To The Girl Who Is Afraid To Jump Into The Unknown, The Girl Who Is Braver Than She Thinks

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Perhaps you’re afraid to end a long-term relationship, or maybe you want to walk away from a not-so-rewarding job but you just don’t know how. Maybe you’re about to be on your own for the first time and you want to back out now, or maybe it’s something even smaller than that. Whatever it is, you’re reading this because you’re afraid of the unknown and what it holds. I think we all are, at least a little bit.

The future is terrifying, and putting yourself into a position in which you have not even the smallest prediction of what will happen is even more frightening.

I think this is even more prevalent for young women. We are “supposed to” be weak, someone is supposed to always be there to take care of us. So, to walk away from what we’ve always known and do it all on our own is something that is discouraged, to say the least. That can make it a lot more difficult to see why it is so important to throw yourself into that uncertainty, at least once.

I cannot give you a five step process on how to end your relationship or how to find yourself. To be completely honest, it’s all pretty new and terrifying for me as well, so if you find a five step process, please let me know. But coming from someone who is experiencing the unknown right now, I’d have to say it’s pretty fun. I am a college student who is living completely alone, is single for the first time in years, and is pursuing a career I know nothing about.

Now, being so young, I clearly do not have all of the answers, but I can tell you this. Some days you will feel lost, afraid, or even alone. Some days all you will want to do is turn back to the life you held leading up to this, but I promise it is all so worth it, even before you reach wherever your life is taking you.

By throwing away your preconceived notions of what life is supposed to look like, you’ll find yourself along the way, even if you thought you already knew who you were. Or at least, that’s what I like to think is happening to me right now. So, go ahead. End that relationship, leave that town, go get that haircut, or submit that article. At any age and at any point in one’s life, it will be a lot more rewarding to take the risk of facing the unknown than to look back on a long line of “what ifs.”