How wondering it would be to enter into the last moments of your life and know, really know, that you always kept your line in the water…

There’s something different about today. I felt it the moment I woke up. When I went to the gym, and sat down on my quads and looked to connect with the room, I didn’t feel the same. Orange did not come out and crash throughout the room like it usually does. Purple did not make a rare showing by covering the ground and diving deeper than the floor. No…it was yellow…and it was seeping from me, slowly, steadily, and with intention.

Yellow.

Yellow…

There’s never been yellow before.

The day goes on.

Don’t play it safe. Take chances. Love your heart out. Don’t fall into the trap of “well what if this happens later…” Most of the time, it doesn’t happen. Don’t be afraid of missing out, the greatest show of your life is going on right now. Let the people who left go and if they come back…great – but you may be different. Your life may be different…and that’s totally fine. Don’t worry so much about the bad things that might happen, instead, think of all the amazing adventures you could have. What if you finally making that decision to really go for it changed everything. What if it all clicked? What if you fell deeply, madly, passionately in love with yourself, another, and the life you’re living…just because you decided to stop playing it safe? Wouldn’t that be amazing? I think so. 

For me, having my “line in the water” is much more about simply throwing the bait in there hoping to catch something. When I’m fishing, there’s nothing else around me. There’s me, the line, the rod, and the flows of the river. I’m in the zone…in fact, so in the zone that I can feel when a fish is about to strike. There’s this feeling in your hands that you can’t describe. It’s this perfect harmony between anticipation and readiness for what is to come. You aren’t completely certain in a logical way that a fish is going to strike…but then again, you are certain.

Today though brought something out in me that I haven’t experienced before. This may sound weird to you, but I came to a place to day of having a sense of urgency around an idea and situation where I went “I can’t let this opportunity pass by because I just can’t. I need to see this through with all the certainty in the world.” Truth is, for the longest of times I had been constantly seeking and grasping and trying to bring things into my life instead of taking another way. The moment I found my purpose was the moment that all these things started to click for me and helped me relax into what is going on right now. I didn’t have to go into the future because I realized I could be all of those things I ever wanted for myself right now. When that happened, I began to attract different things into my life and everything changed. Changed in the sense that things that had been covered up for years and years uncovered themselves. Now, I’m at a place where I see what I have right now and know that it’s time to take another leap. Another risk. Although it may seem like a risk, in all honesty, it’s living in that land of uncertain certainty.

My gut is telling me yes.

My instincts are urging me to move ahead.

I don’t know what it was about today, but all those butterflies that were zipping around in me started to fly in formation. They came together in what seemed like a 30 minute time span all right at the end of the day.

It’s been a while for me to be able to say that I needed to head forward in a specific direction on such instinct in some time. I’ve had examples in the past that felt somewhat like today, but not entirely. Not completely. Not like today. Something in me today released and it really felt like it was gone. I can’t put a name to it specifically, but I knew it left. Funny thing is, whatever disappeared or exited made room for something else…certainty in such an uncertain world.

So here’s to risk.

Here’s to living life with my life in the water.

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project