The leap - is it worth going away from your comfort zone

Rodin - The thinker 

There once was a man who never took the leap.He almost did though once when the perfect opportunity appeared. 

He was old enough to know what really interested him. He had a little bit of money saved up. His friends were encouraging, wanting to watch him. "You should! You should take the leap!". But .... there was just one problem. He wasn't quite sure. 

The leap didn't promise him any money or benefits, unlike his job which gave him a steady paycheck every month. And the leap would made some people in his life uncomfortable. What if he failed? What would others think? 

For weeks, he went back and forth, back and forth: leap, or don't leap - leap, or don't leap.

One day, he decided he was going to come up with an answer, once and for all. He pulled out a blank notebook, and on the left-hand side he wrote, "The life I'm living," and on the right-hand side he wrote, "The life I want to live." And he filled both pages! 

On the left-hand side he wrote down the comforts of his job. He enjoyed what he was doing, for the most part. He liked the people he was doing it with. He was financially stable. He didn't have too much to lose. He saw his life moving in a pretty good direction, and all of that made him feel safe and secure.

But on the right-hand side, dreams overflowed! He wanted to take the leap! He wanted to know what it felt like to be his own boss, and to have total freedom over how he spent each and every day. He wanted to try things without having to ask for permission. He wanted to travel, and he wanted to collaborate with new types of people, and he wanted to see if some of these projects he had been working on could really become something meaningful. He wanted to invest all of his time and energy into making this dream come true. 

When he finally finished writing, he put his pen down and looked at the two sheets of paper.The left promised safety and it was known. He could see the day to day, more clearly than ever.

The right, however, promised the most amazing life at a risk. It promised nothing. It was entirely unknown. And it was almost impossible to see what that day to day would truly be like, unless he made the leap. 

We need to decide which side of the notebook we're going to live by. The truth is that in our choices we are always lonely and we take the risk. 
Are you going to stay to the left? Or are you going to go right and take the leap? 

Many years from now, what will you think of today?

Will you have wished you had taken the leap ?

Nobody knows.

P.S. I found this story some time ago. I like to read it and watch my feelings when I'm thinking about my notes on the left and right side of the blank page.