It's a Winnie the Pooh one and it shows him walking through the woods, hands behind his back. His friend Piglet is by his side, pleasantly gazing at him, and the excited Tigger is bouncing along up ahead.
At the top, there's a quote which reads, "You can't stay in your corner of the forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes."
That quote has never been more relevant to my life than now.
I'm on the brink of change.
A chapter is ending and a new chapter is beginning. How it will all unfold, I have no idea. All I can do is keep putting one foot in front of the other, with the faith that the ground will continue to support me. If it doesn't, well, then my time to meet the maker has come.
As someone told me recently, 'We spend more time dead, than we do alive.'
The change I'm going through is taking me to Taiwan, where I'll be reunited with my girlfriend and learning Mandarin at a university in Taipei.
I remember back towards the end of last year, I was trudging through the city of Leeds, when someone gave me a flyer. Normally, I refuse to accept one but this time I gladly took it and looked at it. And I'm so glad I did because the words printed on it had a profound affect on me.
They simply said:
MAKE BOLDER DECISIONS
The feeling I had when I read those words will forever be with me. It was like they were speaking directly to me from another place. They were the words that I needed to see/hear at exactly that moment in my life.
Has that ever happened to you? You'll know it if it has. It's like God/Life is speaking to you directly. It's giving you a key to the next stage in your development. Little clear signposts telling you where to go and what to do next.
I'm 31 and I've never had a desire to leave my hometown. I never dreamt of moving to a foreign country; I never had a reason to.
But leaving my girlfriend at the airport in January was too much.
I had to follow her.
You know the scene in Donnie Darko when he suddenly sees the manifestation of intent coming out of his stomach, then it turns into a hand and motions for him to follow it? Remember? Well that was what it felt like for me. I felt like there was a massive hand above my girlfriend, motioning for me to go to Taiwan.
She said on a number of occasions, "I feel like I've come to take you home."
So here I am, four days until I fly with a one-way ticket.
I've been going through the process of saying goodbye to as many friends and family members as I can. Some have been teary - some haven't. I've said goodbye to my work colleagues who I've worked with for the past decade. I was surprised that I felt sad to leave them (they're a mental bunch of lads... but I wouldn't swap any of them).
I don't know how long I'm going to be in Taiwan for. It could be 3 weeks, 3 months, 3 years, 30 years. I honestly don't know.
But I'm going to run with it and see where it takes me.
Feelings of anxiety and the occasional flutter of nerves come to the surface when I think of what I'm doing.
I've been told it's normal.
I'm sure it is.
I'm stretching my comfort zone that's very much like an elastic band... the more you stretch it, the stronger it gets... the trick is to do it gradually so it doesn't snap.
We've all heard of those celebrities who get famous way too soon... they go crazy. Their comfort zone was pushed to the limits before they had time to adjust. It's like pulling a muscle... you've got to warm it up first to prevent such a thing from happening.
This morning, I had breakfast with a good mate of mine, the illustrator, Peter O'toole. He said, "Risk versus reward. The higher the risk, the higher the potential reward. Every time I've done something that's out of my comfort zone, something good has come out of it."
People have said I'm courageous for moving to Taiwan, but, really, what have I go to lose compared to what I've got to gain?
This opportunity has presented itself to me on my path.
I must have put it there for a reason.
And what better reason, than to stretch my comfort zone and grow.
I'm going to live at my own risk.
www.gavinwhyte.co.uk
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