We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. The ol... — Joseph Campbell

We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come. -

Author: Joseph Campbell

Insight: There's a particular kind of courage that nobody talks about much: the willingness to grieve what you thought your life would look like. We spend years, sometimes decades, building a specific vision—the career path, the relationship timeline, the version of success we imagined. Then life offers something else entirely, and we're stuck choosing between the safety of our plan and the possibility of something we never saw coming. The tricky part is that this isn't about being spontaneous or throwing caution aside. It's about recognizing when you're holding onto a version of yourself that's already too small. A snake doesn't shed its skin because something better is guaranteed on the other side—it does it because staying in the old skin literally prevents growth. The discomfort of the transition isn't a sign you're doing something wrong; it's the exact mechanism that lets you become something more. What makes this hard in real life is that the new thing is always fuzzy at first. You have to let go of something concrete and clear for something you can barely articulate yet. The life waiting for you doesn't come with the same marketing materials as the one you planned. But that's exactly why it's worth considering: it's shaped by who you've actually become, not who you thought you should be.

Source: Myths to Live By, p. 7