Sunday, September 25, 2011
When I started telling people that I was moving to Los Angeles, they would often remark about how difficult that must be. I started replying, “If I had known how difficult it was going to end up being, I probably wouldn’t have decided to do it.” That was mostly true. I just kind of decided and stuck with it even though it was harder than I anticipated.
Uprooting yourself is hard. Starting over in a new place is hard. There is definitely a hump you have to get over. Now that I’ve been here for awhile, I’ve gotten to the other side of the hump and can see that it’s pretty good on this side, I just needed to be willing to go up and over the hump.
How many times have I wanted something but turned around when I saw the hump?
Today, I decided I would illustrate that with, well, an illustration.
Often, we will get an idea of something we really want, and really like. For instance, joining a traveling carnival. 
So, we research what it is going to take to get there, and plot out a course.
Excitedly, we get together everything we need, and we start going.
It’s a long walk, but it’s worth it.
Uh-oh. Even though it is something we really want, there is a hump we have to get over to get there. It’s really upsetting. 
It’s worrying. There is this great goal on the other side, but that hump seems insurmountable, it seems daunting.
We start to imagine that it’s even worse than it actually is. We may even imagine that there is a polar bear with a pistol on top of the hump.
It all seems too big. We lose sight that the hump is temporary. So, we turn around and we go home. We give up.
But, we always think about how much we still like the goal. We still want to be a part of the carnival. The hump was just too big and scary to get past.
But, it doesn’t have to be that way. This is what I’ve learned, if you can just buckle down and get past the hump, you’ll realize that it’s not so bad. Yes, the hump is daunting, and yes, it is scary, but it’s not insurmountable. It’s just not. The hump is temporary.
The times that we take on the hump, we’re happy when we arrive.
We even look back fondly on the hump. What was once so daunting, is now a happy memory. The hump became the best part of the story. You won. Don’t let the hump stop you.
