewhere eventually. But then two years go
by and where are you? What have your efforts yielded? Eventually, you become
comfortably numb, and Pink Floyd starts to make a lot more sense.

As simple as it may be, the truth you have to accept is: there is no correct answer, only a
right one. You can pace around the room, reason both sides to death, and you’ll find an
argument either way. But it’s you. You’re holding yourself back. Whether that’s due to
fear, insecurity, or whatever ails you, the only thing preventing your decision is you. You
may have known all along what the right choice was anyway. The challenge then
becomes not knowing what you have to do, instead the challenge lies in doing it.

And no, it’s not easy.
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You’re not going to know where you’ll land, you won’t even know how you’re going to
fall… but that’s why it’s called a leap of faith.

Author
Danny is our 2nd guest writer for the blog, and we are so lucky to have him! We hope you enjoyed his piece as much as we did!