What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from. (T.S. Eliot)
“Considering that we have to deal with endings all our lives, most of us handle them poorly. This is in part because we misunderstand them and take them either too seriously or not seriously enough. We take them too seriously by confusing them with finality – that’s it, all over, never more, finished! We see them as something without sequel, forgetting that they are the first phase of the transition process and a precondition of self-renewal. At the same time, we fail to take them seriously enough. Because they scare us, we try to avoid them.” (From William Bridges: “Transitions – making sense of life’s changes” 2nd edition, chapter 5 – Da Capo – Life Long)
Most of my clients are heavily stuck in a rut. That is not the same as, would you believe, trying to do something with it and move on. Not at all. I oftentimes wonder why people that are so incredibly stuck don’t manage to pull together at least an iota of energy to start getting somewhere out of their present circumstance. I suppose there are a number of reasons why it is so.
There is of course always the knowing doing gap. There is no doubt they want the situation to change, but from there to actually taking the first tiny step seems like an insurmountable threshold. It might be that for most of us taking the first step is synonymous with a big step which again becomes so overwhelming we leave it. But it isn’t. All processes should start with a small step and then you increase as you go along and gain more and more confidence.
Starting a process is scary, and you don’t have to be really stuck to feel like that. Leaving your comfort zone is scary, and however bad your situation is, you somehow over time get accustomed to it, and finally it will be your comfort zone; you’re safe. It is so much easier for man to adapt to hardship that to take action and move out of it. It is for a reason we call the comfort zone bondage. If you put a frog into a pot of boiling water it will actually leap right out again, if you put it in while the water is cold and start heating it, the frog will adjust and finally be cooked. So the comfort zone does not have to be comfortable, in many instances it is not at all, but it becomes familiar, and any change to that is scary.
For some of my clients the social benefits they receive makes life too comfortable. So why bother? The thing is it does not last forever, and the longer you stay in the harder to get out, which is a fact these, otherwise so bright people, do not believe in.
Having said all this they oftentimes regard themselves as being at the bottom of the social ladder. No other than basic education, no job, and no idea about what they want to do, but extremely picky as to what not to do. The jobs that they are best suited for, are of no interest. They want to be high up on the social ladder, but not willing to start climbing, because they will have to show off being on the first second and third bars for a while until they reach an acceptable level. Everybody want to be served a quantum leap, but the preparative actions they have to make themselves to make the leap should be done by me as a coach or the best of all, society. Take responsibility for me. And by all means, don’t put any responsibility for me or my life on my own shoulders; that’s a terrible injustice.
So what they are afraid of is the symbolism that lies in leaving something behind and encounter the unknown that lies ahead. The symbolic death of leaving a current state of affairs. The (sarcastic) beauty or sad fact, is that they can always return when the first sign of a possible failure occurs, and some do.
