Lately, I have been leaning into the concept that there are consequences for everything. While I know the word consequence has a negative or punitive connotation, for the purposes of this conversation, I want us to adopt a ‘causeand effect’ definition to understand consequences in the context of our lives.
We’ve long been indoctrinated to think of consequences in terms of action or the result of doing something—based on a choice or decision that we make. This causes us to spend a lot of time thinking about our choices, often feeling paralyzed from making a choice or taking action out of fear of getting it wrong. Instead we freeze and do nothing.
We forget that there are consequences for not taking action. There are consequences for putting ourselves on the sidelines or not answering the call of something that we want.
There are consequences to holding ourselves back.
What do these consequences look like? Are they quiet and insidious weaving their way into the fabric and patterns of our lives, small hiccups undetected by the naked eye but yet over time and general accumulation, lessen our quality of life?
Or are the consequences of not taking action louder and more impactful, things that leave us with sleepless nights and decades of regret? Things that repeat over and over again on the broken record of our head whispering…”what if?”
The kind of thoughts that throb in our mind, trying to convince us that life would have been so different had we taken action, had we said yes, had we not held back by fear.
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