I wonder if we are held back by evolution? For millions of years our monkey brains evolved for safety and security. Stay in the cave at night, stay with the community in the day, hunt as a group… we have been conditioned to play it safe because survival depended upon it.
Now we have ideas, and want to venture on our own. We want to leave a secure job and try something new. We have a goal that requires us to take the metaphorical ‘road less travelled’… and rather than feel excited, we feel scared. Hesitant. Timid.
It’s our evolutionary instinct to stay with the safe choice, but the safety we seek is not the safety our ancestors needed. For them it was a matter of survival, of life and death. For us, it’s risk of comfort. This is fundamentally different, but our monkey brains don’t understand it that way. No, instead we perceive it as scary. We create excuses rather than excitement. Hesitation replaces hustle and headway.
This isn’t cowardice, it’s not vacillation, it’s an evolutionary defence mechanism intended to protect us. The unknown is no longer an existential threat, but millions of years of evolution have made the unknown of the past a force to be reckoned with today… even though the threat is so much lower.
This doesn’t just play out in our own minds but the minds of our community as well. So rather than people being excited about seeing you on a new path, they question it.
“That’s a big move, are you sure you are ready?”
“Are you really going to give up that salary for something so risky?”
“Good for you, but I could never do that!”
No ill intent, just an overreaction to evolutionary fear embedded in their brains, just like it’s embedded in ours.
So, take the leap, go out on your own and try something new. There isn’t a sabre toothed tiger waiting for you around the next bend.
