Sometimes they feel so wrong.

Because it feels like we’re giving up, it feels like we’re quitting, it feels like we’re giving up what’s safe and comfortable and diving into an unknown territory that could potentially feel like drowning. It feels like we’re taking uncalculated risks and making reckless decisions when we decide to follow our hearts, when we decide to leave someone we love because we’re not happy, when we decide to quit our steady job, when we decide to pack our bags and leave, when we decide to do everything that scares us and when we decide that we’re tired of settling and we want to live a life of adventure.

Sometimes it feels lonely.

It feels like you’re the only one who sees the light at the end of the tunnel, what lies on the other side, the magic that could happen if everything goes right. Sometimes you’ll be the only one believing that it could go right, that it could work and you can make it happen. Sometimes it’s going to be you against the world, you against wiser people, you against people who know better, you against your friends and you against your family but you’ll do it anyway because it’s aligning perfectly with everything you need, everything you dream of that not doing feels like an awful crime.

Sometimes it’s faced with a lot of criticism.

A lot of doubt, a lot of white noise, a lot of naysayers and judgment. People don’t always understand change and they call people who are unsatisfied with their lives ‘ungrateful.’ But they don’t always understand that change is hard but it’s also necessary because some people can’t conform, some people want to do what brings magic to their hearts and their lives and some people can only live when they take the road less traveled, when they stop following the crowd and start heading in another direction.

Sometimes it’s easier said than done.

Sometimes it’s insane, it’s impractical, it’s foolish — but you can’t quiet that voice that tells you you should do it, your heart breaks every time you think of not doing it, your mind won’t shut up every night visualizing what could be, envisaging the better life you could be living and the fantastic opportunities that await you once you take that leap of faith.

In Physics, opposites attract and likes repel. Two positively charged objects will repel and two negatively charged objects will also repel. The repulsive force pushes the two objects apart, so for the equation to work you must couple the positive with the negative. Similarly, in life, positive changes often feel like negative changes in the beginning but the truth is that’s the formula that works and that’s the formula that yields the best results.

Rania Naim is a poet and author of the new book All The Words I Should Have Said, available here.