When you no longer fit where you came from and you are not quite ready for where you are going, you are in the in-between. The strange thing about the in-between is that it can be painful, awkward and full of worry or it can be a place of anticipation, excitement and fear. One thing you know for certain, is that things have changed, with or without your consent. Your choices are few; roll with it and move forward or fight it and go back. No decision is not an option, simply because, no decision – IS, a decision.
So what action will you take? Go back if you fear change, but know that “back” won’t be the same because you are not the same. Once you realize that there is more to life then what you knew before the in-between, you realize that you can’t un-know. Case and point, if you ever learn about a friend’s deception, you can’t un-know it. You can however make a choice to go back to the friendship in spite of the deception or forward without the friend, into the new normal that is yet to be discovered in the U-1 formula for life. Either way, backwards doesn’t feel the same (because you know) and forward is unclear.
Using a more positive example, what about your first vacation or the first time you went somewhere and saw something beautiful, decadent or opulent. I grew up in poverty but was blessed, early in life to have been exposed to wealth during a summer vacation that was gifted to my family. It was a life changing- mind altering experience. Not because of the grandeur, not because of the fancy people and the big houses. It was because I learned that something existed beyond the world as I knew it. I had witnessed and experienced another way to live life. Going back to my housing project and to life as usual was no longer possible because I could never un-know what I now knew.
Make no mistake, I went back to my home but I went back, going forward. My mind was different and I aspired towards a different way of life. My thoughts were different, my goals were different, my perspective was changed. I wasn’t ready for the world that I would eventually come to know but I no longer fit where I’d come from either. I was in the in-between. I didn’t fit with my old friends and wasn’t ready for the new ones that I would ultimately make.
It was here, in the in-between that I learned the value of preparation, patience and persistence-the 3P’s. If you ever find yourself in the in-between, apply the 3P’s by 1) envisioning what the future holds and engaging in preparation to get ready for what’s coming to make it the very best life you can. Secondly, be patient, even if things take a while, your discomfort with the past is God and the universe telling you that you have a different future, so embrace this knowledge and patiently prepare. Lastly, 3) persist through the obstacles, insecurities, haters and whatever or whoever else comes to tell you that you can’t do it, shouldn’t do it, won’t do it. It’s your in-between, not theirs and because it’s yours you are the expert. As a matter of fact, you are the expert on all matters pertaining to your life. Nobody knows you, like you, even when you are behaving as if you don’t. Trust your gut, do the work and feel good about the fact that your in-between will one day, turn into your destination and the discomfort that pushed you out of your past-was the divine intervention needed to launch you into your destiny, one between at a time.