Starting all over again can be hard. Often, we are faced with a situation where we have to start again, the decision’s been already made. We may not even have a say in the decision to start over again. Be it ending a relationship, shutting down your business, or quitting a job. When we have to start all over again, the decision to do so is seldom in our hands.
Not just that, it is often imposed on us rather suddenly. You may have seen it coming, but still. It reaches that finality that you did not expect abruptly. We are usually in for a rude awakening.
This thing we’ve been looking at starting all over again is also likely something we are attached to or have at least spent a considerable amount of time doing. Be it time, money, energy, goodwill, or any other resource, we’ve likely invested a lot into it.
When we are looking at the prospect of a fresh start, we are often in denial. We just don’t want to face it. How can we even comprehend the idea that starting over is a good thing when we’ve not even accepted that it is over?
Accepting that things have changed drastically for you is the first step in the process. Once you have confronted the reality of failing, you will be able to see many advantages of starting again.
The Mandala
Before we dive into the advantages of starting again, we’d like to take a moment to talk about mandalas, specifically how Tibetan/Buddhists do. A mandala is an intricate circular design that is created by Buddhist monks as a form of meditation. Monks create these patterns using colored power and many times create beautiful stories from the illustrations that they make with grains of colored sand. This process takes days to complete. Many monks give up food and sleep to create these patterns. Needless to say, it is an arduous process.
When they finish creating the mandala, the monks who created it in the first place gather together and destroy it. They undo what they spend days creating, with love and care. There is an important lesson in this process. That everything is transitory. Nothing is constant except change. Accepting change is probably the most important skill that we as humans can learn.
And after they destroy the mandala? What then? They begin again. Just like we must as well. Here are a few more reasons why starting all over again is a good thing.
It provides a bird's eye view of the problem.
When we have to start all over again, we can distance ourselves from the one thing that was taking up a lot of attention and effort from us. We are forced to look at it from a different perspective. Instead of zooming in, we are zooming out and taking a birds’ eye view of the problem. Taking a bird’s eye view becomes especially important when we’ve been at it for years.
Learning more about the world and about each other is a noble cause. Here are some suggestions to get started on broadening your perspective.
lifeism.coOpens up other avenues.
If we’ve been working on something for a while, we seldom have the opportunity to change the course of that project. For instance, if your startup is focused on selling product X, then product Y was something you could never do. But if your circumstances require you to start all over again, suddenly, product Y also becomes a viable product in your consideration set.
When you have to start all over again, you can change the outcome. You can even change the rules of the game, or the game itself.
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