Where’s the tipping point? You’ve climbed all the way up to the cliff top, left your t-shirt, towel and flip-flops at the bottom. This cliff face has laughed at you for weeks, hell, for years as you’ve passed on by. There have been other kids you’ve seen getting their run-up and launching themselves, that 2 seconds of free-fall before they splashdown.

The silence and bubbles before their head pops up and everyone cheers.

They did it. They jumped. There was a definitive outcome. Analyse – Decide – Climb – Jump. One of their friends, the over-analyser, he didn’t jump;

• What about the water pressure up my nostrils?
• If I land funny won’t I hurt my back?
• I can’t see the bottom, what if I jag a reef?
• What if I slip on my run and fall all of the way down?

Immediate (read: temporary) relief as he backs down from the cliff edge and doesn’t jump. Satisfied in the analysis and the safe decision.

Next time, and for every other time after that he’ll wonder. He’ll probably die wondering. Partly satisfied at those fools that jumped and live to tell the tale, but always wondering about the what if?

There has to be a tipping point for decision or indecision, a decision is black and white, there is no grey area. The anxiety from the tipping point decision lives in the grey area. Indecision isn’t deciding not to, it’s delaying the yes or no and prolonging the anxiety. Make a decision.

“Don’t complain, don’t explain.” – Henry Ford

If we spend too long in limbo (read: work, relationship, lifestyle, location, addiction) complaining about the problem we eventually congeal with the problem. There’s a blurred line between comfortable, complacent and defeated

Cynicism, anxiety, the grey area, analysis paralysis and limbo all play poker together on a Tuesday night, chomping cigars. Choose your circle of influence with caution, cynicism attacks the effect of the problem and is a monster that feeds on itself, it’s the easy way out.

Are you in Limbo? Attack the problem, not the effect. Analyse – Decide – Climb – Jump.

Tagged as: 9 - 5, free world, Freedom, lost opportunity, minimalism