Raise it from the ashes

In the last few months, a lot of scary things have happened. Finances have been tight; business has been slow. Our car died a quiet death on the highway, leaving us without any vehicle or emergency funds with which to obtain one. Amazing friends gave us a loaner for a few months, but we need a car; we’re on a deadline. This happened not long after we decided to make a plan of action for some Big Things—things that would require a lot of courage and dedication, and we are still moving on them. We are still planning to do them, despite everything else. I would venture to say they must be done. They will require great feats of impressiveness from both of us, and I won’t lie—the prospect of really going through with them is a bit scary, especially under these circumstances.

In the meantime, looking for a car had gotten to be very difficult and demoralizing. Most car dealerships are crap. Sometimes they are also crazy, pushy, or mean (and in one case, downright disturbing). The bank gave us some weird, unanticipated trouble with getting the car loan we wanted. Our resources have been pushed to their limits.

And then the apartment complex raised our rent.

Marty looks at all of this and has the distinct impression that the world is conspiring against us. I used to feel that way, too. I’m starting to see the world differently. All of these things going wrong, going crazy, I look at them and can’t help but think…

Wow. This is what happens in game when you’re close to the treasure.

Making decision after decision based on fearlessness, instead of familiarity and safety, can be draining. But I feel like this universe is buckling around us. I feel that if, instead of running away, I push harder… Maybe it will crumble. Maybe it will fall away and I will find myself smack in the middle of a new universe.

What can I raise from the ashes of the old one?

These are our opportunities to prove what kind of people we are, to know something about ourselves. Do we do the safe thing? The familiar thing? Or do we behave like a player character and be the hero in our own story?

So many people are content to be NPCs.

If we do the safe and familiar thing, we go nowhere. We read the same script over and over, go through the same motions. We accomplish nothing. There is no progress. If we’re not willing to do something different, we are just like everyone else.

It would be very easy—very normal, very unremarkable—to see all these bad, scary things as signs to back off. But all I can see, over and over, is that the monsters are all attacking at once.

They only do that when you’re close!

And I don’t want to be normal.

Steve Pavlina has said that if people are treating you like you’re crazy, you’re on the right path. You’re making the decisions other people are afraid to make. And I feel, just now, like the universe is treating us like we’re crazy. And I’m going, YEAH!! I’m CRAAAAZY!! And the universe is like, omg… weird… And I’m all, YEAH!! LOOK AT THE CRAZY GIRL!!

If my friends did that, I’d find new friends. If the universe is doing it, I need a new universe.

I think I’ll make one.