Take yourself back a few thousand years and image that you’re marching into battle with your fellow foot soldiers. You feel confident as you grip your sharp spear and feel the weight of your shield.
The enemy forces are heading in your direction. A broad plain opens to reveal your vile adversary lined up and moving toward your ranks. Adrenalin begins pumping through your veins as you grid yourself for the coming confrontation with their front line.
Suddenly, the enemy’s front line re-forms to allow a torrent of beast-mounted soldiers to come crashing through. A multitude of fast-moving, angry monsters comes charging toward your line, snorting violently while their riders urge them forward in frenzy of bloodlust.
You stare directly at these monstrous creatures charging toward you and realize that not only can they trample and crush you, they can also skewer you with their horns!
A voice inside you screams “You’re screwed!”
I mean, seriously, haven’t you ever wondered why we’ve never seen armor-adorned rhinos with riders? I’ve seen plenty of make-believe images of people riding imaginary unicorns, but what about a real-life, seriously scary beast with horns? We ride horses, elephants, and even ostriches.
So, I did a little research and found all kinds of interesting “reasons” why we don’t have domesticated or even tamed rhinos. They are ill-tempered, near-sighted, difficult to get near, and a few other seemingly valid reasons.
In others words, it’s just too hard. Many of the people that I’ve talked to through the years who want to do something different with their lives have the same problem. It’s just too hard to do. I mostly get it, until I look at a chihuahua.
Change Takes Time, Effort, Patience and Persistence
Someplace a very, very long time ago, someone looked at a wolf, or perhaps an ancestor of a wolf, and thought, “wouldn’t that make a wonderful pet for my kids?” Okay, they might not have considered that, but someplace, somehow, some group of people decided that having those pack-hunting, sharp-toothed, downright-scary creatures as companions might be a pretty cool idea. Naturally, it didn’t happen overnight, but look at the remarkable results!
The same is true for changing your life. While there may be some behavioral changes that can be implemented overnight, most real change takes significantly more effort. Whether you are considering skipping the corporate life for wandering the Kalahari or simply making a significant career change, transitioning yourself from who you are today to something else is a process. It’s going to take time, effort, patience, and persistence.
There’s Even A Big Bonus!
While many people who dream about changing their life focus on what it would be like to do something else, something more spectacular often happens. It changes who you are, not just what you do.
Similar to the desire to have those wolf ancestors around the homestead, the end result can be wildly different from what the original idea was all about.
