Hi friend,

Have you ever studied abroad?

During my senior year of college, my girlfriend and I got the chance to study in Europe for a month with a program through our school. We traveled to Prague, London, and seven cities in Germany. While we had school-related activities during the day, we were typically free to explore at night.

One evening, while we were in Berlin, our classmates decided they wanted to go check out this club they heard about. While my girlfriend and I aren’t necessarily the nightclub type, we were told it was only going to be a few subway stops away, so we decided to give it a try. “A few subway stops away” ended up meaning seven. We got off at the second-to-last subway stop on the transit line. And, as soon as we got off the subway, we both started getting a weird feeling.

As our classmates started leading the way to this club, my girlfriend and I kept towards the back and just started sensing, ‘Maybe this isn’t the best situation for us to be in.’ Even though we had come a long way, we knew we probably wouldn’t experience peace of mind until we were out of that space, so, while our classmates went on, we decided to head back to the hotel.

We ended up having a really life-giving night as we caught up on journaling and laughed our way through the rest of the evening. As folks began trickling back from the club, we started hearing accounts of the venue that ensured us we had made the right decision for us.

Are you feeling stuck?

Maybe you’ve been believing a lie about yourself for so long that you feel imprisoned in it, or maybe you’ve developed a negative behavior pattern that’s been going on for a while  —  so long you can’t even remember life without it.

I have good news for you:

You don’t have to keep going along for the ride.

You can get off at any point, and turn around.

I don’t believe we were made for lives of bondage; I believe we’ve been made to experience freedom. And definitely there are external factors that keep us from fully experiencing that freedom; however, we can often be our own greatest barriers in experiencing true freedom.

It’s okay to scrap the story you’ve written and start a new one. Similarly to how my girlfriend and I felt about our subway ride, you may mourn the time and energy you put into your old story. But, you’ll find deep joy in being able to write the story you actually want to write.

Life is too short to stay stuck.

Go after love like your life depends on it — because it does.

With love,