Sometimes, in order to live your best life, you have to make the most terrifying choices.

I am living what feels like a second chance at life. And I don't mean in the sense that I'm finding a new path after comitting some sort of heinous crime. I'm going to cut this long story short because this isn't meant to be a sob story: Growing up, I received a lot of treatment that caused me to develop a lot of self-hatred, self-doubt, and social anxiety. One day, something snapped in me, and, before I knew it, I didn't take a step outside my parents' home in nearly 5 years. By the end of those 5 years, I had a second "snap" moment:

Good lord, what the actual hell am I doing with my life...

Luckily, during my hermitude, I self-taught myself Japanese and decided, on a whim, to fly to Japan and try starting my life again from zero, in a country that isn't related at all with my past. I just wanted to leave everything behind. Fast-forward to today... I'm living my best life. I'm not going to give the juicy details, because I don't want people to think that I'm trying to show off. All I'm trying to say is that, sometimes, you just have to listen to your gut and take a risk. Of course, have a fallback, just in case things go awry. Mine was to just simply go back to my parents' place and maybe live another 5 years in solitude 😂

Jokes aside, while I do think that listening to your gut is important sometimes, the core takeaway I got from my experience, looking back, is that, when you feel stuck, the best way to get yourself out is by shocking your system in some way. It doesn't have to be as drastic as starting another life in a country and culture that are foreign to you. It can be something as small as changing up your daily routine.

Just introduce a little bit of controlled chaos and see what happens.