The Weight of What Comes Next
I'm sitting at Johannesburg airport with two weeks of safaris ahead of me, and all the feelings I've been writing about are right here. The weight of the geography of missing, the complexity of loving something while knowing its cost. This isn't affecting how I'll perform or the value I will add – I'm still grateful for the opportunity, still genuinely excited about what lies ahead, still committed to making these weeks meaningful for everyone involved. There's nothing wrong with admitting something is hard to carry even though it's beautiful. These feelings don't diminish the privilege or the joy. But there's something else this morning. Something sharper.
I've been talking to a lot of clients lately who are standing at the edge of something. Divorce papers that need signing. Job offers that require an answer. Conversations that have been postponed for months. The geography of missing has made them realize something needs to shift, but the fear of what comes next keeps them frozen.
There's this moment – you probably know it – when you realize your current reality isn't sustainable but the alternative feels terrifying. So you stay suspended between what you can't continue and what you can't imagine.
We create elaborate disaster scenarios in our minds. We imagine all the ways it could go wrong, all the people we might disappoint, all the versions of failure we can't live with. The mind becomes a factory of worst-case outcomes, churning out fears faster than we can process them.
What if I'm making a mistake? What if I regret this? What if the unknown is worse than what I already know? What if I disappoint everyone who believed in me? What if I disappoint myself?
The questions multiply like shadows at sunset, each one darker than the last.
The anticipation becomes a kind of torture. The sleepless nights before the difficult conversation. The months of agonizing over whether to leave. The endless rehearsing of scenarios that will probably never happen.
Meanwhile, the actual change – when it finally comes – is usually nothing like what we imagined. Not easier, not harder. Just different. More ordinary than our fears suggested. More manageable than our anxiety predicted.
The anticipation is where we suffer. In the space between decision and action. In the gap between knowing what needs to happen and making it happen.
We stay trapped in the liminal space, neither fully committed to staying nor brave enough to leave. We exhaust ourselves with the weight of unmade choices, with the burden of carrying possibilities that may never materialize.
The fear tells us that uncertainty is dangerous. That not knowing what comes next is worse than knowing you're slowly dying where you are. But uncertainty isn't the enemy. False certainty is.
We choose familiar misery over unfamiliar possibility because we think we know what we're getting. But staying where you are isn't actually certain either. It just feels safer because you know what kind of pain to expect.
The people I've been talking to all say the same thing: "I know I need to change, but what if it doesn't work out?" As if staying put guarantees that things will work out. As if the status quo is somehow risk-free.
Your current reality is your current reality. If you change nothing, this is what it stays. But from this point forward, things could change if you made a choice. The only certainty is that avoiding the choice doesn't make it go away. It just makes it heavier.
The fear of change whispers that you're not ready, that you need more information, more time, more certainty about the outcome. But readiness is a myth. Information is never complete. Time doesn't make hard choices easier – it just makes them more urgent.
Sometimes I watch clients torture themselves with the decision to change when the real torture is in the not changing. In the slow erosion of spirit that comes from staying somewhere your soul has already left.
The anticipation is where we do the damage. In the space between decision and action. In the gap between knowing what needs to happen and making it happen.
What if we trusted ourselves enough to try? What if we believed we could handle whatever comes next, even if it's not what we planned? What if we stopped trying to control the outcome and started focusing on making the choice? What if we remembered that we can hold both – the uncertainty about tomorrow and the gratitude for today?
The anticipation will always be harder than the reality. The imagination will always be more dramatic than the experience. The fear will always be louder than the truth.
This morning over coffee, preparing for what's ahead, certain feelings surfaced. The kind that make you question everything while questioning nothing. Maybe you know these feelings too – when your body is here but your mind is somewhere between what was and what might be. When you can't quite appreciate what's in front of you because you're too busy calculating what comes after. It's normal. It's human. And it doesn't make the good things ahead any less good.
Standing at the edge of something means you're already falling. The question isn't whether to jump. The question is whether to fall with grace or spend your energy fighting gravity.
The weight of what comes next is always lighter than the weight of what never comes at all.
Your current reality is your current reality. But it doesn't have to be your only reality.
The choice is yours. It always has been.