“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” (Neale Donald Walsch)
Back in the late ’90s, when the internet was still newfangled and intriguing, the forerunner to Facebook was Classmates.com, an interactive platform that allowed us to connect with familiar faces from our secondary school years in an uncomplicated and rudimentary way. Classmates was relevant in its popularity because it brought nostalgia and curiosity together—the perfect combination to chase away the ennui that can accompany the routine of adulthood.
More than that, it had an element of fun. Classmates.com would tease us with its offer of a free sign-up, only to put the next level of messaging behind a paywall, hidden by a tantalizingly blurred background. Who was the person who had clicked on your profile and decided to send a message? The captain of the football team, whose perfectly lopsided nose and long tendrils of curls falling over one eye had the female underclass swooning with a breathless, “He looked in my direction!”? Or the nerd from biology class whom you hadn’t thought about in twenty years? For a modest $2.95 per month premium membership, you could find out.
Then, in 2004, the bully of the interweb, the behemoth of social connection, Facebook, came on the scene. Classmates hung in and white-knuckled it, clinging to their diminished stake in the Ghosts of Cohorts Past sector, while being relegated to enervated class reunion announcements, in memoriam tributes, and archived yearbooks for sale. They got the memo, but they filed it away.
How often do we do that with our own lives? Remain at a job we’ve outgrown, settle for an unsatisfactory relationship that has passed its expiration date, or stay logistically anchored to a particular geographical location simply because it’s rooted and known, while another area of the map is quietly calling to you?
When I was first diagnosed with cancer almost seven years ago, I felt a natural apprehension and fear, but not strictly pertaining to survival. I have a sizable faith that has pulled me through the difficulties entwined in the subsequent years, a mystical grace that has portioned the ease, and a knowing that God wasn’t through with me — yet. But I did feel an overwhelming regret for squandered time.
In one of my many inner dialogues, I cautioned myself not to become one of those people, the Cancer Cliché-cum-Yoda types who think a diagnosis comes with a certificate of supernova awareness. Still, the awareness of time and its incomparable value is not lost on me. Time is the only commodity that can never be replenished, and being stuck to our original blueprint for our life when it is no longer fruitful will mean that any pain that accompanies the familiar may outweigh the potential pleasure of the unknown.
Maybe the trick is recognizing when we’ve become our own Classmates.com — holding onto our ways that once made perfect sense, long after they’ve stopped serving us. There’s no guarantee that changing course will bring us what we hope for, but staying put guarantees only that we’ll keep living the life we already know. Sometimes you have to close the yearbook, take the risk, and, if something new is whispering your name, have the nerve to become a Facebook.
