One of my biggest fears in life is not getting stuck in a rut, but failing to get out of it. I believe that everyone feels stuck from time to time, whether its in a never ending circle of a bad relationship, a boring job, habits that have become redundant, or a certain thought pattern that no longer serves us.
Recently I have been too pre-occupied with thinking about how my life is supposed to be, instead of looking for possibilities for change and transforming these possibilities into actions. This caused me to lose my sense of direction; any goals or intentions that had I set, suddenly became meaningless and therefore no longer something to direct my productivity to. In short, I started to do nothing with my spare time.
Being paralysed by pondering unrealistic expectations of wanting to be someone else was reinforced by a constant chatter of voices telling me who I am supposed be. But it wasn’t their fault for telling me, it was my own for wasting my time on listening to them.
As Bennett stated, ‘the great advantage of being in a rut is that when one is in a rut, one knows exactly where one is.’ (Arnold Bennett) So while I felt a sense of lacking direction, of lacking a sense of where to go, I had a clear sense of where I was, a clear vantage point from which to navigate… and a desire to navigate the hell out of there.
Is there purpose to being stuck in a rut? To me there appears to be – feeling stuck allows me to re-evaluate my place in the world, and offers me the opportunity to attempt to step outside of the confines of my own limitations, that have caused me to run in circles in the first place.
*Photo taken with mijia mi sphere 360 camera; edited with IOS RollWorld and snapseed apps.
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