In the Gap

Looking down at your feet, you noticing the gaping maw of a cavernous expanse. Your hands tingle, your palms pool with sweat, your knees might no longer support your full weight.

And yet…you see the other side so clearly. A place that is lush with the greenest of green pastures, sunny skies, tranquil streams. Compared to the dusty rock beneath you, it’s paradise.

And yet, you hesitate.

We all know what the hesitation is for. You, me, all of us would hesitate at this scary brink. But…the very path we need to take, the one that will get us where we need to go…that path is just beyond the safety of the edge.

There are many paths all around you, but for some reason, this one is the scariest path of all. You see safer, more scenic routes that might let you visualize paradise from afar, but they don’t really get you there.

Because in order to get there, you have to step out, into the abyss. You have to place a pinky toe over the threshold between the known and the unknown. In order to go after what you know in your heart that you must pursue, you have to move into an unfamiliar place.

This uncomfortable place is the gap.

And, maybe I’m being a touch dramatic, but, I’d wager that for most of us, there is some gap we haven’t yet crossed. Some vision we haven’t yet pursued.

Why?

Usually, its fear. Fear of the unknown.

One of my favorite quotes about this gap, is from host and co-creator of This American Life, Ira Glass. (You can read it here, or check out a creative video format of it here.)

To paraphrase, Ira says that artists have good taste…but they can’t quite make work that aligns perfectly with that innate sense of style. As a result, they end up doing volumes and volumes of work until one day, there is no longer a gap between their taste and their ability.

While Ira specifically speaks to the act of creating art, I think the idea of a gap between vision and ability is applicable to many areas of life.

Foe example, I think there is a parallel for those of us in the FI community. Once we realize that we could reach a certain level of financial freedom sooner rather than later, we had to make a choice: Would we take a road less traveled?

Could we make changes that would seem odd to our friends and family? Would be willing to make mistakes along the way? Would we be able to make it across the gap and realize the vision of FI?

If you listen to a dozen or so different stories about people on their journey to become FI, you might note that no two of them are quite the same. While the goal is arguably similar, the paths are not. People have found a lot of ways to bridge the divide between where they are, and where they want to go.

Your taste, or your vision for your life is an intuition, an intrinsic piece of you that is showing the way. That is the vision of who you will become, who you must become, to be capable of climbing up to the other side of the gap.

Going back to the FI analogy, unless someone decides to become the type of person who spends less than they earn, who learns about investing, and who figures out how to negotiate for a raise, they might not ever make it across the gap to financial independence. Until they decide to do the sometimes socially uncomfortable work of downsizing or deciding not to eat out, they haven’t yet begun the process of transformation into the type of person who becomes FI.

The transformative process happens in the gap.

If I’m not frolicking in the green pastures beyond said gap, it’s likely because I haven’t done enough work to change.

That’s why the gap is there. To allow you to become someone totally different than you are at the start. Even though there are no guarantees of reaching the other side, if you strike out into the unknown, you won’t be able to stop the process of transformation. You will become someone different than you were before. If you don’t, it might be because you climbed back to the safety of the known.

As I type this very post, I feel like I am wandering in the desert of several simultaneous gaps.

Sure, I have traversed the FI gap. But what I noticed on the other side, is a whole host of other gaps, equally as wide, equally as challenging. You may have noticed that I am knee deep in the writing gap.  Bless you for reading. I am also in the Latin dance gap, the finding a community gap, and very convoluted visual arts gap.

It is tempting to think that contentment, happiness even, can only be experienced on the other side of the gap. But, as far as I can see, the process of being in the trenches, the challenge of transformation, is oddly satisfying. The opportunity to become the type of person who can reach the other side is a juicy enough reason to roll up my sleeves every day.

As far as I can tell, there will always be these spaces, these gaps. We can take the scenic route and daydream about what it’s like on the other side. We can stay where we are, in the “safety” of the known. Or, we can become the hero of our own journey, step out into the unknown, and grow into the sort of person who finds their way across the gap.